Jackson Burgess

MY HEART IS A FOUNTAIN PEN

There are approximately 85 feet separating me
from a very timely concrete face-mash ending
at the bottom of this city's cold carnage.
I feel the wind pushing on me like the
lyrics to old church hymns set to repeat
in my eternal consciousness, but unlike those
soft seductions, this breeze is a genocide.
My toes are tree roots torn by insecurities,
faint pleads for resurrection over the chainsaw
sounds and smoke. My heart is a fountain pen,
bleeding love note poisons potent enough to drop
legions, and if you're wondering where I've been
lately, look around.

I've been with you since empty gas chambers, since
slaughterhouses and sledgehammer factories,
and I don't expect you to greet me with a hug.

I expect you to let me fall.

After all, it's not every day you recognize your own reflection.
They're calling names out there, and everybody knows
self-slaughter's wrong.


Jackson Burgess is an 18-year-old student from Olympia, Washington. A Creative Writing major earning his B.A., Jackson is now attending the University of Southern California on a full academic scholarship. Jackson's work is regularly performed at coffeehouses and other venues across Los Angeles, and is scheduled for publication in Stepping Stones Magazine: ALMIA, and Children, Churches, and Daddies.

Current Issue:
December 2011

Russ Brickey
Jackson Burgess
Robert Demaree
James H. Duncan
Carol Lynn Grellas
Paul Hostovsky
Seif-Eldeine Och
Jane Olivier
Timothy Pilgrim
Russell Rowland
M. Travis Walsh

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