Dad Taught Me the Lyrics to Everything Sung by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Emily Falkowski is a queer tattooer and multidisciplinary artist who believes all bodies are disgusting and holy. Her work meditates on wounds and the unyielding light that pours from them. Her recent publications include Black Warrior Review, Gone Lawn, Wild Roof, and Suspended Magazine. She is currently based out of her boyfriend’s Subaru Forester. You can find more of her work on Instagram @tattoosbyemilyfalkowski

The sun, he come, the world/is all full of love
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice/But to carry on
- Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

Mary clutches the barely lifeless
corpse of God.

I fell asleep every night a child - Dad’s gorgeous shadow
Filling the doorframe, or sitting on the shag carpet
beside my twin bed, holding his guitar in his lap,
with tender desperation

The rock blocking the cave of the garden tomb.

He turned water into whiskey and drowned.

Dad - Tell me:

The nights Dad didn’t sing

The sky is clearing.

Threw his hands into walls, pulled splinters
from his swollen knuckles.
Spat teeth into the sink, screamed promises:

We have no choice, but to carry on/Love is coming

Love is coming for us all/The sky is clearing.

Love is coming for us all.

The night has cried enough

It doesn’t matter.

Dad’s fingers on the guitar frets
still call to his children one by one by one:

Mom packs up everything important:

except her three children,
threatening to leave again.

I am kneeling on the floor

in front of the living room window
ribs splayed open - wings
begging Dad to move
my heart aside -

We don’t pray to things we don’t fear:

A godless resurrection:

Where are you going now my love/Where will we be tomorrow?