I Wanted to Keep My Home

I didn’t mean to drag that rope
Through the house
I was fourteen and tired

Draggin’ that rope
Is the only thing I was good at

I didn’t mean to make it loop,
A cowboy’s noose
Rounding up everything in its path

Caught my family and the backyard’s
Maggots in that thing

I wasn’t sure how to let it go
The weight was unbearable
I couldn't fit through the door

The furniture got roped up
So did my casket clothes

I knew the maggots were quick to act
Holding onto that house
Made everything deteriorate sooner

Cylie Jackson is an up-and-coming writer from Texas who is currently studying abroad in the Czech Republic. When she’s not travelling (whether it be to another country, or down a conspiracy–induced rabbit hole), she’s working on poetry and fiction projects which focus on familial relationships, childhood identity, mythology, and life in the South. Her work has most recently been accepted for publication in Literary Mama, Siren and Hound Magazine, and the Eunoia Review.