C. Heyne & Sam Moe

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Ana Prundaru

We Break up in the Forest

C. Heyne & Sam Moe

2022 Collaboration Contest Runner-Up

I am perched with the flat wing, we both know how far that gets me here; don’t freeze in the twigs
with me,  I  won’t  return  to mushroom patches,  no hole slick  rain steps,  just  peat, algae blooms,
forest  turned  inside-out,  wish  I  had a  plan,  but I’ve got your  heart,  a  map-stamp to  wrist-slap
without sorrow; I am not the thief here.  Freedom is foliage with no direction, red-pink bird howls,
shaking  a  sack  of old coins,  your hands  take  without  asking,  callusses and  cuts from conquer;
have you ever  felt fresh aloe?  I am  harvesting with  the dull knife,  you arrive  with knots,  nets,  a
mold-patch  sunflower batch,  all teeth  and no sand;  my shelterless lover,  why do you think  these
birds  fly  in circles?  Above us,  a swollen  moon,  a popped  sky,  a grandmother’s rain,  I’m  calling
for a seance.  You know nothing of survival,  but I am a wilderness.  I’ve got a stomach full of shock
and  regolith,  I’m  tired of  chewing up  your meals,  I  am  not a  mother  to you,  I’m desire  on  the
precipice of panic, I’m overseeing a belly-up  deer and I’m ready  to crawl inside,  to be warm again;
I learned  all  the spells  once  in a kitchen closet,  I was a witch  picking  at grout,  now I  have fresh
plants and my marriage to detritus.  Come searching for everything I am not,  gold bones,  ready for
strange power,  by the time we  get to  the forest’s edge  I’m already  covered  in clay,  and I still don’t
know what I’m trying to say to you; maybe I’m sorry, maybe I’m flying now

C. Heyne (any/all) is a genderqueer poet from Sunrise, Florida, and resides in Hoboken, NJ. C is the recipient of the William Morgan Poetry Award and has poems featured or forthcoming in Muse/A, DreamPOP, The Oakland Review, 3Elements Review, Boats Against The Current, and Wild Roof, amongst others. Their chapbook my room (and other wombs) is forthcoming (Bullshit Lit, 2023)

Sam Moe is the first-place winner of Invisible City’s Blurred Genres contest in 2022, and the 2021 recipient of an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her first chapbook, Heart Weeds, is out from Alien Buddha Press and her second chapbook, Grief Birds,” is forthcoming from Bullshit Lit in April 2023. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram as @SamAnneMoe.