I was
the girl of the altar call,
knees bent and tears streaming,
god’s chosen for memorizing Bible verses faster than the boys;
the girl of gossip and drama,
of secrets and bullying.
Always the one saying
Did you hear about her?
Yes! She did! It was with him I’m pretty sure…
and other probably untrue things.
the one wishing
on eyelashes, dandelion puffs, and birthday candles
that the dead could rise
and bruises be undone
the one
with embers-of-the-fire eyes
with the chicken pox scar on her forehead
with crooked toes and clumsy luck
with thick tattooed thighs
and a body that takes up more space than women are allowed
with feathers in her eyes
with sour lemonade blood
and a fluttering hummingbird in her chest.
with wings for feet and bricks for heart
each I love you a wish to some genie in a forbidden whisper
each I’ll never leave a question, a thesis maybe? that’ll
never be graded
each sleepy snore, each sluggish sneak out the door
another cry for a hummingbird nest
at the tallest, highest
tree in the forbidden forest behind Cinderella’s castle
behind every broken glass slipper
behind every finger pricked bloody by
a rose thorn or spinning wheel spindle
as if love doesn’t hurt,
as if love could save someone like her
as if…
There is no point. It is
or it isn’t or
it is what it is and her hand in your hand
never altered the axis of the earth,
only stuck feathers in a nest for pillows
and tucked hair behind her ear
and poured her a glass of lemonade as you both watched the sunset
over a field of rotting lemons
that sour death
that bird hunting dog
that pumpkin at midnight
that axe by the tree.
Chloé McMurray is a recent MFA graduate from Lindenwood University. Previously, she graduated from Union College with her Bachelors Degrees in English and Sociology. She won the Rushton Writing Competition for Poetry in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Her poetry has been featured in Anti-Heroin Chic, The Underground, The Pikeville Review, The Albion Review, and more. Currently, she works in the middle of a cornfield--AKA: the University of Illinois Springfield. Her five greatest joys in life are social justice, peanut butter, otters, her fur babies--Scully, Odie, and Ellie--and her partner Ashley, most often in that order
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