These Are Things I Do For You by Kristin Garth
Updated: Jan 3, 2019
Diminish all of my good news. Send smile
emojis when I want to die. Maintain
belief in promises & lies, compiled
canaries, fallen, in a poisoned brain,
a cage of dreams your schemes contain. A lock
I walk, free will, behind. Rotating birds,
my mind a fettered, feathered mine. Ignore
languish, little skeletons, uninterred
remains of would-be friends. You buy, pet store
a dozen at a time. They’re all named Hope
& I’ll resign to think of them as just
the one — not flock lies choked,
mass murdered trust.
How many yellow birds will have to die
before the thing I do is say goodbye?
Kristin Garth is a kneesock enthusiast and a Best of the Net nominated sonnet stalker. Her poetry has stalked magazines like Glass, Yes, Five:2: One, Anti-Heroin Chic, Former Cactus, Occulum, Luna Luna, & many more. She has a chapbook Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), two forthcoming: Pensacola Girls (Bone & Ink Press, Sept 2018) and Shakespeare for Sociopaths (The Hedgehog Poetry Press Jan 2019). Her full length, Candy Cigarette, is forthcoming April 2019 (The Hedgehog Poetry Press). Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie), her weekly poetry column (https://www.rhythmnbone.com/sonnetarium) and her website (kristingarth.wordpress.com).