Jaiden Geolingo

Contrapuntal for My Dead Loves

The South is made of                                             throats that want more
coffins, love.                                                            teeth-marks litter the suburbs
& I want to return to a womb                                 without shame. In this city that is
all holy, I hurricane                                                 my cesspool of bones: waters beg
into splinters                                                           & father is knee-first. The ghosts
that wished me dead                                             ask me for my jaundice songs.
& I sing nothing.                                                      in this dream
I am molding myself into                                        fibonacci spirals & floods are gifts
now, my larynx dampened                                    with martyr blood. Enter
through floodwater bodies.                                   & I, a dead love, will turn into wolves.
I autopsy your teeth &                                            I find prayers made of alcohol
I want to confess my mouth outward                   without a charred wing.

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Jaiden Geolingo is a Pinoy writer based in Georgia, United States. He has been publicly recognized by The National YoungArts Foundation, The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Young Poets Network, among others. Additionally, his work can be found published or forthcoming in Dishsoap Quarterly, The Poetry Society, eunoia and other journals. Someday, he will be good at math.