Rachael Crosbie

In Which You Said You Wouldn’t Write About Him

CONTENT WARNING: TOXIC RELTIONSHIPS AND SEXUAL SITUATIONS

​

​

He basked in unconscious winter, splitting your poems
with chapped hands, and he kissed you—bitter with Grizzly snuff—

his touch callusing. He wanted his wet dog musk
to turn you on, ripe with dead fire and frosted sweat. It didn’t matter

if it didn’t. You bought Circle K condoms when he took you
to the basement for the first time—bright and cold and surgical—

a blanching memory that you couldn’t write about
without writhing out of the poem.

​

​

​

6 March, 2021

Rachael Crosbie (she/they) is the Editor-in-Chief & Founder of the winnow and poetry reader for Persephone's Daughters. She has a BA in English Literature, and she is working toward her MS in Publishing at NYUSPS. Rachael has poems forthcoming or published in Averse Magazine, Feline Utopia Anthology, ALL GUTS NO GLORY, Wrongdoing, The Daily Drunk, and others. She has two chapbooks forthcoming: Swerve (2021) and MIXTAPES (2021). You can find her on Twitter @rachaelapoet for the She-Ra and The Princesses of Power stan club and posting pictures of her cats.