Jawbreaker
When you died
I popped the whole world
in my mouth.
Let it rattle my teeth
like a Jawbreaker.
Saliva stripping the land.
Suckling oceans.
Continents turn to syrup
on my tongue.
Somewhere
an old man taught a little girl
to curse.
Fanculo!
Fanculo,eating.
Empty me. Empty the world too.
WATCH
my mouth become a firecracker—
fingers, chewed licorice!
watch
me sparkle. spoil. miss you
like tobacco misses your lungs.
Black ink organelles
in the funny pages.
A funny face embalmed, painted
too orange
like curdled sherbet.
I cannot live
where ripe things grow.
I go
politely—
down the bathroom sink
with the hair
and the spit
and the peach pits.
I go
where you are not.
Alyssa Avarello is a recent Creative Writing graduate from the University of Central Florida, where she specialized in nonfiction and poetry. She is a new writer looking to establish herself. Her work explores family, grief, and the complicated beauty of survival. She has been published in WildSound.