Six Prose Poems by Matt Finney

fragment

frozen sunlight with the taste of salt and the breathing of ghosts. sorrow bleeding into indifference and these scars lit up from within. the distance between us is only a lifetime. your voice is nothing like i remember it being.

echo

through the glare of infinity and everything diminishing in slow degrees. it was cold despite all of the burning and it was the absence of you. all these days i wasted waiting for things to get better.

elsie

the world beyond these pale blue walls and the doors always locked from the wrong side. this is the year that my sister was raped and this is the knowledge that it will happen again. the smell of witches burning and the sound of gods unraveling. this is the moment when you find out how useless you really are.

riopelle

sleeping through the longest parts of the afternoon and waking up forty miles away. the starving had nothing to eat but each other and all i’ve kept is this scorched taste. anything i could hold was broken beyond repair.

arshile

october wind pouring through the holes in the house like a gentle wash of static and what happens next is everything is taken from you. everyone you love causes you pain. they’re calling out your name but you’re already gone.

adamson

cold, colder, and then the face of every god i’ve ever denied. the days are like withdrawal and this is who i am. i don’t want to be someone else. i want to be someone better. i will use both of these cracked hands to dig towards the light.

Matt Finney is a writer from millbrook, alabama.  His myspace page is: www.myspace.com/synonymforhurt

Above photo credit: Kittykatfish