Poetry by V. S. Ramstack

               ​Marketa CC




slow drift

see the live action moments of your life and catalogue them accordingly. bloated
tongue swiping along a splintered rail, waiting for the underbite to right itself;
even the wisest wouldn’t dare tell us how it works

if we could see how to dream, how to revitalize the combination between: swans
landing on a pond and clouds collaborating – sink into a solid feeling the way taffy
is pulled apart and quietly regarded to be whole

there’s a rumor going around that the ocean can freeze over if given enough
privacy. some day we may test this theory. until then i will be eating cantaloupe in
​my backyard, marveling at the beauty of it all

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​
i asked you ____

to tie two knots at the back of my dress
i expected it to get dragged off in the water
your knuckles leaking pus from when you stuck 
them inside the oven in your parents’ kitchen
we were obsessed with unearthing how much
pain was required to tap out, to throw our hands
inside our lungs to hear the crying more clearly

when i was young i believed butterflies lived 
inside my lungs, flapping their wings to pump me 
full of air, love, kneading my ribcage with their antennae 
i don’t believe this anymore, but if it helps you 
understand why i sit alone under trees at night
then i will gladly let it speak for me
then i will gladly teach you to believe it, too

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​

V. S. Ramstack is a Pisces, a selective extrovert, and an avid crier. Besides poetry, she enjoys cats, flowers, and checking out too many books at the library. She received her MFA from Columbia College Chicago. Previous work can be found in Night Music Journal, Curator Magazine, Posit, and elsewhere. 

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