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aftermath of forty nights
LOUIE LEYSON
No more unclean wanting.
This shining liquid helps me
sleep. This condensed powder
soothes me. I was hygienic
and composed, arctic in demeanour,
scrolling listings for cheap razors
on the internet for hours.
All the while I have craved love
like a dog. I only wanted
to be good or to believe in days
of goodness, silent in my seeking
for permission to finally harm me.
How to explain a debasement
so ordinary. It turned me solemn
as an ocean hurling its largeness
into its largeness. A deer drifting
moth-like at last to a headlight.
My leash was long folded in the fist
of the one who saved me.
Endure it long enough and baby
it dissolves eventually.
Louie Leyson writes on the unceded ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Their work was awarded a CBC Literary Prize in Nonfiction and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and National Magazine Awards. They are the recipient of a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts and hold a B.A. from the University of British Columbia. You can find their works in Catapult, The Malahat Review, The Account, Stonecoast Review, Plenitude, Nat. Brut, and elsewhere. Their twitter is @aswangpoem.
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