Astrid Bridgwood
Berry-rotted
Soft spot or / bruise /
Where flesh went dark / concave
sweet-sick / on the tongue / sticky
fingers sinking through / grey-white feather-light
spot of mold at the edge / such a place
where your touch / lingers / such an ache
you leave / Tight in my chest / weak
at my neck / my cheek / your fingers crept
you guided your lips / meet mine / upturned
my mouth / left me / raspberries
bleeding rotten-burst / basket’s bottom / crushed /
Such / seedless spots / your finger stuck
burst / pulp to the root / hunched
wounded / leaf-disguised / burning inside out /
Leave such / worming disfigurements
never loved / never true / always more
than you could fit / in your palm / always overgrown
always / blackberry reeling / frothing /
Woods to / thicket / meeting road / dirt edge
spilling black-red sparks into / mud /
Footprints / to my door / such a feast / waiting /
such wine-stained lips / long abandoned
mine / Leave me sunken / plucked
plum in palm / teeth in meat.
2005 HONDA ACCORD
It goes like this:
You meet a boy.
He's not the boy you thought you'd meet, but I guess they never are. You meet a boy who wears his age like a baseball cap turned backwards, who holds being sixteen in his chest like he’s actually twenty-three, the kind of boy who outgrew pinky-promises before he turned nine. A boy who grins at you with a curse in his teeth, a boy who coughs like he’s drowning. He’s not the boy your mother hoped you’d keep around, but I guess they never are.
It goes like this:
You meet a boy, and you love him.
But you do it so quietly it's almost like you never did at all. And that’s the tragedy of it— that you fell in love silently— because you never told and he never asked but you gave and gave with the naivety that only comes from being fifteen-sixteen-seventeen with someone’s son crawling up your driveway. You gave and gave and he kept showing up, kept driving you home, kept you calm after you showered off the blood. So you hold his jacket, keep his car keys, bring him home from parties and tell him take two Tylenol in the morning or better yet just stay at my place. You watch him stumble to your couch and try not to swallow his tongue as he sleeps, tell yourself he’ll be safe here. Deep down, you know: he’s not safe anywhere.
It goes like this:
You meet a boy, and you follow him into the dark.
Sunsets run into midnight boil over into five in the morning. You find him on the train-tracks almost awake but mostly dizzy, toeing the line between lucid and dreaming. You call his sister and the next morning he calls you with something different in his voice but you love him the same anyway. His sister shoved him in the backseat of her car; looked at you, exhausted. You’re just kids, she says, like she’s asking how do you love? Mouth full of salt, you answer: like a fool.
He’s quieter now. His eyes are darker, he’s become the kind of boy that buckles under pressure, rougher and harder and sadder than he used to be. I’m at the lake, desperation in the dial-tone. His sister stops picking up after eleven, catches your shoulder and says you deserve better than a boy who throws punches like he’s clutching his heart in his hands. He’s showing you bloody knuckles; snapshot of his body shadowed against a burning forest. You find him sitting alone in the junkyard throwing rocks at old cars. When you ask why he didn’t make it home last night he just looks at you, sick-eyed. You remember why you kept quiet about it: because you can't fix him.
It goes like this:
You meet a boy, and he says I think about running away.
Between smoke and fire he tells you he can’t sleep through the night anymore. Blood wet on his lips, not meeting your eyes, he asks can I stay on your couch again? You wipe his hair from where it’s sweat-plastered to his forehead, let him throw up into your mom’s bushes. You love quietly, and you hope it’s enough. His sister warns you: it never is.
It goes like this:
You meet a boy. You watch his drink and keep his secrets, let him convince your mom he’ll be in his own bed by three. You meet a boy, you sit two floors up and watch him bleed to death. You meet a boy, and he tells you he loves you, has loved you for years. You meet a boy and in the end he looks up at you and laughs.
You meet a boy, and it doesn’t save him.
Bio
Astrid Bridgwood is a nineteen-year-old poet from North Carolina whose work has been called “visceral and frightening.” You can find her featured in All Guts No Glory Mag, Not Deer Mag, and Olney Magazine, among others. Most recently, she was a semifinalist for the 2021 James Applewhite Poetry Prize. Follow her on Twitter @astridsbridg.