Wallpaper masking the stains of _______

Have I told you how I came to see evolutions?
Grass folding into concrete statues standing
over children in the moment
when they bleed and mother catches them,
holds them up to the ceiling where their heads
nearly hit the plaster breaking particle
into the skies decay further over the place
we call home enclose us pull knees to the chest
and count slower we fall into taped
conversations where ben met claire at
the grocery store on fifth and stole the identity
we gave her made her believe in her
father’s will to live the wavering
of her neighbors’ tongues and it comes
back to the swingset they shared and the time
on the clock that read nothing she won’t
forget incessantly we watch her
rocking in the linens but what if she
were fifty with wrinkles crawling
up his neck and skin with bright red splatters
like pollack, it’s always like pollack
his toenails cutting his socks but he’s lucid
and I wish I could harness an anchor and remain
as claire’s voyeur but I’ve lost it
again and see only as far as the curtain.









Jess L. Bryant devotes herself to writing at all times and works on bicycles full-time. She is most notable for the tattoo of a tandem on her left arm and being mistaken for a boy. She isn’t sure where she is from but knows it’s a mix of Southern Indiana, New York City, and Ohio. Currently, however, she resides in New Mexico. She attempts to push boundaries and create energy in her poetry, get to the pivotal, and sometimes stay there.