Erica Abbott (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based poet and writer whose work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Serotonin, FERAL, Anti-Heroin Chic, and other journals. She is the author of Self-Portrait as a Sinking Ship (Toho, 2020), her debut poetry chapbook. She volunteers for Button Poetry and Mad Poets Society. Follow her on Instagram @poetry_erica and on Twitter @erica_abbott.
I am staring at the carpet / every blue swirl magnified under my longing gaze / I wonder how many fibers it took to get under my feet / How many fibers it would take to lift every part / of my being someplace higher / How many fibers it would take to burn / the whole thing down before… Read more →
And on the seventh day, my body unrests into a less-than-holy reckoning. On day 27, I try to take a deep breath and my chest tightens not like a vise, but a bellows with a diaphragm left slaughtered— too weak to blow any life back into the ever-decaying fire. On day 64, the oxygen catches in my lungs and, I… Read more →