red palms praying

So, we’re here on the shoreline of something great
& you said holiness was the same as forgetting, so
I tried them both.

Don’t believe me, but I’ve got the scars
on my back            & stains on my teeth
to prove it.

Magic tricks are happening everywhere I look
and one of them says you’re not dead when I
show them your corpse, so I pay twelve pennies
and take it.

The shopkeeper is a liar but that’s not the point.
The pennies aren’t pennies & the copper rusts the
top of my mouth but that’s not the part that matters.

Your fingertips are blue & I wish they were red
like your teeth / red like your mouth / red like the
shopkeeper when he tells me there’s something
still beating.

The shoreline isn’t holy, but I want to
tell you I touched something godlike,
and forgetting didn’t do the          trick.

The point is something great turned into something
dead & I don’t know how to turn it back. The point
is red shouldn’t equate holiness, but it still does.

By Mary Sims

Biography:

Mary is an 18-year-old aspiring poet and writer who has recently been published in Kingdoms of the Wild, Moonchild Magazine, Mooky Chick, and Anti-Heroin Chic. She is currently working towards earning her degree in English, and spends her days dreaming of writing beloved poetry and living in the mountains with her friends and family close by. Find Mary on Twitter @rhymesofblue