The Blue Carpet

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 it gets under my fingernails / Your body and mine under yours / and I

am rewinding to that night the matchstick meant for the stove / fell to the carpet and your

voice / almost set the house ablaze / Snap back and I am barely breathing / the weight of

every mistake remembering my bones into oblivion / the sawdust and calcified matter /

mattering not / when it’s left broken. The mirror on the wall doesn’t show / half of what is

there / Look, I don’t mean to alarm you / it’s just the kindling is a postcard from you to me

/ and there is no return address / Drop the bomb and wait for your gait to detonate / see,

I’m not trying to destroy you / I’m trying to salvage what’s left before the ash / billows its

baritone / scratching its nails into the skin / the shell and that smell will never go away /

What I mean is there is no machine that could clean / or absolve what we’ve done / all I can

hope is that the genesis of a gentler hand / is on the horizon / and the sunset doesn’t

incinerate the land below / Give me a safe place to land—my wings are on fire / my body is

on fire / the room is on fire / and all we can do is throw our gasoline / porcelain into the

flames / and laugh / until our lungs / splatter the walls.

Author of the article

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.