What I would tell
the childhood me
may sound contradictory.
Keep your faith,
but be aware.
There are some
who just don’t care.
There are those
who care too much.
They try their best, and still,
every time you talk to them
they make you feel like hell.
Actions speak
louder than words.
Intentions don’t mean shit.
Except to God,
who sees our hearts,
and then, it’s hit and miss.
THINGS YOU CAN REMEMBER
Caitlin McGuire
Her heart beats like rain on a tin-can roof.
You can never remember the face
of the person that hurt you the most.
She can remember the sound
of his voice when he asked
what the fuck do you think you’re doing?
and she can remember the way
her voice couldn’t squeak out anything more than
please don’t do this
She can remember the way his fingers felt
pulling up her skirt, putting his hand between her legs
his hands were hot
and the way her body froze,
unable to defend itself
her thighs were frozen stiff
She can smell the beer on his breath
the bitter hops, the stale tobacco, it’s trite, but it’s true
She can taste what she can smell,
it’s that ingrained in her.
And she can remember the people watching her,
she can remember your sad, stupid face
while you made no move towards her,
even though you were the king of superlatives,
never been more in love than I am with you
the most perfect girl I’ve ever met
the smartest,
the prettiest,
the epitome, the best, the greatest
iloveyou iloveyou iloveyou
She can remember the way that
her body braced itself,
and that Daphne’s myth had left her completely
unprepared for literal rape,
and the fact that the boy on top of her
looked absolutely nothing like Apollo,
or at least nothing like the way they described him
in The Theogony, and she just barely remembers
thinking that she’s probably the only person
that ever contemplated Hesiod before being raped.
And she remembers her savior came
by the way of an opened door
and one of her many best friends yelling
what the fuck do you think you’re doing?
echoing the threat,
but sounding like a hallelujah chorus.
She remembers the brush of air as he
ran out the door, ran out of the room,
and she remembers feeling numb,
and losing contact with the yelling in the room,
mostly aimed at you and your body sitting in the corner.
She remembers that no one touched her after that,
and that you left her, and said
you led them on, you slut, you whore
not the iloveyous she was used to,
not when she needed them the most.
She can see the scars from
burns she gave herself,
and her hipbones jutting out from her body
because nothing tasted good anymore.
There are nights she can’t remember anything,
and these blackouts are a saving grace.
And she remembers all of her friends leaving her,
because she wasn’t the most fun anymore,
just barely more than a shell,
and with everything she remembers,
she can’t remember the face of the boy
who tried to put his fingers inside her
and ruined her for forever.
SOON UPCOMING
Lisa Kilian
The mornings take place on front porches
and the girls sweat in their dresses.
The swamp smell of ponds floats in
the humidity of the wind.
It tangles between the trees and the houses
and with the wooden smell of barbeque comes laughter.
The children run after dogs
screaming,
and the parents slowly sip picnic beers
while the water drips down to the table
leaving a ringed reminder.
The heat grows so thick and
twines in between our fingers,
wraps around our movement,
suffocates,
and all we can do is sit.
The pavement is too hot for our feet and
What I would tell
the childhood me
may sound contradictory.
Keep your faith,
but be aware.
There are some
who just don’t care.
There are those
who care too much.
They try their best, and still,
every time you talk to them
they make you feel like hell.
Actions speak
louder than words.
Intentions don’t mean shit.
Except to God,
who sees our hearts,
and then, it’s hit and miss.
Maurice - Stephen Snow
