2 Poems
By Jillian Thomas
• • •
outlive, outlast
life cannot be separated from death-
the same gods that were there at the dawn of the earth
were there when jesus was crucified before all he’d ever known
& the chicken and the egg were grown in the same womb
it means that yesterday bleeds into today bleeds into tomorrow
bleeds into my crying eyes, salting my dying hamster
(i know they only live for a year)
mothers hold children hanging off their breasts
as their own mothers lay dying in their beds,
generational rebirth with the youngest mother nursing
her childhood in the same room as her child.
tangible proof that nothing lasts forever.
the california redwoods have seen thousands of lovers,
waxing poetic about how the trees are here forever–
if only they knew how wrong they were.
birds nest in between rotting branches, castles collapsing into sand,
reborn anew as ships ferrying into a velvet, starless night
//
i tried to hold a baby bunny in my front yard once, but
it knew i was masquerading as its mother, b/c even bunnies learn about stranger danger.
i never saw the bunny again, but i might have seen its mother be devoured
by a snake down at the creek.
her blood, nourishment for infant reptiles
& we undercut the importance of predators, we villainize them
into a universal disclaimer for our youth
while conveniently forgetting
that we are the prime predator of our ecosystem, we kill without mercy
and feed mother chickens to our own flesh & blood
//
i read about this thing the other day, where people’s ashes
are molded into seed pods, and planted right next to the elderly
redwoods, infants under the feet of their mothers again
i told my [own] mother i want to be buried that way,
offering myself to mother nature, growing until my skin has a purpose again
and she said it was much too early to be thinking like that,
but i reminded her that i almost died nine months ago and then
she remembered that she almost outlived // outlasted her youngest daughter.
search terms of a high schooler in the pandemic
how many tylenols will it take to put a 5’4” 100 pound teenage girl to sleep for good / can a fifteen year old get a boob job without her parents permission / long term effects of early exposure to pornography / louis tomlinson and harry styles fanfiction / am i gay quiz / what happens if i like girls and boys / will god still love me / what does judaism say about gay people / how to stop being gay / how to stop being sad / how to write a poem / what is a metaphor / why is my mother a metaphor herself / wikihow to tell your best friend you like her after 3 years / i know the end by phoebe bridgers 10 hour repeat / can you be addicted to a song / can a girl use they them pronouns / how to write a coming out letter / how to love my mother after her love turns conditional / can i become an astronaut / how easy is it to die in space / can girls walk on the moon / can girls love girls hating themselves / how to tell your dad he set the movement back 50 years / how to undo a lie / how to ask my best friend out / how to ask my best friend if he is gay / was plato right that courage lies in preservation / was sisyphus really happy / can i ever be happy / symptoms of depression / symptoms of anxiety / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / what happens to a hero who never dies / did phoebe bridgers write me into existence / taylor swift snl monologue song / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / terms and conditions of being a daughter / why is a tomato a fruit / what other vegetables are fruit / why can’t december lend february a few days / when is the next eclipse / can i see the auroria borealis from my depression room / why do men only want nudes / who let sigmund freud exist / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / why didn’t my parents tell me i was autistic / what happens to gifted kids during a pandemic / what if i peaked when i was three / wikihow to cover self harm scars / how to sharpen a knife / exacto knives on amazon / how to stop overthinking / how to dress a self-inflicted wound / no, instagram, i do not need support / self harm scars reddit / proana on tumblr (if my fbi agent is watching it is just for research i swear) / how to tell my therapist i need to go to the psych ward / how to tell my mom i was bleeding last night at dinner / geometry practice proofs / how to kill yourself / bdsmtest.org / rice purity test / political compass test / how to destroy a racist online / how to tell someone i am jewish when israel is committing genocide / how to respectfully tell someone to fuck off / what if that person is my mother / insert vague description of a book i liked once / harry styles concert tickets / how close are we to time travel / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / does practice really make perfect / does it just sully spontaneity / how to pray for beginners / can god exist at the same time as the big bang / how to block someone on instagram / how to delete a death threat / how to eat at the table with my family / can bloody girls take deep breaths / why are some fish bioluminescent / why couldn’t i be born a fish / how much of the bible is real / how much of my reality is fake / how much can you see your ribs until it is dangerous / pink hair dye / eyeliner / emo vintage y2k wardrobe shein / is shifting real / can someone love me in a maladaptive way / cottagecore&light academia&dark academia&royal silk / when can i use a semicolon / can i use it in between the afterlife and the sun / am i going to hell / am i a narcissist / can i be a narcissist if i think i am / do i have ocd / do i have ocd / will the world end when i am gone / will it begin
• • •
Jillian is a 17 year old poet from Pennsylvania, who writes about mental health and outer space, among other things. She has been published in Zhagaram Lit, Footprints on Jupiter, and Mollusk Lit, among others. In her free time, she listens to the Hamilton soundtrack, skis, and plays chess (badly).
