Nikolai Number Five
by Jordan Davidson
and if they say this is Hell staying i know
they’ve never lost themselves in the ceiling
at night tracing the cracks slowly collecting
condensation and they’ve never counted to slow
their hearts or prayed to God to bring
them pain to separate feeling and bliss
as He puts on a record slow and sweet and lies
back in our bed, His arms around me although
i ache from a thousand different pains each
more tender than the last when His fingers
paint me, no, they bring me forth from existence
only when i lie with Him do i break the
darkened plane between the fold of a mother’s
legs and in her ruptures do i coalesce into
a thousand star shaped points brought out against
the bitter loam loving singed skin because with
Him for once my outlined shadow settles into my
skin and oh do i exist for once without blurred edges,
i am something to Him. only he lays claim to me.
so in the quiet music when he forgets his fault--
lines i remember even birth requires blood,
and to be seen the stars must burn--
And without him, i resume fading, unfinished.
they’ve never lost themselves in the ceiling
at night tracing the cracks slowly collecting
condensation and they’ve never counted to slow
their hearts or prayed to God to bring
them pain to separate feeling and bliss
as He puts on a record slow and sweet and lies
back in our bed, His arms around me although
i ache from a thousand different pains each
more tender than the last when His fingers
paint me, no, they bring me forth from existence
only when i lie with Him do i break the
darkened plane between the fold of a mother’s
legs and in her ruptures do i coalesce into
a thousand star shaped points brought out against
the bitter loam loving singed skin because with
Him for once my outlined shadow settles into my
skin and oh do i exist for once without blurred edges,
i am something to Him. only he lays claim to me.
so in the quiet music when he forgets his fault--
lines i remember even birth requires blood,
and to be seen the stars must burn--
And without him, i resume fading, unfinished.
Jordan Davidson is a student at Yale University majoring in Humanities and Applied Physics. Among her many projects is a collaborative fiction universe developed with Claire Malik. This piece belongs to a collection Davidson wrote for that universe (the universe takes up way more of her time than it should). She has been previously published in The Common Tongue, Corvid Queen, and has upcoming work in pastel serenity.