In the Black Bedroom

Sarah Axelrod writes from the places we spend most of our lives trying to avoid: the wreckage of love, the ache of adolescence, the quiet devastations, spoken and unspoken, that pass from one generation to the next. Raw and untethered, tender and ferocious, she paints in colours outside of nature to reveal a sweet, dreadful humanity, where beauty and terror share the same room.

In the black bedroom,

in the black, black room,

I try to catch white light

slipping around the shades.

Trying to hold on to something

while the covers fit around me.

I think of your body—

your teeth

standing in a mouth,

a tongue I don’t know,

your breath

thumping downstairs.

I used to have this stomach-ache

every morning before school—

at the counter,

legs dangling,

the dark shapes

of morning over the swimming pool.

Loneliness like cold water,

no one to love me.

But this morning—

even the pillow is soft.

The blanket is your heart

wrapping me.

Follow Sarah on Substack https://substack.com/@beyondbeinggood

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/beyondbeinggoodpoetry/

Read more of her work here https://aphroditepress.co.uk/tag/sarah-teal-axelrod/