raised in the wrong ways
I’ve never been any good at fire-safety
because I was raised to be a sacrifice
by men who explode & the word belief
by women who bleed one way or another-
mother… he threatened to slit his throat
in front of us when we tried to leave.
why deliver us through water
to burn
up in a family like this?
Shaun Hill is a queer poet living in the Midlands. His work has previously been published in Eighty-Four: Poems on Male Suicide (Verve), and is forthcoming in The Projectionist’s Playground. Find him on Instagram @warmbloodedthing.