Writer of the Quarantine: Averi Little

Hi, my name is Averi Little! I am a 14-year-old local poet. I have recently started to share my poetry through a project called BAFA zine and at an open mic night in Paseo. BAFA (by ALL(Averi Love Little) for all) is a zine that I’ve put together each month since March 2020 containing three original poems. I’ve been writing since I was 12 years old, and I think I would like to make a career out of it in some way. Writing has been a way for me to grow and expand my mindset. It helps me arrange and make sense of my thoughts. It is an expression of emotions and thoughts that no other art form could give me. This piece is about substance abuse and how abusing substance can let us create our truth so that we can hide from the truth that may be painful.
i’ll nurse you until I bleed out
i’ll love you until my lips turn to knives
digging into my soul at the cost of love

sip by sip

i hear nothing but a whisper
i hear everything but the ghosts
desperately invading the black bloodbath of night
halting the scene of the crime—

love is the sharpest knife i know

sip by sip

i paint my own stars
shining with a lack of sincerity—
I release myself from the truth
for she never loved me
as kindly as my bottle of lies

we stand at the edge of our tongues
waiting to slip through gritted teeth
who know this death too well

dancing down this chest
where love remains concealed
i begin to carve into this heart
where sustenance remains undiscovered

for only the dead know
my bottle of lies

This article appears in Alcoholmanac 2020.