It’s Getting Stronger

Alexis Almeida

The smell in the hallway
Ice on the pavement
My nose in pictures
Thick nails painted green, fruit
On the counter with shadows
That look like hawks
My fear of diving, gunpowder
Heights
The way I want to be loved
For my unsteadiness
As if it were perfection
My hatred of perfectionism
The all-night coughing, my body
Curing itself with violence
The insulation of the rich
The crumbling stature of castles
My knowledge you won’t
Arrive too early
The desire to touch the future
That you’ll be with me until
The end
Words like heavy rocks
Thrown onto platters
And handed to strangers,
The feeling it’s too late
To explain myself, I’m not going
To fall asleep tonight, pine leaves
Greenly defiant
The rain sound in the morning
Wet feet
Barely sober
The helplessness of the poem
In the face of beauty, criminality,
Poems like poppies
Barely floating on water
Hooked fish blue
Metallic sheen on fingers
Contracts in trees
The desire to speak
Of an instant flaring
Actual filament actual
Light