after the last train, my spine pisses.

nature’s unnaturally burgundy this hour—

horizon thawing thin clouds until runny.

i know to weed into you.

passing quickly as my feet

feel inertia ripping. you don’t

need to identify bugs to be scared of them.

that’s why i step on each,

wait for the crack of nuts—sound itself

its own creature. i know to 

weed into you; the rule’s 

on each ceiling:

don’t be irrational about 

cool blues. revel in a privilege 

to dawn, to consume 

their shoes and feel full.

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Aaliyah Anderson (she/her) is a senior majoring in Literary Arts at her high school in Petersburg, VA. Her work is forthcoming or appears in Beaver Mag miniMAG, coalitionworks, and elsewhere. Aaliyah is a General Editor at Renaissance Review. She’s obsessed with storytelling.