alyx chandler / poem

never loved anything more than I loved picking something apart

what I’m sayin’ is

I’m about to bust through skin

like a trapped follicle

between my thighs    

I’ve been taught to tidy

to un-bedazzle this body

to be a shrimper

salt-flecked and sizzling

long days long nights

ain’t nowhere to hide on a boat

with spawning bodies

beauty is sustenance in the South

and I pick

that eyelid apart

unravel it ravenously

little hands 

shredding giftwrap 

a chicken plucking

its own feathers

I make confetti

mop up my mess

when I pull the hair wad

from the shower drain

I don’t think

disgusting

I open my fist

in longing

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Alyx Chandler (she/her) is a poet from the South who received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she taught composition and poetry. She is a poet in residence at Chicago Poetry Center and facilitates workshops for incarcerated youth with Free Verse Writing Project. Her poetry can be found in the Southern Poetry Anthology, EPOCH, Greensboro Review, and elsewhere.