COMMUNION

by Chelsea Tadeyeske

someone told me
you can smell when rain
is pretending to be weather
it's a little bit sweet

my thighs make
a different sound in summer
this feels important

i swallow gum
to remember being
twelve

still waking up
is the most
i've told anyone this year

a plant i attempted to save
is dying politely in my kitchen

there's something noble about damp fabric
trying to do its job

the spider near my shower
never builds anything

we understand each other

this is the most adult
i've ever felt

Chelsea Tadeyeske is a poet and book maker from Milwaukee, WI where she co-edits pitymilk press and curates poetry readings in her apartment, The Bell Tower. She is the author of several chapbooks including If You Bend It Backwards Nothing Really Happens (Rabbit Catastrophe Press, 2017), Princess Diana (Bathmatics, 2019), Island Weather (pitymilk press, 2022) and Orange Poems (pitymilk press, 2024). She is a Virgo sun, Libra rising, and Aquarius moon born in the year of the snake.