Tourniquet
I. Honey Blood and Milk Bone
A phillumenist on a bicycle
peddles boxes of inward light.
He measures divinity and tears dresses.
A bean of a girl peels petals apart
he loves me, he loves me not,
he loves me, he loves me not.
Plucking something pretty to death to figure it out.
Her gaggle cries out to the phillumenist
“Match maker, match maker, make me a match.”
In his irresistible rambunctious perusal of the eyelash cupcake,
he throws her a book of matches.
His lackadaisical ruminations walk the balance beam
peals out of the parking lot until emerges his yellowbellied, lilylivered lilt
with which he howls, “All colors make me happy, even gray.”
Then ice, silent air.
A cloutish freak appears, someone who pronounces the “r” in February
and the “dnes” in Wednesday, to give the phillumenist a peace
of his mind. “The solarium sanitarium eludes us. Its mist wrist poppycocks.
Its chimes at the feigned vulgarian of Dwelt Svelte.”
Where is the phlebotomist?
A curio sunburst persists.
The bean girl cries until the stillicide.
In which, we all go tumbling down.
II. Gospel
Get to the church on time the phillumenist cries.
No, no, no the bean girl cries.
In flowers oozing moonlight we all go tumbling down
until the stillicide and its warbling immensity!
Towards the palaces that are splayed, stumbling into wonder,
the bean girl cries. A curio sunburst persists.
Meandering through the crinkles of a thin sheen.
The bean girl cries: “The solarium sanitarium eludes us”
The phillumenist gives a peace of mind to a cloutish freak.
“Match maker, match maker, make me a match.”
Together, they light the whole thing on fire.
She begins living with a messy face, dancing in red shoes,
pondering the laughter of the sphinx, how it peals out in ribbons.
The bean girl: a rebel two times over, she sits with chic urchins now.
New gaggling geese. Where is the phlebotomist?
To figure it out, pluck something pretty to death.
He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.
A bean of a girl peals petals apart wearing a tourniquet
for honey blood and milk bones.
III. Sour Dirt
Where is the phlebotomist?
A bean of a girl peals petals apart.
Plucking something pretty to death.
She sits with the sphinx now, both living with messy faces.
“Match maker, match maker, make me a match.”
She lights one, throws one, lights one again.
The eyelash cupcake is on the balance beam.
That was all she ever wanted, until the cloutish freak howls,
“thin ice, silent air.” The bean girl cries
towards the palaces that are splayed
until the stillicide.
IV. Dry Flesh
Tumbling down the stillicide
tearing her already-torn dress
she cries pathetically
he loves me, he loves me not,
he loves me, he loves me not.
To figure it out: rebel two times over, dance in red shoes.
Her gaggle cries out to the phillumenist
and his irresistible rambunctious perusal
of the spleens, he licks with his yellowbellied, lilylivered lilt
“All colors make me happy, even gray.”
Where is the phlebotomist?
A cloutish freak appears, to give the phillumenist peace:
“The solarium sanitarium eludes us.”
Those who meander through the crinkles of a thin sheen
chime in the feigned vulgarian language of a curio sunburst persisting
and stumbling into wonder, out in warbling immensity!
In which, we all tremble, seriously.
Get to the church.
V. Hemophilia
A purge came in on a rockslide spewing squares of outward darkness.
The phillumenist lets loose with unholy softness and intact fibers.
A stalk of a boy molds fronds together.
She hates me, she hates me not, she hates me, she hates me not.
Pushing nothing ugly into life to unknow it.
He sits with slovenly behemoths complacently neglecting the terror that is the opposite of an
enigma. Standing still in blue gloves
dying with a clean bottom, his singularity whispers to the purge,
“separator, separator, destroy all pairs.”
In his lackluster, dull apathy the toe nail tectonic plates are crashing.
Disrespecting the terrible baldness of the cloutish freak, accepting the confining Samaritans.
Where is the phlebotomist?
The bean girl talks in sophisticated jabbing spheres.
Her enthusiastic unconscious falls into a hole and in crawls her green thumb brusqueness
with which she whispers, “All monotones makes me sad, even yellow.”
Then fire, loud earth.
A caressing normality disappears.
There are now none who silence the numbers in infinity and 0 and none who give the purge a
violence in its heart.
“The somnambulist trash heap understands and assures us,” cries the cloutish freak.
The bean girl runs through the smooth, thick dullness.
Clear ankles, she growls at the assured decency of the stalk boy. A mass-produced moon
collapse ends.
The stalk of a boy whispers and proudly struts into the expected
away from the hovels that are collected in monotone gentleness.
Before action, none of them levitate above
the hardened dinosaurs or the light-hearted sunlight.
Don’t do anything, the bean girl cries.
Lily Rose Kosmicki is a person, beekeeper, and librarian at the public library and by night she is a collector of dreams. Her zine Dream Zine won a Broken Pencil Zine Award for Best Art Zine 2018. Her chapbook entitled "Eyelash Atlas" is forthcoming from Francis House. Her work appears in The Raw Art Review, Bombay Gin, Interim, Seisma Magazine, and elsewhere.