Poetry by Natalye Childress

     Drew Stefani CC



truth or consequences at rock bottom

after anthony thomas lombardi’s “defense testimony of an angel in free fall”

              “god have mercy on me and mend my broken wings.”
                           kahlil gibran

down here in this hole, i’m recounting my 
dreams in forbearances. if you ask, i’ll tell 
you the story of how i became an orphan: 
i orchestrated it myself. that was when 
i learned the lesson that you can end a life 
with a single finger, and people will always 
remember what you took from them. but 
i lost something too.

i alone have thought about judas, about how
and where he died. because i was both 
spoiled and given the rod. because penance 
is the opposite of absolution. because we accept 
the love we think we deserve. because i’ve 
stood on the edge of akeldama, field of 
blood, contemplating the sin of despair. 
because what does a life sentence 
matter when you already have four?

there’s beauty in giving up, but i haven’t yet 
succumbed. because hope and grief both 
have feathers, and i’m holding out for 
one of them to deliver me.

i don’t miss the satellites but i can’t forget the 
blue light scattering after matins, the empty weight 
on my tongue as i mouthed the words, glory be.

i worry less about how to avoid eternal damnation 
and more about how i’ll navigate a life with the birds. 
because i have to believe this isn’t forever. because
of the world to come. because mercy has a counterpart. 
because grace. grace.


Note: The line “we accept the love we think we deserve” comes from Stephen Chbosky’s 
The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

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crying in queen city

i’m careening along a one-lane road, heading 
toward a terminus, darkness descended.
i’m driving on 68 west, on 220 south, 
everything a haloed sheen, it feels like a fall.

i’m tracing the outline of the city forged by the
potomac. i’m passing a sign that reads: md
correctional facilities, 3 miles. and what is 
anguish becomes audible, if only to me.

i’m accelerating through the light pollution, my body
wracked with waves. i’m incapable of surfacing,
certain i will drown in the depths of this sorrow. 
i’m suffering, but my pain is not unique.

i’m turning, then idling, in the visitors parking lot,
​texting you from a few hundred yards away, 
only the barbed wire and a list of “i wish”es 
and a distance of forever between us.

i’m at a gas station, crying. i’m in a grocery store,
crying. i’m passing through bowling green, through
crespatown, through bel air
                                                          — and i’m crying.

later, on the phone in a third-story attic bedroom, 
the connection stable but my voice breaking. 
there isn’t a single street in this former rust belt 
glory town that hasn’t seen my sadness. and 
i’ll go on to cry throughout the panhandle, 
my sorrow something to be walked on.

i’m at the highest point, the allegheny front before me.
i’m searching for a glimpse of you, and for the briefest
of moments, i find it. but like everything here, it’s
temporary, this escarpment eroding and faulting.

now i’m falling prostrate, your memory chasing me
even as i race to put distance between us. i’m crying
my way across maryland, crying along the new jersey
turnpike, crying from 4,197 miles away, mourning you
and the emptiness you’ve carved out in me.


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Natalye Childress (she/her) is a California-born, Berlin-based editor, writer, and translator. She has an MA in creative writing, and her first book, The Aftermath of Forever, was published by Microcosm Publishing.
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