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2023 Academy of American Poets Prize

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small deaths

by Hannah Crabtree-Eads

small deaths you’re drunk down Interstate, basing crack to crickets in muddied abyss we beat — a loveseat symbiosis out of vision (i’m unlearning how to put my lights out) — home is a feeling / i’ll chase in any weather— i sip your aftershock on cool white mornings just like i swore i wouldn’t do— five years downstream; white flags chase red ribbons on repeat — nobody showed me too much kindness; everybody showed me how to live, when i saw you post abjection; it’s as if i never met you, when you touch me i go stone cold — it’s all i ever wanted from you yet somehow i still reach for warmth, nothing sits in the belly of the beast for long — before destructing; it implodes — everyday this smell spells out spilled milk i never wiped it up and it soaked into my hips, my calves, my polyurethane boots couldn’t be bothered— time unknown when i’d untie them fling them without written cause (they had shit on them anyways and the smells add up after-all) everything tastes better in july chugging trains jolt and rewind — foam spills bittersweet onto piss-stained soliloquies- too squeamish to hold me - an ounce of whiskey won’t undo me; i fear -i Fear! requiem for a past that isn’t changing guaranteed redemption turns a blank nod towards Abstraction — self is unaffiliated — i stand, unmoored — as the waves wash me away, and all i can hear ; some godvoice, (no-body’s voice, really,) telling me ‘it’s ok/it’s ok/it’s ok, to be held’ ‘i am seen, to cleanse- i hear, to protect’ (here, i am nothing)) i disliked the distance in the summer, but the pain of it wrought away, and i don’t think i mind it, any-moor, so i step to shore, where all I’ve everknown, falls in step with yesterday’s nigh-terrors — sticky beds from fear, (not fucking) ready for defeat, but in a practical manner — the edge glares back, emasculated — failure is impatient (at best) and i miss it every time i go, some
small deaths you’re drunk down Interstate, basing crack to crickets in muddied abyss we beat — a loveseat symbiosis out of vision (i’m unlearning how to put my lights out) — home is a feeling / i’ll chase in any weather— i sip your aftershock on cool white mornings just like i swore i wouldn’t do— five years downstream; white flags chase red ribbons on repeat — nobody showed me too much kindness; everybody showed me how to live, when i saw you post abjection; it’s as if i never met you, when you touch me i go stone cold — it’s all i ever wanted from you yet somehow i still reach for warmth, nothing sits in the belly of the beast for long — before destructing; it implodes — everyday this smell spells out spilled milk i never wiped it up and it soaked into my hips, my calves, my polyurethane boots couldn’t be bothered— time unknown when i’d untie them fling them without written cause (they had shit on them anyways and the smells add up after-all) everything tastes better in july chugging trains jolt and rewind — foam spills bittersweet onto piss-stained soliloquies- too squeamish to hold me - an ounce of whiskey won’t undo me; i fear -i Fear! requiem for a past that isn’t changing guaranteed redemption turns a blank nod towards Abstraction — self is unaffiliated — i stand, unmoored — as the waves wash me away, and all i can hear ; some godvoice, (no-body’s voice, really,) telling me ‘it’s ok/it’s ok/it’s ok, to be held’ ‘i am seen, to cleanse- i hear, to protect’ (here, i am nothing)) i disliked the distance in the summer, but the pain of it wrought away, and i don’t think i mind it, any-moor, so i step to shore, where all I’ve everknown, falls in step with yesterday’s nigh-terrors — sticky beds from fear, (not fucking) ready for defeat, but in a practical manner — the edge glares back, emasculated — failure is impatient (at best) and i miss it every time i go, some

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