maybe an archaic spring
misfortunes lining my skirt,
kerning broken.
lived within like an angry guest,
chopping wood, carrying
water to my condolences
and wired misleadings to a
bed where this body is wreathed
like a Puritan.
they’ll send me via pantomime,
my debauchery
and my head coming loose here.
i am a child lost,
and a mother that’s
miscarried, white dress, lace front
to be nullified in France.
slack-jawed, nuanced deftly,
fashionable dirt-covered
renderings formulated.
perfume coating this body
made of sawdust, this body
that hasn’t been tilled.
my modest wrists, a folk song
sung too soon, lovers
instability as a
lifeline concerning
compulsion and brevity.
queued in the mezzanine,
daisies lining the beams of my
formulated habitual
emptiness, seceding
my window-pane eyes and
moth-filled heart.
and if a new lover taught
you how to love,
how kind would she be?
thoughts from this morning
if only salience and discretion came to me sooner
i would regurgitate every conversation between us,
spit them back in your face and i’d only talk about abuse survivors,
and feminism, and how my mother is my favorite person
if only i hadn’t taught myself to normalize lack of respect,
specifically from a man and most importantly from a lover.
i should have seen this in the way his father spoke to his mother,
she was always silent and afraid of how vocal my hair colors were
if only i had said something sooner, and i’m sorry i didn’t,
maybe then i wouldn’t be asked ten times over
why i stayed, and reminded of every night i tried to leave.
i have been condensed to a relic.
if only i didn’t have to contemplate transience,
how three years was confined into twenty minutes
and a stain on the carpet, and a black and blue body.
i guess nobody remembers how he stalked me every time i left
if only i didn’t look over my shoulder every hour.
i think about how i’d like to kill him sometimes,
how i have been removed from too many selves,
and i keep thinking about the women who haven’t been
Grace Farmer is currently a student at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith working on a Bachelor's degree in Studio Art and Creative Writing. She has previously been published in her school's literary journal, Applause.