Astrid Bridgwood​: 4 Poems

ARIADNE

I am seventeen and the world is a shell
Walking the interstate with my dry hand in hers
Sky arid above us, acres of absence aching
Like a scar. Car broke down with six miles
Left to go. Sand still in our shoes, salt-weary
Skin remembering our beach’s burn. Forty minutes
Till sundown. Somewhere around us, a scream
Slicing summer-soft air. We go still, rabbits caught
In the liquid black of a fox’s eye. Her hair weaving
Unspooling before us in sudden breeze, fingers
Shaking as she rubs her neck. False courage.
Somewhere the owner of that scream is dying
Staring at me with her tongue bleeding between
Her teeth. Seven weeks later she leaves me
The last voicemail. I am not the only body
On this highway. I feel the worst I’ve felt in a long
Long time. We never turned back. We kept walking
Forever I am seventeen and the world is a shell
Sweat branding her palm, headed home again
With ash in my shoes. I am alone with kindling
In my hands. I am letting my phone ring through
Her call. I am dancing around the bonfire. I am
Burning her bones on the beach. I am sitting
On my knees in the surf, listening to her softly
Through this labyrinth of sea and static.

​EVEN YOU, BRUTUS?

(CW: violence)

​I’m willing to bleed over you                     Caesar’s senate floor                               a slaughterhouse
Sanctified by sacrifice                                                   steaming flesh against cold marble
Hit me:             shattered teeth scatter like ivory blanks                           Echo-voiced                    silent
Eyes wide in awe         in observance of something holy                  I want to be swallowed
Made small made nothing                          I am ready and waiting             to be consumed.

​I am always                waiting                  to feel the fullness                                  of ardor
Raw-red weeping sated            the kind of thing I’ve only found                  through God and fasting.
I said I wasn’t trying to fuck you                on the first night I slept over                    in that shitty twin bed
But like every prophet             I am a liar               angelic tongues speaking                          compulsion
Through my mouth.                 I want that closeness                                 one inseparable body.

​And like every starving girl      I want to fall in love                                  or I want to be desired
Wake up                     watch the sun on your face                         made warm by ruddy flesh
Find one breath of still silence                    in sweat-soaked skin and                                      stale sheets
Whispered words over half-built bruises                   fading in daylight                        help me
Remember           leave me marked              for morning to greet                apocalyptic.

​The reverence               revelation                                  of seeing my body like living evidence of want.
Look here            and here                         and there and up                    witness
See that I am wanted:                desperately                     gutturally                          driven to violence.
Because yes                  desire is violence                is rage            is leaving me scarred and shaking
And maybe I learned love                            (or sex)         from a girl who wanted to tear me apart

​Maybe that’s the way I’ve been trained                      to be wanted              like a soothsayer’s warning.
I drew the three of swords          felt the silver strike                       final blow            chest-split      glory
Ringing in the Ides                                                        dying before my divinity.
Body sanctified               saintly                  pushed skyward                     like he’s aching for a savior
I’m a perfect mimic                    a million eyes like an angel, golden fingers                             Jupiter-gifted

​Silver teeth                     like the tongue of                       Brutus.

​I WILL LIE TO YOU FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES TO FALL IN LOVE WITH ME.

I AM TIRED OF BEING ALONE OF BEING A RESTING PLACE FOR BROKEN-BITTER BOYS I
CANNOT FIX YOU (I WOULD IF I COULD) (I WOULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING TO KEEP YOU)
(FIXING YOU WOULD TAKE BODIES) (I HAVE NONE LEFT TO BURN).

I AM ALWAYS THE GIRL GIVING I AM ALWAYS THE GIRL WITH OPEN PALMS I AM ALWAYS
THE GIRL WILLING TO MOVE ON (PLEASE LET ME MOVE ON) BUT I OPEN MY EYES
IN THE DARK I MISS YOUR VOICE ON THE PHONE I’M CHOKING ON IT SICK WITH WANTING.

I AM A GIRL MADE OF DESIRE PILED AND MISERABLE I AM A GIRL WITH OPEN ARMS AND
MOUTHS AND EYES AND HANDS I AM A GIRL MADE FOR HOLDING. THE LAST BODY THAT
TOUCHED MINE LIVES UNDER MY SKIN SCREAMING. HIT ME UNTIL I SWALLOW MY TEETH.

I HAVE LEFT BEHIND TENDERNESS I WANT TO BLEED. DO I DESERVE TO BE TREATED
GENTLY? TOUCH ME ANYWAY: FURY OR FANTASY, MAKE THIS BODY MARKED.
REMEMBER ME? I WAS HERE, BESIDE YOU BEGGING FOR AN ENDING, TO BE HELD SOFTLY.

I AM TIRED OF BEING WEAK. THIS IS WEAKNESS (ISN’T IT?) (BEING LONELY?) (MAKES ME
VULNERABLE MAKES ME EASY) (MAKES ME FALL INTO WARM ARMS) (SHARP TEETH).
I WANT TO HATE YOU. SMILE AT ME LET ME TELL YOU MY SECRET? I AM ALWAYS SORRY.

I WISH YOU WERE BETTER I WISH YOU WERE THE MAN I THOUGHT YOU WERE I WISH I WAS
AS HEARTLESS AS I MADE YOU BELIEVE. I WISH THERE WAS A BODY BESIDE MINE I WISH
I WAS BLEEDING OUT NEXT TO YOU I WANT YOU TO DIE IN MY ARMS, NOTHING LESS.

I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED DESPERATE AND FEROCIOUS: THE RAGE OF A CAGED ANIMAL
LONG-DEPRIVED. A CREATURE HUNGRY SCRATCHING WALLS. FINGERS BROKEN CHEST
HEAVING, I NEED YOU TO WANT ME. I NEED TO KNOW I AM WORTHY OF WANTING.

​calcine 

(CW: fire)

​In my dreams the houses are on fire. I find you amid ash
A boy wet with soap and birth. You are white against
Smoke-blackened carpet. I am streaked with the scars
Fire gives you. I hold you with hands blister-rough red
Pink flesh shining. In my dreams I am any of these
People, staring from the street, watching a grey girl
Hold you, holy and shaking, haloed by eyes, pushing you
Fresh from fire into her world made new. In my dreams
I am the ragged girl with broken teeth heaving my breath
Into your mouth like something suffocating. I remember
Days later, stocking apples at work, and I drop the apples.
I want to fold double, sink into myself, spit the taste of
My own pulsing want from my throat where it sits
Like flesh or fungus. Your eyes closed, your eyes above me
Ringed and wavering like a vision. I pulled you from earth
Where you fell, I wake up and forget my dreams. I fuck you
In the green dress I met you in, and eyes are on me
As I pull myself from your body. Stand shaking and sick
In the center of your almost-room. In my dreams you
Reach your hands out and apologize. I don’t know what
I need you to be sorry for. In my dreams I am marble
Still and steady. I wake and split my body like a knife
Center down. Just meat, wet and sick. In my dreams you
Fill me in my dreams I am whole. In my dreams you stutter
Your shadow dancing over the bread of my body. I want.
I drop apples and oranges and grapes. My manager
Stares at me from across the aisle. In my dreams I set this
Building on fire. In my dreams you pull me from the ash.

Astrid Bridgwood (they/them or she/her) is a nineteen-year-old poet from North Carolina whose work has been called 'visceral and frightening.' You can find her featured in Olney Mag, Not Deer Mag, and Corporeal Lit Mag, among others, with work upcoming in publications like Ink Drinkers Poetry. Most recently, she was a semifinalist for the 2021 James Applewhite Poetry Prize.