Untitled – Andy Anderson

Seasons are changing

Temperatures dropping

The last stick of incense burns on my altar

Smoke fills the room slowly

Like a spell

But this story isn’t about magic

But bodies

My body

A cave to my hibernation

Insecurity floating toward balance

My hair growing out

I am growing out

Of this body

I prepare

Count my blessings

Count my friends

Pull in the harvest of the garden

And embrace me

This body

Our appointment arrives

She changes her clothes

A red gown

She has been bitten

And so I will too

Everything happens

Yet Nothing happens

She suffocates me

Chokes me

Darkness in the night

And together we collapse

Into bed

The wood creaks

Our breath constricts

Heartbeats quicken

Reality pauses as my chest heaves

We lay in wake all night

Wounds bound

This old body and

Her fresh bloody body

One

We rest all day

In dreams

As the warmth wanes

Our preparation for the trauma was enough

The blood and the love now together

Self-love and nourishment that came with

The heat

The fruit

The symptoms

Then

Together we came

With the

Kill

Together

with the bite

The equinox arrives

And this gathering

This night, the

Marks on our necks

Yours a celebration

Mine an awakening

Our coven solidifies and

Like Mabon we wait to be reborn

Dreams discern into signs

An abundant harvest

Just like that

My chest heaves

And my eyes open

The sun has set

The smoke gone

The sheets white

The ghosts are all that’s left

I thirst

Feel my neck

My bites no longer wounds

I ask

Are vampires even real?

am I even real?

 

 

 

ANDY: With a mix of authentic vulnerability, relevant truth, and humor, Andy Anderson writes poems that immediately make you want to be their
friend. They are a co-organizer of Byrony Blaze’s Queer Poetry Takeover in
Portland, OR.

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