I’m the one in your pictures
hiding in all the frames
A white rat locked in your
bedroom that you hold
too tightly and
bash against the wall
I’m a fly trying to get inside
your light bulb and die
I’m the spittle on your tongue
that you ignore, the tinnitus
ringing in your soul
Every night you forget
I’m all you want
your heart turns
into brittle leaves
But I will step on them
until I become the eyes
you remember when you die
Guns and Guitars
Guitar metal strings, release souls
over time in bloody fingers, warm
expressions of woods, rhythms
strumming out needs within bodies
Gun cold metal shaft,
ends all needs of expressions,
explosions carrying brains
out of prisons onto walls
Guitars become guns,
guns becomes guitars,
trigger fingers stroke metals,
until wills express one loud
chord, that final bang
BIO
Jennifer Hollie Bowles dyes her hair a new color every month and talks daily to a blue-tunnel-eyed devil trying to eat her soul. She is the editor of The Medulla Review, and her work has been accepted for publication in The Battered Suitcase, blossombones, Thieves Jargon, Echo Ink Review, tinfoildresses, The New York Quarterly, and Word Riot, among many others. Jennifer is an empath, but she is entirely too self-absorbed.