My Safe Word is Harder - Book by McKenna Clarke

Rlysrs Lit’s inaugural publication features McKenna Clarke’s debut poetry collection: My Safe Word Is Harder. This throat-punch compels you to live your truth and accept the value of its resin; handling topics such as mental health, relationships, addiction, loss, and the pursuit of connection, with all sincerity. Even though, essentially, “composure is bullshit.”

“Staring hard at vulnerabilities and refusing to look away, these poems invite us to be radically uncomfortable and to confront what it might mean to transcend ourselves. With Clarke, we can fantasize about a beautiful death, about lovers who don’t use us as means to their pathetic ends, about highs that don’t wear off and leave us feeling broken, about automutilation that can show us ourselves—knowing all the while that our fantasies can’t save us. I needed this book and its honesty. I needed these poems.”

Lindsay Lerman, author of I’m From Nowhere (CLASH Books)