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Resilience | Lia Smith-Redmann

for my cousin Nadia.

 

Peeled back as a baby

to reveal her delicate insides –

heart laid bare.

Someone wished upon her

like a flower and

stripped her of her petals

like the girls in the clubs

thick and rife with fathers of daughters

with everything to drink away

and no idea how to sprout a bulb

and free it from the dirt.

Her feet are planted

but the earth is undressed.

It’s difficult to move a tree

without traumatizing it.

Her name ends

where the hull breaks in two

and drowns what comes after.

And even though the draft missed her

she still went to war.

The fallout happens inside the shelter.

Someone hurt you

with words of a serrated edge

and still broke bread in the dark

with you on their table.

Promises like snapped sand dollars

and half-built houses

that mold in the rain

and crumble

with someone

still sleeping

inside.

 

            Wake up.

Nadia means “hope”

 

Lia Smith-Redmann is a Wisconsin-based writer, dancer, and artist. She is currently pursuing her undergraduate degrees in English and Dance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work has been published in Furrow Magazine, Steam Ticket Journal, The Yahara Journal, and Inkblots Magazine. Her writings for the stage have been performed at the Wisconsin Interscholastic Theatre Festival, Hampshire College, and the Peck School of the Arts’ New Dramaworks Short Play Festival, and have been awarded the Women’s and Gender Studies Award from UW-Milwaukee and second-place in Hampshire College’s Comedic Monologue Competition.

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