Cassandra de Alba

Dig

He's a little bit in love with every girl
he ever kissed. I keep waking up with dirt
under my fingernails: the grave
he dug won't hold me. I'll breathe again.
Claw my way up. All wound
and no dressing, a tricky burial. I'm a nightmare
with a mouth – I speak and speak
and stay through daybreak. I won't leave easy
like the last girl. I would have walked on water for him
but he'd rather I drown.

Cassandra de Alba's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Red Lightbulbs, Neon, Illuminati Girl Gang, and Strange Horizons, among others. She lives in Somerville, MA with two other poets and a very large cat.