surrender the flesh
Dara Goodale
Dara Goodale (they/she) is a Romanian American poet and uni student living in Switzerland. Dara writes about mental health, grief, and identity. Their poetry explores the body through the lens of gender identity and trauma and is greatly influenced by their experience living as someone who is openly queer and who has BD. Find them on Instagram at @daragoodale.
erotic mental foreplay
I hold my breath underwater
I fantasize if I don’t survive
who would grieve
as loud who would carry the weight
as indecently as I as shamelessly in public
sobbing bare-faced bare bones
on trains I’m still going nowhere
two years down the line
somebody tell me why
it’s always raining in
the dreams where nothing is rotting
and you’re still alive why
do I awaken to the smell of my
carcass decomposing
on the shore of my bed sun
bleaching my bones
(I’m so tired of dying alone)
I fear I loved the blade more
than the body I am addicted
to suffering I’m afraid
I’m only beautiful when I’m hungry
I have been known to sleep with
carrion birds I feel most comfortable when I’m
prey when they’re circling overhead
fighting over flesh
no lips but I smile
(teeth the whitest you’ve ever seen)
all this dead skin
I slither out of my mortal sheath
shedding meat
ribs exposed I am
pure being in the autumn heat
and I say “there’s plenty to go around
but swear to God
you’ll finish what you started” see
when I’m gone I need
to know I’ve been a part of something
like when I watched you choke on infinity
crave everything that made you feel bigger
than corpus
world devourer you wanted
oblivion
so tell me now that I’ve had a taste
now that I know appetite (now that I bite)
how can I hold this life
with my hands it burns
when I try I keep
waking up drowning my useless mouth
full of menthol smoke
and wordless goodbyes