Poetry By Violet Mitchell

​Breathing

Succulent beside lighter, drained glass fallen
by untouched bibles and textbooks—the bell

bangs too loud for me. My box of metal
spoons bend better than I, whose eyes blink

and squeak and close. But the sun always saves
me. I walk on fake green and remember how

to smile the real way. Despite skin under my clothes
littered with fingerprints, I don’t always have to sag.  




Dream #29
Sometimes I dream we are skeletons
of copper pipe, tenuous and shiny. Our
brass kneecaps attached to greening leg-
branches tuck neatly into ill-fated nut-and
-bolt sockets. There’s always this building
we visit as metal citizens, we go up a hum-
ming stained glass elevator to the fifty-first
floor, and unite with people made of trans-
lucent plastic wearing loose ties. They are
sloppy and decisive, opposite of us. I look
down at our fleece shoes facing their plexi-
glass ones. None of their shoelaces have
any knots, and ours are full of them.  




Man Cave

I can smell lava when I hold my nose
tight enough. Bees gather on my back
porch every morning, swinging on
charcoal playgrounds. My eye sockets
seep their leftover honey whenever I
don’t finish my homework. Last night,
Dracula hung upside-down over my bed
and said he was changing his name to
Alberto. He told me that he’s been
debating whether or not to go vegan.
I told him that my professor died from
a bee sting last year. Alberto/Drac sounds
like a dwindling fire as he crawls into my bed.  

​

Violet Mitchell is a Denver-based writer and artist. She is working toward a B.A S. in cognitive literary studies and a B.A. in creative writing, both from Regis University. Her work has been published in Loophole, Flourishing, Across the Canyon, Who's Who, Sixfold, ANGLES, and Furrow Magazine.

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