I Was That Tired Poem by Adelaide Lii

I couldn’t speak
so I scratched the words onto my hips
like raspberry stains on kitchen-floor-tiles.

I was that tired.
And if my voice is this red,
my arms must be slinkies

and this moment in time
a dead moth in the shower,
a puppet to the water,
slipping down the drain,
slow and sudden like earthworms

and me not knowing any better
than to cup them in my hands,
feeling like a mother as
they choke in the sun.