A friend coaxed you to a poem where dark, cloying heat—
honeyed and viscous, glowing in the low sun—

devoured your body. Sky sloshed to night
slurring with rain, sweat glazed and misty—

where your friend turned into another
who told you how they’d abandon you—

stole your gems from Webkinz caverns
that soured you with dark, shuddering and numb.



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, Dead Fern Press, Emerge Literary Journal, Not Deer Magazine, and others. Rachael has two chapbooks forthcoming: Swerve (2021) and MIXTAPES (2021). Above all, she loves dissecting horror films with her fiancé, reading poetry and literary theories, and petting cats. You can find her on Twitter @rachaelapoet for the She-Ra and The Princesses of Power stan club and posting pictures of her cats.