Woke early\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 beige<\/p>\n
bedroom autoclave\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 came straddling<\/p>\n
my palm\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ghost-fingered<\/p>\n
against the wall.<\/p>\n
Pinning my heart against my life<\/p>\n
and smiling<\/p>\n
at the rope burn. There is so much `<\/p>\n
I want to tell you: about the weather<\/p>\n
of bygone carpets\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the way rain jumps<\/p>\n
frightened\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 closer to the sea. But I was given<\/p>\n
only this narrow mouth and a flightless<\/p>\n
borrowed gut and I took nothing. Nothing.<\/p>\n
Each morning a set of teeth<\/p>\n
sharpening into graveyards\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 incantation<\/p>\n
for kneading out the edges. On the other side<\/p>\n
of my walled-up fist\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 a voice was howling song<\/p>\n
about the questionable placement<\/p>\n
of your fonder heart. I imagined<\/p>\n
the voice had freckles<\/p>\n
some gentle street witch<\/p>\n
unwinding lust like a watch.<\/p>\n
We have known each other so long:<\/p>\n
since we were cells winking<\/p>\n
across the meaty breast of the same<\/p>\n
stegosaurus. If I can\u2019t take you<\/p>\n
for a liar or lover\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will take only<\/p>\n
what I\u2019ve given. Only my own clumsy<\/p>\n
blessed giving. I will call it choice<\/p>\n
and it will water me<\/p>\n
back to sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n
Erin Slaughter<\/strong> is editor and co-founder of literary journal The Hunger,<\/em> and the author of two poetry chapbooks: GIRLFIRE (dancing girl press, 2018) and Elegy for the Body (Slash Pine Press, 2017). Her first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming from New Rivers Press in 2019. You can find her writing in Prairie Schooner, Passages North, Cosmonauts Avenue, F(r)iction<\/em>, and elsewhere. Originally from north Texas, she is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Woke early\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 beige bedroom autoclave\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 came straddling my palm\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ghost-fingered against the wall. Pinning my heart against my life and smiling at the rope burn. There is so much ` I want to tell you: about the weather of bygone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9926],"tags":[22116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882"}],"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=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1888,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/1888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}