SELF PORTRAIT
previously published in Rising Phoenix Review
a ghost in the kitchen window mistaken for me
born with miner’s black fingers, witch’s green thumb / born from the swamps like Venus from the
sea / with bog scum beneath your fingernails
grew up playing dress-up / with cheap eyeshadow and stubborn dirt of the land
mostly scar tissue / mostly ingrown past selves
show me the origin of tragedy / the home like a freezer where you leave your heart / when you
run to the city / where mother props it up on pillows / with your stuffed animals and
unopened mail
show me the moment you first confused disease for art / forever sallow as a smoker’s wallpaper /
because you just wanted to be more than wallpaper
dyed red hair hangs down your back like fake flame / made of cloth and light and air / that
they can touch and feel like god
sometimes I want to drive until the fields unfold / like a patchwork quilt on my childhood bed /
and I can burrow inside and become you again / sometimes your coal ash aura catches the light
like dust / and I want to beat it out of you / like an old rug
Rebecca Kokitus is a poet residing in the Philadelphia area. Her poetry chapbook, Blue Bucolic, will be published in 2019 by Thirty West Publishing House. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram and @rxbxcca_anna, and you can read more of her writing on her website: https://rebeccakokitus.wixsite.com/rebeccakokitus.