I Can Only Bite My Tongue So Long Until My Mouth is Full of Blood

                            I must
integrate the small gods        lovers        bodies in my body
I once worshipped              then I eat        to encompass
that which I’ve seen          and been

his ring broke open my temple
bleeding from the head
            ridiculously
before 9 a.m.

what can you do              but clean it up
go to work
take the J train to Wall Street                               earn
some keep         the trailing memory        I took
the anger                       took the slip of spit in my face
took the brute words and                                    ingested
integrated                      for a little atonement
but you never
learn

so are you                      the dumb small god I eat forever
digesting all this once again
and are you                    sorry
this time
are you sorry                  I cut my anger teeth
on the freeze in your blood

couldn’t suck the poison out
still could spit you out
            for a time                      but
            you keep crawling back
into my mouth

Note: The title here comes from a line in “Making Room” on the 2014 album by Punch entitled They Don’t Have to Believe.

Sharon Sloane Mariem is an American poet currently living in England. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in several online and print magazines, including Peach Mag, Witch Craft, MIDLVLMAG, the Nottingham Horror Collective, and Dream Pop Journal. Sharon was a finalist in the 2022 BOMB Magazine poetry contest and her poetry was also commended in the 2019 Cafe Writers Open Poetry Competition. She is particularly interested in documentary poetry and verse that explores and critiques technology, capitalism, and mechanisms of control. She holds an MA in creative writing and, oddly enough, an MBA.