Alyx Chandler

Tight Grip (or Trichotillomania)

Routes stick to my tire
like wet carcasses pulled 

over a bridge, my breath
reduced to a vehicle I can’t 

control, mechanical parts
possessing my whole. I go

ghost, hands twitching at
the wheel, gripping for roots. 

Compulsions leak down linage
till they’re part of my engine, the oil 

in every mile and no matter how
I change, my body won’t stop 

storying—won’t stop trying,
driving toward the edge of an 

impulse. That mountain dark as
urge: a break with no brakes.  

I crash at beauty’s impasse,
everything in me bursting 

till I’m forced to stop, hands
thrown from the rearview mirror 

in the shudder-puncture of a nail
as it rips my wheel from the road,

my scream high-pitched as the yip
of rubber. I’m torn from my trance,  

bare with relief. Stranded with a tire
in my hands, tired blown-out mirage 

of myself. I let go. I leave my eyelids
alone. I wait here to be towed.

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Alyx Chandler (she/her) is a writer from the South who received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she taught composition and poetry. She is a publicist for Poetry Northwest, a reader for Electric Literature and former poetry editor for CutBank. Her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Cordella Magazine, Greensboro Review, SWWIM, Anatolios Magazine, Sweet Tree Review and elsewhere. Learn more at alyxchandler.com.