Unnaming

Mahtab Chaudhry

 

aug 2020

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after “Lilith and Eve” by Yuri Klapouh Let us turn now towards some gentle reckoning wherein we may suffer love and rewrite that which was unwritten: stained and weeping ichor, my lungs beating holey wings, heart beating I am not holy I am not holy I am not holy. This too is an unmarked grave. And before, lounging spiteful and true draped across your legs, a spitfire but no less tender for it. As if we could remain stones unturned. As if singular devotion ever goes unpunished. I wonder now if you were taken from my rib. You must have been, or I from yours — And God damn it, I want back inside of you. To nestle right between your spine-bones and bloom something brutal. I’ve never been the type to beg but to get back up to you I’d crawl and spit blood, a mad thing. I’ll move heaven. Failing that, I’ll raise hell. They say I left, willful and proud. This is a lie, of course. I fell screaming your name.
 

MAHTAB CHAUDHRY IS FROM ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, AND STUDIES IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS.

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