Three Poems

by Mae Fraser

intrusive

behind your eyelids,

unripe thoughts are

praying for release.

they reach out at every blink,

cling to eyelashes

disguised as teardrops.

some slip through the

iron bars, and make for

rose pinched lips.

these thoughts are sugar laced,

yet never truly sweet — you never could

tell the difference between salt and sugar.

you convince yourself that they are the same.

musification

if you didn’t want to be a muse,

you should have never gotten involved with a poet.

yet here we are.

pen stabbed through our hearts,

keeping us tethered,

and neither of us can pull it out.

lest we both bleed out.

what i’ve learned about poetry

tell a story

something vaguely akin to a linear narrative

with the same momentum you would have

speeding down I-95 in your rusted Mercury,

rehearsing every little embarrassing thing that you’ve done.

pace yourself but play with the space you keep in your pocket.

stretch your poetic legs in the confines of gear shifts and gas pedals.

contemplate your miseries in order to make metaphors

or something out of this fucked up existence you are forced to live in.

ignore cliches or flowery language.

lounge in the gas fumes and the smell of burning rubber

pushing 80 85 90.

don’t be afraid of the heat that rises

as you swerve from lane to lane to pass

take it in and let it fuel you.

tercets signify disorder

imbalances, catastrophes

within just a few lines

while couplets tell me i'm in love

with something larger than myself

whatever the fuck quartets mean, I couldn’t say,

but I do know driving my car off this road

would be cause for a poem I could

maybe write one day.

BIO: Mae Fraser (they/them) is a queer poet and hopeless romantic from the New Hampshire seacoast. They have been recently published in issues of Sheepshead Review, Northern New England Review, and the Santa Fe Writer's Project Journal. While poetry is their first love, tea and cats are close seconds. They can be found on social media @maeflowerreads.