THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN I’VE KNOWN by Rose McCoy (West Virginia)

were the most traumatized /
I used to swallow their stories with all the ease /
of an untrained fire-eater /
their residue, secondhand spit

The most beautiful women I’ve known /
were the most traumatized--
and me with them /
does that make me beautiful, too?

​The most traumatized women I’ve known /
​were the most beautiful /
but not because of the trauma, no /
the trauma was ugly, unyielding /

tried to kill them all at least once /
usually more /
and me (again) with them, cuz /
I never learned how not to get attached

For all the hurt women I’ve loved /
I still swim in my suffering /
plastered with pain /
bone-deep in buckets of memory
​
I didn’t learn /
how to save myself /
either



Rose McCoy (she/her) is a poet and writer from Morgantown, West Virginia. She often writes on themes of love, loss, and other things that hit her in the heart. She has been published by Graphic Violence Lit, Free Spirit Publishing, Cathartic Youth Lit, and Bullshit Lit, and her debut chapbook, Sink or Swim: Reflections on an Ending, was published through Bottlecap Press in April. When not writing, she can probably be found screaming into the void as she has an existential crisis. Writing updates can be found on her Twitter @24hrmccoy.