I wear my dead aunt’s jewelry to a halloween party

and tell myself she would have wanted it. She would have wanted

an invite really, or to not be dead. I am alive

and burdened with needing to do something about it.

I am measuring the days by the crunch of tires on the driveway.

Down the highway past the stop that isn't hers anymore,

past a hospital brimming with sterile motion, cars honking like

the steady beeping of some machinery. I am

taking survey of my organs searching for traitors,

for my death hiding in wait around the curve of a blood vessel

or the irregular breath of an eager lung.

Perhaps it will be the metal jaws of the car. Screeching asphalt,

or the toxins of strange pipes, or the violent hands of strangers

or lovers. Death hidden in the choke of food at the supermarket,

the millions of microplastics, the heart sped up like an egg timer

that threatens to shut itself off. And yet I am

speeding screaming laughing fucking my way

straight through.

***

Syd Shaw writes about love, witchcraft, and body horror. She is Assistant Poetry Editor at Passengers Journal, and has a degree in creative writing from Northwestern University. Syd has previously been published in Cathexis Northwest, Sad Girls Club, Ember Chasm, Waxing & Waning, Eclectica Magazine, Panoply Zine, and The London Reader, among others. Her passions include tarot, guitar, and aerial silks. She can be found online at https://sydshaw.carrd.co/.