"Fantastically Raw With Hatred" by April Michelle Bratten

I have freed a glorious shriek
from the box of my stomach
and set it loose as a bloody kick,
a flaring bomb with all of the explosions.

This is the knock of us,
the long de-nailing
of a wailing missile from its quick sleep.

I know the scraping beauty
inside of our anger,
and I have shattered it clean again,
to remove the stagnant heart of its silence,
tending to it with my careful smite
of rusted hammers.

I have missed this,
the creeping ache of a hot-plate fever,
a little piece of boiling scorn
held in my hand.

To place it in the sun once more,
to cook out all the sweet steaming madness,
to take it with a smile and slap it against my shine,

sets my skin fantastically raw with hatred.


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