TEA WITH MY SISTER

By Andrew Otto Psenicka

Black briars slithering out of her back

and the middle of her chest.

Thorny and bare scraggles,

grasping wildly at the air and anything near.

A substance—resentment—

that only the worst of tragedies could pen about this nightmare queen.

The hood pulled over her head, and

sparse roses on the death vines, still

I know who she really is—

Liquid that you can’t drink, bitter. Still,

she tells me, “I’ll put the kettle on” pretending, for her own sake, I don’t know

what pain she’s been steeped in.

When she tries to fly away to forlorn fogs,

I pull her down

letting the dendritic tendrilous thorns shred through my hands,

attempting to save my sister

from plangent temptations

of sipping teas

of self-contempt.

#DarkPoetsClub