Poetry by Cassandra Bristow

Joe Lodge CC


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can you make me feel ugly in a good way?

baby baby baby. listen and hear me out. it’s no hard feelings baby. even if each time i shiver the city shivers with me just because i’m thinking about you again baby you again but really mostly your hair. baby i miss your hair but i don’t mind as long as i’m thinking you miss me too yeah you miss me and our summer together don’t you baby. don’t stop that. don’t stop seeing me as your freckled little slut yeah baby that’s right baby you can’t forget that i’m the bitch you begged for baby asked me to spit in your mouth baby and i wonder if you left me because my tongue was too dry. baby is that why you left if it is i’m sorry but what a stupid fucking reason to leave me baby to kill me like that on a wednesday but really every day baby you twist that knife everyday. i’m scratching at the scars now baby opening my own skin so it bleeds sacred baby and baby just one more question baby will you forgive me baby? baby will you forgive me for loving you wrong? 





lament.

sometimes i like to scratch the skin on my back
with scissors, feeling the blade bleed backwards
like i’m meant to live with an itch. or is that just
the way it is these days, everyone holding the 
shovel from a six feet under mentality while I’m
trying to point fingers any direction but toward
the mirror where i can see the heartache on my
face and suddenly this great big feeling sweeps
through me like an undertow and i’m craving 
someone who might force me to confess that 
i am still a child because i think if i just uttered
it right this very second in some dramatic outburst 
no one would let me see myself that way, as such 
a lost little thing for if they did it might mean they 
too wish to be someone other than themselves. 



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​Cassandra Bristow (she/her) is a Brooklyn, NY-based writer and artist. Her work can be found in online publications such as Quail Bell Magazine and Lithium Magazine. Cassandra also curates and distributes a self-published, DIY zine called Oral Rinse and curates a monthly artist expo in New York called Zinefest, which recently hosted a workshop on behalf of the Printed Matter x 8ball Zine Fair.