Pulling Weeds

          gives me elation when I get the entire devil by its root,
          unearth the trembles I kept buried deep
          whenever the leaves invigorate the seedlings meant to spread
          into the eyes of our neighbors
          I am just one shepherd gathering dead sheep
          piles of goat bones I found as a child and photographed
          because it looked witchy and beautiful to me, this circle of death
          that I wanted to preserve for a keepsake, the way I keep taking myself
          out of the picture by erasing my could be moments into should’ves and would’ves
          but I am still trying to learn the shape of a rainbow when the sky doesn’t want to bend
          and the quiet of a suburban backwoods when there is nothing left to crush beneath our feet
          I’ve grown tired of these memories but I can’t keep them from getting out of control
          everywhere
          spilling out onto the sidewalk and in between the cracks of our smiles, breaking
          ever so gently
          into that goodly sunset darkness
          a type of enveloping
          like a loving mother from a dream I’ve never had, kept open as a possibility
          wetting the detritus of the yardwork down in the bin
          to make if just a bit more room
          to let others in this deep
          heavy pit

Nikkin Rader has degrees in poetry, anthropology, philosophy, gender & sexuality studies, and more. Her works appear in Luna Luna Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Coalesce Zine, the sad bitch chronicles, Recenter Press, Occulum, Pussy Magic, and elsewhere.   TWITTER
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