Dodo Eraser

I’m thinking of how badly I want it to rain / how my father up and moved to Arizona without a trace / how often I’ve overstayed welcomes because I hate being alone / I’m thinking of the concept of love / I’m thinking of when I was held and kissed in the grass / held and kissed against brick / held and kissed / the song in the graveyard and its delicate strum / how I shy away from my face and curse my own body / how I mean to show both my cats equal affection / how many books I fear I’ll never read / I think of things I shouldn’t / I’m thinking of death / I’m always thinking of death and how best to stay alive / I’m thinking of star-filled nights and pink moons and dead poet’s diaries that sound like mine / I’m thinking of love again and the soft parts of his face / the stubbornness of dandelions and who makes wishes come true / the light between the trees at night / how badly I want to be held when I cry but often shy away when asked and usually no one is there to hear it anyway

Madeline Blair is a poet, editor, and award-winning filmmaker from Chicago, IL, with a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is the founder/editor-in-chief of Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Okay Donkey, Burial Magazine, Luna Luna Magazine, Libre Lit, Ekphrasis Magazine, and more. She was once quoted in The New York Times on her passion for clean air.