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Come and bring your heart to the alter
I am an eternal Father’s daughter. A sacrilegious offering to a God Searching for cardinal glory Prayers made upon grazed knees Pressed against the pew’s hard tuffet While leaden lies escape priestly lips. An offer of eternal salvation In exchange for some ungodly transformation. Devour me whole, for I denounce no sinners And mine cannot be confessed. Yesterday the woman called a hotline, asked for Jane and talked long
as the making and baking of bread, today as the sun prods knives in her face she invisibles past cherry tree sentries, avoiding the rollerskating child and young girl toiling with a pram, trembling her hand against an unmarked door, she is supported down chattering steps to a cellar, where they blindfold her so she can’t bear witness to those who don’t exist yet will do what she’s chosen; the hands of a school teacher gentle her to a bed and she gasps at the speculum and cold paste, There is nothing more excruciating than rejection. Holding your heart out on a platter, offering it
to one whose soul you see mirrored in your own, only to be told no. No, it’s not good enough. You are not good enough. You are not enough. The sting burrows its way inside, not content to settle just under the skin, but needling deep into the void where your heart used to be, before it was ripped out. That’s what I was reflecting on, anyway, when a voice interrupted my thoughts. “Is this seat taken?” The young woman, about my age, already had her hands on the empty chair across from me. For only the briefest second, I thought she wanted to sit there, but then she pulled towards herself an inch to make clear the chair was going with her. I’m aghast, my love,
That I missed you again this time around. It simply can’t be helped. Old friends of mine, growing older still, Are tying the knot in Savannah In a manor much like yourself. I think you’d like her, visage all stately pillars, Proud copper plaque on her breast.
In so many ways, the words we say
to ourselves in the face of sticky-note-bedecked standing mirrors, or bathroom zoom-in zit-checkers, or car door reflections is that beauty is a radish plucked too early, as a microgreen, because we say to ourselves it’s healthier to eat them in that state. I didn’t grow in the way I was supposed to—small breasts, narrow hips, hirsute arms-- so the boys in my Grade 7 class, between their games of bloody knuckles and scheduled AXE bodyspray applications (misogyny scented!) would tell me I looked like a “Saquatch,” and I’d have to tell them they were missing a letter, that they might find it later on in life. they’d laugh and tell me I was missing a chromosome. Should I (22M) be concerned about my girlfriends (20F) past promiscuity? Or is it just a
phase I (23M) felt jealous of my girlfriend (21F) and left the party early I (26M) destroyed my gf's (24F) plants in a fit of rage and I think she may leave me My GF (26F) broke down into tears the other day saying that she feels like she is being raped when I (28M) have sex with her, and I don’t know how to deal with my feelings about myself since then I (32M) called my wife (30F) fat during an argument and now she’s not eating My (42M) wife (40F) is getting over-controlling. Is it time to say something about it? Yesterday I turned 25.
The sky is a dark bruise, October was a landslide. I am playing an old song In a hollowed-out kitchen. It’s a storm-soaked afternoon and I am waking up reeling in the lonely blue, The unyielding penumbra of youth: Here are decisions Did god create
Eve small? Her half-ribcage full. Why me? Why me? What to do with small hands, small feet? Brother, how dare you order me to stop to tuck my wrath
away like a silk glove in a pocket when my child is painted with fingerprints cold lips blood-red shoved down her throat. you order your sister but not your brother to give my daughter her stolen life Brother, count the screams of maidens you have heard today-- they are virgins no more. |