pray/prey - Nico Bryan

I’ll rest right here,

make shelter out of your sternum,

etch a prayer on your ribs.

I read it out loud,

but all you hear is a howl.

Divinity lives on the tongue of the beast.

Divinity lives in the heat of your mouth.

I’ll be your caged animal,

wild, rabid,

spit dripping off of my fangs,

pooling at your throne.

My soft sounds rise up,

indistinct panting fills the air.

You drop to your knees,

and slowly unfurl before me,

place your neck between my lips.

I’m filled to the jowls with your sweat.

Easy now, be delicate now,

hunger is a feral creature.

Let us prey.

Let us pray.

This heart is pulsing.

This sex is pulsing.

We ask the Lord if he can hear it,

we ask the Lord to forgive what he has created.

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Nico Bryan (she/her) is a queer poet from sun-shiny Florida currently residing in NYC. Her poems and words have been featured in BurrowPress Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, etc. etc. etc.