Taylor Emily Copeland - Two poems

Kala gives a tour of hell

This is the metal box he locked me in.
This is the chain he used to keep me bound.
This is where he shot Charlie three times in the chest.
This is where he buried him, like a dead animal.
This is where I was allowed to walk around,
like a dog, to smell the air, to hope for release.
This when we hear about how likeable my captor was,
how he was a great boss, a model citizen, never the
type to do this.
This is when I don't talk about my bare back against
a metal floor, about tasting his scent, about the
thumping sound in closed in spaces, and how it echoes
in my teeth and eyes.
This is when you can read about the fourteen year old
that he bound and forced, about how they released him,
gave him the chance to step up his game.
This is the hole a gun makes, a shovel makes, a void
makes when someone you love dies.
This is when I give the story an edit, a heroine.




When someone asks me what its like to kiss another girl

It tastes like cotton candy, feels
like hot air pushed through a vent.
It smells like sangria steeping on
a formica counter in the summer and
will get you just as drunk if you
finish the pitcher, but you have to
finish the pitcher. It feels like
silk sheets on shaved legs, it aches
like a snow covered branch in the winter,
but you happily break.




Taylor Emily Copeland is a poet from Eastern Pennsylvania. She is the author of two chapbooks: "Caffeine kisses and long sleeves" and "Monarch", both available from Maverick Duck Press. Her poems have recently appeared in Philosophical Idiot, among many others. She is a four time Best of the Net nominee and also was nominated for Best of the Web. She reads obsessively, likes pink things, drinks too much coffee, drives aimlessly and falls in love too easily. She is unashamed of all of it.

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