By Jesi Bender

As I lay me down to sleep

Perfumed

With a voice that burns off like smoke

In the dark, under grey-blue sheets

I look at the outline,

How your face cuts the air

I pray the Lord my soul to keep

All I see is the pink, fleshy insides of your eyes

And the memories projecting from therein

The corners from where every tear was torn

Veins pressed against the white, like hollow/hallowed reeds

Sick and tired from this modern discontent

And if I should die before I wake

Retract into youth

As I fall asleep

Originality/A purity escaping, gasps and grasps

Sometimes I feel carved out

Like a silhouette, skin over air

I pray the Lord my soul to take

An artist from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Jesi Bender graduated with a B.A. in English and Fine Arts from Cornell University in 2007. Her first book, entitled Oppressed by the Notion of Beauty, will be released by December 2009.

Contact: Jesi Bender * Email: jesibender@gmail.com.

By Jesi Bender

To break it in, to love something enough

He is formed in the shape of number 9

Ripped from the white, beating [w]h0le

A blessing, this wound seems

Coagulated grape jelly encrusted

To the disconnected lid

The cover of innumerable insides

This deep red, myriad

Bubbled dissonant paradise

Burns like an omnipresent hell

When you amputate part

Still feel where it should be

The happy violence of love

When she saw him saw

To cleave can both stick and split

Our bodies are the same

Evil and Good coalescing

To make it whole again.

An artist from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Jesi Bender graduated with a B.A. in English and Fine Arts from Cornell University in 2007. Her first book, entitled Oppressed by the Notion of Beauty, will be released by December 2009.

Contact: Jesi Bender * Email: jesibender@gmail.com.

By Jesi Bender

Carnality of the crucifix

Our pacifist masochist

We Sublime motherwhore

We Mary, (some magdalenes)

All daughters of the same black Eve

She in us birthed sin

We in turn cradle

Its naissance in our stomachs

Happy violent chasm

Laughter peals like church bells

Or split orange skin

Bear this burden with a grin

Malevolent christchild nucleus (Father)

They were made in His image (Son)

But we are only broken bones (Holy Spirit)

An artist from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Jesi Bender graduated with a B.A. in English and Fine Arts from Cornell University in 2007. Her first book, entitled Oppressed by the Notion of Beauty, will be released by December 2009.

Contact: Jesi Bender * Email: jesibender@gmail.com.