Nightbitch after Rachel Yoder’s novel Nightbitch

I would stain December gluey red. I would bring you rabbits in my teeth. The frost has bite, and so do I.

I don’t owe the world my lungs, but I howl the quiet out of the milk-blue morning anyway, sprint peppermint spirals in the indigo mists

of my own breath. I would curl up in December’s furrowed brow, smothered in the comfort of fur and raw satisfaction. I am learning to love myself

the way I once begged others to: come here, come here, come home. I would snap necks, paint the treeline in ochre. I would be what the harvest leaves

behind, skulls still scattered in gardens of starry amethyst, woods haunted with the song of turbulence, like forgetting one’s self, like death in reverse.

Prompts used (tags are the poets’ IG handles):

@arcanapoetrypress - “‘I would bring you rabbits in my teeth’ - from QUEERHEDONIA by Kris Nicholas Conrad ( @krisnickconr )” @octavia.poetry - “December’s furrowed brow” @lipstick.stains_ - “I’m learning to love myself the way I once begged others to” @jessaure.poetry - “peppermint spirals” @elenaspoetry - “I owe this world my words” @m.l.macdonald - “milk-blue morning” + “the frost has teeth” @shield.of.armour - “a time for forgetting ourselves” @theconstantpoet - “come here, come here, come home” @thesoftword - “what the harvest leaves behind” @libbyjenner.poetry - “ochre painted treelines” @alexismromo - “indigo mists” + “garden of starry amethyst” @wildgreensmag - November Daily Words - “turbulence” @kaytpoems - “death: reversed” @imlaurengreen - “the skulls are still scattered” @stillchasingcrescendos - “smother me in comfort” @lorrainefaepoetry - “haunted woods”