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Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t just been the backseat of your car,
Intoxicated. My first drunk hook up. My first. Period.
I picture myself being champagne on Valentine’s Day.
I picture myself being you, nervous in the car, holding Starbucks
because you know I love coffee. Sometimes, I picture myself as her,
calling you a stalker and ignoring your calls,
but then I see myself. I call you beautiful,
turn you into poetry, laugh at your bad jokes,
I see myself as I become your drunk Wednesday night
when you’re sad. I see myself as I say no,
I become a “this is not a good idea”
and you a “we’ll deal with the consequences in the morning.”
We laugh because this hurts too much.
You take her out for dinner and I burrow money
for Plan B because you forgot you don’t like condoms
and clearly have no idea how children are made.
I have already named him. He has your curls and
my anxiety. He is smart. Except, I never wanted kids and
you would be a great father. Instead, you tell her
the beach reminds you of her and I cry in a McDonald’s
bathroom with my friend as relief floods through me that
the test comes negative. I stop talking to you,
move forward, meet someone new and before long
see myself becoming you. Because isn’t that the cycle?
Bad men turn good women into bad women who turn
good men into bad men. I’ll set him free so he can hurt
someone like me, and I drink red wine as I read her
poems about him and me.
She belonged to him, no other man,
So he said to her each day she left.
To sell the eggs and the dress she made,
To pull them from the line of the poor.

On the way to town each day she passed,
The rings of County Tipperary.
The ancient rings that live the wee folk,
Who dance in moonlight and trick us all.

That day she waited to see her kin,
But she left no gift to please the old.
So home she came with arms still heavy,
and a chest that weighed a cough so foul.  

“My Bridget” as he knelt by her bed,
Holding her hand as it shook with cold.
In the crack of the flame voices he heard
To hang him from his grief with despair.

The news he heard was of his father
Whom died the evening he felt alone.
Mr Cleary swore and slammed his fist.
“Midnight tonight or Bridget is lost!”

The men in village knew the tale,
Of the wee folk who cursed Bridget.
The woman in the Cleary home bed,
Was an echo of the wife he loved.

They held her down and asked her, her name,
She screamed and growled but did not reply,
Three times they asked and still she refused.
So tight the grips they beat her to sleep.

The morning arrived, Bridget awoke,
To her husband who looked upon her.
His eyes full of loss and fear as-well,
“my Bridget?” he asked “are they gone now?”

She smiled and agreed, she was alone,
So the priest came to deliver mass.
Mr Cleary agreed and drank from the cup
But he knew that his wife was not home.

He asked her again, three more times; “Speak,
Your name to me now, are you my wife?”
Each time she replied “It is I, Yes.”
Michael still knew his wife was away.

That evening men from the town arrived  
And took Bridget deep into the bog,
Where they bound her and lay her down flat,
As she screamed for her husband to help.

“It is I, It is me, Your sweet wife,
Believe me my husband I am here,
No faerie has seized my soul from me,
No witch has uttered a devil curse.”

Her mouth was covered and bound so tight
Her screams were made only with her eyes.
In front of the men, Michael asked her.
“Are you my wife? My Bridget Cleary?”

No voice or reply came from the girl.
Her body lay still in the bog land.
So onto a bed of wood she was placed,
And burned in the cold evening moon light.

The story was told through the village,
That Bridget had fled with another,
A man who bought all her eggs each week,
But not everyone believed this tale.

The priest of the village found Michael,
Praying blood, sweat and tears in the church.
He told him the fairies had taken,
The changeling they had placed there before.    

The priest told the men of the Garda
That ****** was rife in this village.
That men had taken a sick women
And burned her to death in the bog land.

Michael was guilty of Manslaughter
No conviction of ****** was passed
For the people believed his story,
The woman who burned was not his wife  

To this day the rings of Tipperary
Still grow foxglove and weeds in the cracks,
The Faerie mounds are feared like darkness
And steered clear of, by those who live near.

Even now it is heard in the school,
By the children who skip on the rope.
“Are you a witch, or are you a fairy,
Or are you the wife of Michael Cleary?”
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but now it's come to distances and both of us must try,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I'm not looking for another as I wander in my time,
walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me,
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea,

but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm,
yes many loved before us, I know that we are not new,
in city and in forest they smiled like me and you,
but let's not talk of love or chains and things we can't
untie,
your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.
She gives him his eyes, she found them
Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin
He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her
She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists
They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully
And sets them in perfect order
A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired
She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing
Incredulous

Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them
So that his whole body lights up

And he has fashioned her new hips
With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled
He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily
To test each new thing at each new step

And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull
So that the joints are invisible

And now he connects her throat, her ******* and the pit of her stomach
With a single wire

She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment
Like two gods of mud
Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care
They bring each other to perfection.
Fire rose in the wood
A sudden flowering bloom
From Summer's dry depths
By lightning pollinated
Spreading seeds of choking ash
 Jul 2021 Elaenor Aisling
amy
emptiness is so familiar
it can feel like our home
sometimes you are so wrapped up in it
you forget to open the door
In Spanish, VIVIR means To Live, the proper conjugation of which to when you say something as improper as “I live” would simply be translated to “Yo Vivo”.
I live, as a Colombian-American.
I live, as “You don’t look Hispanic”
I live, “Woah! You and your brother look nothing alike. You’re so… white.”
I live, “My mom came home once and talked about a man who simply replied with a horribly pronounced “Me gusta” when my mom said she was Hispanic.”
I live, “My dad condones abusive behavior because he thinks Latina aggression is ‘****’”
I live, my mom asking me “Would you rather celebrate the Sweet Sixteen or have a quinceanera party?”
I live, as the white boy sitting across the room in Spanish class asking “When will I need this in real life?”
I live, as the “Yes I DO have a friend with a skin complexion similar to mine, and yes, he is Hispanic.”
I live, most of my friends are beautiful people of color.
I live, when will you open up the tab in Google and search some Hispanic History to fill your mind instead of “Latina ****”?
I live, the messages on the Internet saying “You’re Hispanic? I bet you’re great in bed.”
I live, there are NO gender neutral nouns in Spanish
I live, yes I DO love coffee
I live, no it did NOT stunt my growth
I live, one kiss per cheek at family meet-ups
I live, “Eskimo” nose rubs
I live, "if you’re hispanic, why aren’t your ears pierced?"
I live, being expected to remember Spanish just because it was my first language, but growing up with an American dad made me whiter than fresh bed-sheets sold in America, made in South America, Hecha en Peru.
I live, my mom breaking into tears as she is so proud that I can sing in Spanish
I live, my mom used to be so embarrassed, when I replied “un poco” to her friends asking “Tu Hablas Espanol?”
I live, "if you’re Hispanic, is your mom an Alien?"
I live, "But your dad looks so white!"
I live, being subject to racism hidden in a joke, hidden in a remark about how pale I am, hidden behind a judgmental look, hidden behind a scoff, a laugh, a pity shrug, a fetishized assumption.
I live the bulletproof clothing and horrible crimes I am warned about when I say I wanna go to Colombia I wanna go to my mom’s home.
I live, as a Colombian-American.
I live.
Yo vivo.
I wrote this when I was really r e a l l y angry ****, sorry.
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