MEGAN BURNS

Role Play

“We should not be afraid of words” –A. Badiou

the role i assign you is always destroyer
the lock of being bodied separates, i try to stay safe
this violent, this sea, this country scares me
and your body, your separate, your mind
i never trust what i see, my role is survival
my heart wants unilaterally, it remembers beyond
a how many lifetimes i circle/ burning i am/
the stake is my heart/ a thin glass encloses
and you pressing threatens shatter/we both bleed
my mouth sewn shut/ once i was held under water too long
i was a tadpole/ once i was pushed beneath the wheels
the train/ sliced metaling that splits so my mind wants
and how fast i can’t run from it/ incinerate
songs key us/ we hum when you get too close to me
a chord strikes danger/ your role obliterates me/ once
when he loved me too much, he put the knife inside me
i was made of atoms/ he figured out how to split me
i am kali/ she eats me & she eats you/ i can’t save us
there are a million voices/ i’m listening to each for a type
of silence, you sing a story about bending words
& i’m on fire, i coat this small seed for a planting
afraid of what words always fail to do & we look
& we look & we look  & i think of you inside me
& know i’ll burn it all down

Megan Burns is the publisher at Trembling Pillow Press (tremblingpillowpress.com). She also hosts the Blood Jet Poetry Reading Series in New Orleans and is the co-founder of the New Orleans Poetry Festival (nolapoetry.com). She has been most recently published in Jacket Magazine, Callaloo, New Laurel Review, Dream Pop, and Diagram. Her poetry and prose reviews have been published in Tarpaulin Sky, Gently Read Lit, Big Bridge, and Rain Taxi. She has three books Memorial + Sight Lines (2008), Sound and Basin (2013) and Commitment (2015) published by Lavender Ink. She has three recent chapbooks: Dollbaby (Horseless Press, 2013), i always wanted to start over (Nous-Zot Press, 2014) and her Twin Peaks chap, Sleepwalk With Me (Horse Less Press, 2016). Her fourth collection, BASIC PROGRAMMING, was published by Lavender Ink in 2018.