frankenstein

By Chloe Burns

you were something I didn’t recognize.

invented by someone who knew something I didn’t know. didn’t
see coming.

my life was full of spaces I had nested, and homed. things that knew my names, me
exclusive shape. my specific

body moved through space, with its appetites and aversions. now, it
stumbles. often I think of dying stars, of skyscrapers crumbling.

and I don’t blame you.

without even trying, time unspools itself, translucent and unyielding.
accidentally,

you get stuck in my body. you are stuck in my body
like muscle memory, like a loose tooth. I worry you.

it is unavoidable. fate, I guess, or something
deeper. obscure, the way a dream you’ve had before

is familiar, and unfamiliar. forgive me,
forgive me. I am made

incoherent.

Chloe Burns recently graduated from the University of Alberta, where she double-majored in English and Women’s & Gender Studies. She is the first prize winner of the Vancouver Writers Festival 2016 Poetry Prize, and her writing has most recently appeared in subTerrain magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, and Crab Fat Magazine. Her chapbook “internet fruit” was released by Ghost City Press as part of their Summer Series of 2018.