After We Ruin My Love’s Heart,
the God of Annihilation Prays Back to Me
Kemi Alabi
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O brick fist,
storm’s eye, twitching
guardian of angels cast
as devil-to-be, tell me: how has
the ammonia cloud & rootshred of
your bed, blazing crash site, kept your
hands casket-still, ghost-
cool? praise
ye treeless planet,
my bleach & flame-
forged mirror:
twinning the dark, your faith
burnt silk
, my sweat-drenched slip,
the truest skin I know—
O scalpel-crowned
roach king, salivating
into the blister-white void—
that all breath & sweet mud heart earned
you? whole home devoured.
all-knuckle, unblooded
desire: malware mimicking
the body, now one burst seam.
O frothing ocean of
licked bone,
what does one call a god
with no worshippers? where’s the
thread between freedom & death
when you’re
the last one left?
Kemi Alabi reading “After We Ruin My Love’s Heart, the God of Annihilation Prays Back to Me”