I Am Not an Obligation

By Nix Carlson

I am not a task to check off. 

A calendar notification. 

Food to eat the day before it caves 

to rotten fuzz. 

I am worth more than the voice that thrums 

in the back of your mind, the din stilled 

by molasses liquor. 

I am not a starlit confession, 

but the finger-brush silence to follow. 

Not skin to temper your lonely ache, lips 

to soothe your bleeding brow. I am soft, 

yellow blooms under your touch. 

I am worth more than the dog you chained 

to your dying family tree, abused to submit 

to your beck and call. 

I am an icepick wedged between your eyes. 

Dirt under your fingernails dragging you, 

back to the graveyard, 

thick with a harvest of regrets. 

The blue ink under your eyelids,

cigarette smoke ghosting around your tongue, 

the burn on your palm. 

Solace between metronome clicks.

I am the fix you crave, 

inhale me. 

And –  

Don’t mistake me for someone

you can put down. 

Quit. 

THE VISE OF A VICE

Write a poem in which your voice becomes irresistible to a listener. Imagine you’re singing, speaking, or whispering directly to them—pulling them closer despite their better judgment. How do you make your language seductive—through rhythm, rhyme, repetition, or imagery that coils like water around them? End with a turn: what’s the cost of being heard this way—for them, or for you?

By Nix Carlson