Ode to relapse and recovery
.
When I peel an orange
my nails are cautious
blunted scythes seeking
topographies where skin
can cleave clean from flesh
I am careful not to cleave the flesh
When I am skinless and my fingers cease
to grow nails, with what
will I rend myself apart?
Or do you think that by then
I will finally have l/earned
self-restraint ?
.
Nailah Mathews is a Brooklyn-based nonbinary Black poet to whom books and Black lives matter, currently writing the next great anti-colonial fantasy epic of our time. Their poetry has been featured in Tilde~A Literary Journal, Lucky Jefferson, Passenger Journal, the Black Lesbian Literary Collective, and Outlook Springs among others. They are a 2022 Periplus Fellow and a 2023 Anaphora resident. They can be reached at nailahwritesnovels.com for inquiries.
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