by Vanessa Martinez Rivero | April 30, 2026 | psalm

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Creep

            The time will come when I have to flow into the oceans,

            blend my turbid waters,

            silence my luminous song.

                                                Javier Heraud

I wish I could go with the spectres upon which the nation fell,

but I’ve surrounded myself with fire

and can’t be

            simply

            nothing but a flamethrower.

My long tail must open a single path

toward the border,

to this criminal route

into which my Pacifics pour.

I don’t trust the stretch of the ghostly herrings I swallowed;

they’re sick, cold,

filled with the crimson blood eaten by my dead.

I don’t trust,

that’s why I must follow the tar in Vulcano

            close to the sun of the port.

I will mutate my cutis and drink from the sea.

I will stretch my back.

I will play with the little boats and set their sails on fire.

Then your excited Lilliputians will drug my...