Salmacis Quotes

“i don’t think i’ve ever felt so cold
than when i saw my dad cry
or when i tumbled into a gutter
folded
like a
paper swan
and slept in the rain.”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“not before i have prayed in the rain,
washed the blood from these old bones,
not before i have stripped away everything
that remembers you and stepped into heaven
as a naked star”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“he will feel these bones beneath the silk of my flesh
feel how they’re crooked and carved and
some of them hollow, marked by twin holes,
the shape of your eye teeth.”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“i will slit the tight skin knotted over my spine
unfurl my ribs into two great wings
and clatter my way up to heaven.”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“you never tucked my hair behind my ear
and i never hit the ground until my knuckles broke”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“i can feel blood in my nose in my eyes
taste it finally on my tongue
and i chase it, coat my teeth in molly
eat through the ceiling stir the clouds
in my throat”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“in this raging, poisoned sea at night,
it is just me
and death”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“i’ve never won a bet
but i saw god in the bathroom mirror
and found my mother’s maiden name
carved beneath a seat”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“and she will throw apart concrete to find me,
will raze these buildings to the ground
with a smile on her face and the smell of my sweat
teasing her tongue”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“all i can think is that aphrodite
was born from the severed penis of a god
– so what would come of my tits?”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“i am drinking sauvignon
while my housemate shags upstairs
and i will write poetry
before the night is through.”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman

“i feel like a woman’s words
in a man’s book.
there
but in his voice”
― Elizabeth Train-Brown, Salmacis: Becoming Not Quite a Woman