a semester of unfinished works from scotland

on being abroad, falling in and out of love, and an insatiable rage

preface: i spent the last couple of months studying in edinburgh and collecting shards of my being in either my notes app or my journal. each fragment reminds me of a tarot card, hence the titling. i have never been good at completing things and here is my proof. thank you for reading xx. 

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The Fool:

And I turn every corner of the slaughterhouse to look for him, knowing the ax will greet me instead. When the blade hits my skin, I count my grief in lives lost: a fight in the freezer aisle of the grocery store, trimming his hair at midnight under the bathroom light, inspecting the books he keeps in his childhood bedroom. I would have crafted poems out of the mundane with him. Would you have liked the way I wrote you?

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The Magician:

you made him with the shell

of a gunshot torn from your ligaments. 

a crying child— love-filled and wretched

with each word plucked from stitched wounds. 

he eats with rage— hands still bloody from the kill of his own flesh. 

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The High Priestess: 

I wish I could hold you one more time, but it still wouldn’t be enough. I am always hungry. You’re the only one to date who survived my cannibalistic need to devour. 

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The Hierophant:

Your family would have seen me for what I am: a heathen. I’ve never wanted to beg for salvation. It didn’t feel that way with you. 

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The Emperor:

I want to cut up a pomegranate for you the way my father does for me: without a single stain on his calloused fingers. I promise I could be gentle if I tried. I promise I could be gentle for you. I’d tear my canines out with the rusting pliers without a sound while you sleep against my chest. 

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The Hanged Man:

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The Lovers:

jonathan’s letter to david

when the daughters of god choose to bask in the shame of

your mother’s name, disgraceful memories pass with loyalty

but you only remember mine with the absence of language. 

we’re charged with indecency, intimacy, and the

accusations of brothers in arms. 

misconduct—

shotgun out in the field, farewells, and hiding 

revealed feelings with blood.

accountability is understood in the context of covenants

between descendants.

i am second, only to you. 

return the love, return yourself to me. 

i slip you into every line i write

to freshen the wound, to use salt as a chaser.

am i holy enough to save you? how much more do i have to sin to be readied for redemption?

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The Chariot:

The family plot awaits my slumber yet something in the flowers interferes and I avoid a season in purgatory for the absence of your touch against frozen ground. I have never let go of a lover with ease. 

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Justice:

I picked fights with strangers in bars,

imagining it was your face I was spitting at.

Cast my tongue into the fire—

steal my truths, brand me a liar. 

You reek of murder while recounting my sins

and she leaks a weaker red of fire

but her words taste of the same desperation.

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