Content Warning: implied sexual violence
Tahlia McKinnon - only he can heal me
I hold myself, steady
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ready to receive the bread
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that breaks like tiny bones between my baby teeth.
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body, made of paper
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burn to read, but see
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you fill every page, anyway.
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mouth of clay,
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mould me to the heat
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of you. no stranger desire
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have I, than to be
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reshaped by you remade in your honour –
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called by your name.
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eyes of brimstone,
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but it is your lips that give me life.
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but it is your hand that yields my pain.
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and to think,
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that I thanked God for you,
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when you were the strange in me
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that I’d feared, all along.
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oh, but only he can heal me
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press his mouth against my chest
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and breathe hope and unrest
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into my blood, into my bones.
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what a dangerous gift
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it is, to have – the power to lay someone to rest.
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Tahlia McKinnon is the Founding Editor-In-Chief of Hecate Magazine. Tahlia's writing often centres on haunted love, exultant spirituality and her experiences as a trauma survivor. Her creative work has been placed in The Daily Drunk Mag, Wrongdoing Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Radical Arts Review and others. You can find her online @tahliamckinnon or via tahliamariamckinnon.co.uk
Photograph: Passion by Arun Kapur
Enigmatic. Charismatic. Passionate. Lover of life and all truth that binds us together. Arun Kapur is a mental health advocate that uses the medium of the arts to raise awareness of stigmas and well-being. Through poetry and film, he aims to amplify untold stories of unheard voices.