day one

turning my room into a monastery
i wake up & i am going to succeed
a moonless earth
cryptic, sphinxlike, devout
wandering
waiting in the quiet house
keep honking — palms open,
silvered and sober
endlessness, dirt, dust
in my next life, let me live
i brake for birds.
i’m a sensitive man
not meant to see this much roadkill

i almost forgot to forgive

the young woman’s guide to sexuality

wet behind the ears
naked, muscled, paisley-printed
carry me to the water
i’m not mythological
paragon of guilt, patron saint of the avalanche
oracle / embalmer / atheist / herbivore
aren’t you glad you can see?
this pink earth below us,
this nebulous truth – homemade, choking,
experiencing itself like it’s the first time
girls only want one thing
i have my own dreams
but we’re rushing to replace all the
beliefs humans have made

ghosting my friends

and i’m not bored. i want an epiphany.
i wanna spark.
leaving behind what’s left of ecstasy, formless
and sober and dusted with ache. i’m not
asking for a divining rod
spring will cure me.
a new color for every year
i’ve lived without rest
ask me about mercy again
exposed synapses and screeching flowers
maintaining unraveling rituals, reckoning with grief,
returning

Isabel Rose Smith (she/her) grew up in between Jacksonville and St. Augustine in Florida. She loves the in-betweens, the limbos, oblivion. After graduating from Davidson College with a degree in English and gender studies, she moved to Roanoke, Virginia. She tries to think of herself as lucky. A fan of half-eaten fruit, wilted flowers, and nostalgia, Isabel continues to write poetry that is almost spiritual to her—almost.