I want to travel within a dream and wake up
souvenired I want to have finally reached
an end to my resting I want to find a place
where healing is linear and go there on four wheels,
amused by all of my failed attempts
at sabotage following me with bad names
screaming in synchronicity that I am
on a bad path this path was never meant
for a leisure so now I must
get my farewell and my sprinting intact
inch by inch / mile by mile / I am human
-ly unfortunate
-ly wellness is a blank stare consuming me
in a vacuum I say bonjour and brag about
the beauty of the horizon & lie about
what time I intend to arrive I will be there
soon or at all I am sure I am only girlsick
and that hardly affects the knees
there is no level of cooling or pressure
that will make the correct animal ooze out
I am damned with this mouth
I want to unwrap an order I can be sure about
and for my home to be nearer to my own
ribcage I want one day to have been filled
with all of the fixtures and I scoop them up
one-by-one in a cartoon pail facing a mirage,
I arrive at my destination carrying a lamp,
a scrapbook without faces,
the leg of a gazelle,
its one final antler
Fury and Annabelle

Angel Rosen (she/her) is a queer, neurodivergent poet on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. She is the winner of the 2025 Maureen Seaton Poetry Prize. Angel is passionate about drag, musicals, and loving her friends loudly. Find her work through Rogue Agent, Talon Review, JAKE, and others at angelrosen.com.