Pen Names by Carly Chandler

Are you comfortable

            with names that are not your own etched into the margins?

I won’t fault you.

Does your skin fit just right? Or does the ichor that slips

from your fingertips burn every time it drips

                                                                        drips

                                                                                    drips

into the crevices of your desire, pulling your focus from

your head to your chest to your toes.

Does it pull too tight, stretched around indentations of

the moments that have comprised all of you?

Does it sag, hanging loose around your frame,

like a heavy beast of burden you can’t recognize?

Do you feel remorseful.

            Even if the reason escapes your breadth.

I won’t fault you.

How do you know your name? How do you know what it

means to be here? Does the wax slipping down your back

remind you to scream, or to crave the touch of the ground after

you get even a glimpse of yourself in the waters below -

or is the reflection in the mirror one you don’t remember?

Are you comfortable?

            With names written that are not your own

on pages that you think you create.

Gentle curves you can’t recognize, unfamiliar and

startling.

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“I wanted to like this poem a lot; I even read it at public reads more than once. I ultimately trashed this poem because it was an experiment in form that I felt just didn’t work out.”

Carly Chandler (she/they) is a queer experimental author from Louisiana who specializes in horror and poetry. They have previously been published in Argus Magazine, Demonic Verses, Words and Whispers Magazine, and their work is forthcoming in the inaugural issue of Toil and Trouble Magazine and Ilinix Magazine. Their Twitter handle is @carlywithawhy.