ANXIOUS DIVA <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My body: the most public yet
of my many humiliations.
Shame manifest as flab
that I\u2019m convincing myself I should
love, I should touch, as though<\/p>\n
it is money, my lovely
lottery lumps. Now accepting plastic:
Discover, American Express corporate.
Now enduring: street harassment, honey,
lemon, water. When I call out<\/p>\n
sick, it\u2019s like, what\u2014
dress someone else\u2019s hands up
like mine and take a picture?
Every woman needs a body
double, a second body to shove<\/p>\n
her trauma onto. A pack mule.
Anxious Diva, will you carry
my mnemonic corpse? Hold still
and brace your shoulders.
Don\u2019t move, I\u2019ll grab the shovel.<\/p>\n
(Are you disgusted yet? Go ahead,
look away with your brothers.)
My body grows larger every time I
suppress a memory. The overdeveloped
woman, the largest capital venture.<\/p>\n
I will not invest in my body.
Anxious Diva will not
invest in my body. Hold that
pose, steady, pivot toward the light
\u2014there it is! We got the shot.<\/p>\n\n\n
ANXIOUS DIVA <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know what a man looks like when he wants
to play games quietly. Anxious Diva,<\/p>\n
I eat his words like saltwater taffy. Fraudulent Queen,
I remove my aptitude from its waterproof case. Emergency
Goddess, confiscate my finger from the replay button!<\/p>\n
I showcase my lips, and my hysterical self
has already come. The mirrored crystal glass
on the bedside table shows a gossamer child.<\/p>\n
Diva lied to me about seduction\u2014
and here is the truth, the driest eureka:
I\u2019ve lured myself into the man\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n
How addictive, to use my body
to teach myself to love him, his little narcotic.<\/p>\n
Obsessed with the tremor of his mouth
into glad ruination, seeing to it as my job.<\/p>\n
Commence my auto-assassination.<\/p>\n
Dreams have never been so bereft,
my waking life defined by his presence
whenever I can get it, however often\u2014<\/p>\n
I\u2019m contaminated and licking the wounds swollen.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sleepwalking to and from the edge
of the bridge, toying with the idea of the jump.<\/p>\n
My question is pitiful: who allows me to stay?
My lily white drama, my fitful sleep.<\/p>\n
Digging through myself to find blame\u2014<\/p>\n
this was where my scent originated, here is
where I store my foolishness, my ability
to fall and fall.<\/p>\n
Which is your favorite part of me? I will destroy it.<\/p>\n\n\n
Hannah Kucharzak<\/strong> is a poet and visual artist living in Chicago. Her poems have been most recently published, or are forthcoming, in TYPO, Pleiades, Pinwheel,<\/em> and Ghost Proposal.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ANXIOUS DIVA My body: the most public yetof my many humiliations.Shame manifest as flabthat I\u2019m convincing myself I shouldlove, I should touch, as though it is money, my lovelylottery lumps. Now accepting plastic:Discover, American Express corporate.Now enduring: street harassment, honey,lemon,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9926],"tags":[22219],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1099"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1099\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}