Hard as a blade

I could snap a razor in two with my hands, worry the metal into my fingertips. Keep me close to forest and mountain, to the animals who outweigh and outrun me. My obsessions and compulsions wax and wane. Here they are, stained and hysterical. It’s all in your head, is something people say to me. It’s all in my head, is something I say to me. I miss Ireland. I miss Revere. I miss Vermont and New Jersey and yes even Oklahoma. Homes of my heart. I grow thin and stretched out between you. I want a book or a small deck of cards. I’m finally warm in bed. I’m finally on the prowl for selfhood, for a lock of my own hair for once. Let me know who I am. Let those who love me for it show up early to the party. It’s a girl thing!! Keep me horsed. Drag my name through the apple trees. Whisper the secrets of the library into my mouth. I annoy everyone around me. I can’t make friends. I lack safety or at least the feeling of it. I worry strange men will call my number again, will find me. I’ve done disgusting things in the name of peace and bodily safety. Father Richard to you I lay these confessions. Keep me clean from up in heaven. Help me be a good girl, like my lover calls me, like what I want to be with antlers, with fur, with teeth.

Alyssandra Tobin was grown on Boston’s North Shore. She received her BA from the University of Vermont, her MA from University College Cork, and her MFA from the University of Montana. Her chapbook, Put Eyes on Me Not Like a Curse, was published by Quarterly West in 2022. Her poetry can or will be found in Poetry Northwest, Banshee, Gigantic Sequins, New Ohio Review, Puerto del Sol, Grist, and elsewhere. She can eat more ravioli than you.