To Make Monsters Out of Girls

by Amanda Lovelace

this is your silent eulogy. this is your word-wrapped coffin. & this— this is how i will finally bury you. - it’s much too late to repent, sweetheart.

i’m not sure if this makes any sense, but you make me forget what it feels like to miss someone i was never allowed to call mine. - are you my antidote or my poison?

we never did inhabit the same sky.

you had years on me & i wanted to drag my teeth across the surface of every one of them. - red & wolf.

the only way i can remember what happened is if i sit down & pray to the paper & hope the pen is a believer. - to make up for the fact that i’m not.

you always did crave the taste of your own lies.

on the off-chance someone ever asked me to describe you without actually describing you, i would say you are the bruises & teeth marks i find all over my body without remembering how they got there in the first place. - this isn’t a haunting; it’s a hunting.

(i’ve swallowed much sharper words than this.)

his name rests inside my throat like i was born trying to say it.

i already know i shouldn’t be writing these poems about you anymore. if it’s any consolation, they’re more about me than they are about you

i’ve realized there is so much more to my existence than the memory of a man who would love to see me drown in search of happiness without him.

you can’t settle for a single, always-retreating wave when you deserve all the oceans & not just the cloudy reflection of them in the skies. - the sun? she told me you are worthy.