Disrepair

I want to exchange my bones for a robot body.
I want my brain to be sprigs of rosemary in a jar of honey.
I want to kiss the stars with my fist & tell them I’m comin’ home, Daddy. 
I want to dance. I want to dance with a rhythm that my body has never 
 been able/willing to navigate. I want to retrieve the broken bits of vertebrae 
from spinal fluid to mosaic my dreams back together, find sturdier string 
to necklace my graveling teeth—I cannot change my body, I have no magic.
Cannot un-mince language or prevent muscle atrophying. I want to honor 
my belly, desperate for anything but silence. I want to still the boulder living 
in my throat. I want the soil to take & take & take of me until there is nothing
but nothing familiar. I want my hair to swim around my eyes & tidal down my shoulders. I want to run. To let the humidity lick my worn out thighs & smile 
when I pass the world sleeping next to me. I want to burn dried leaves as sacrament. Collect sparrow feathers to give back to the bird nests. I want to exchange my heart
for one that hasn’t learned to love through cruelty. I want to bleed demons from my sister’s eyes. I want to break hands, stealing her smile for decades. I want to tell 
my mother she is the reason for her loneliness. I want to swallow tongues & eyes 
& garish lacquer that still keeps my eyes pried-wide open. As if any god might be able
or at least willing to hear prayers of a life not much for living. I want to unravel the deep & unknowing. I want to pour into its chalice & tell all of its secrets. I want to spell the end of war across my back but this thin skin won’t let me. I want to sob-scream in the bathtub drain that has forgotten that it drowned my offspring in blood. I want my father’s corpse to be embarrassed that he is in a box on the dining room table. I want my brother to find his way to holy. I want to stop pulling at broken promises & picking at scabs that I am too afraid to allow healing. I want to praise every night I learned 
what it meant to compromise breath in the name of safety. I want to give back 
my semi-robotic heart. Maybe the mold that made my mother might find better use 
of it. Instead she chose to live in it. I want to break open but not skin or bone or music buried in my chest. I want to velvet symphonies into arthritic hands, too apologetic to write poems. I want to stop saying I’m sorry for simply existing in space. 
I want to exchange my bones for a robot body.  

 

of water

mother comments on how skinny
my forearms are now, she reaches 
out to touch me, i recoil beneath
her thin skin—wilted fingers.

this is the only way she knows 
to tell me she thinks i’m pretty.

i didn’t have the heart
to tell her i’m full 
with his soft tissues—

like fish-hooks in the esophagus.

it remains difficult to swallow
& my stomach hurts. 
though, i am not a fish. 
she should know this about me. 

i startle awake, gasping
at the sound of my own ruin,
his voice, grumbling—

i can’t get the yellowing
from between my teeth. 
i didn’t have the heart
to tell her there is still
the taste of him on my tongue—
my jaw is left unhinged while i sleep. 

i didn’t have the heart to tell her.
i pretend i’m unfamiliar with drowning.

 

conversations with nature

marty, the slender-green/tan praying mantis 
clings to my front door. i wonder if biting off 
heads of men might be acceptable if i was thinner.

merle, the park guardian—a german shepherd, stalks 
visitors like a wolf with no intentions. chill in the air 
feels like autumn. feels like my skin is already starting 
to crawl.

i barely understand the purpose of sleeping.
a red-haired jogger dents the pavement—
maybe they’re trying to find themselves, too.

my heart a dollar store kite.
the sun will traverse expectation 
by rising.

i am uncomfortable with surviving.

 

lifeless, ancient

an earwig barely alive in the kitchen
sink—thunder shivering the delicate
foundation of home—honeysuckle 
burns alongside the back fence—
i love the big & terrifying, cannot love
myself—his demons won’t let me.

bean sprouts, marigolds, & calla lilies die
because i don’t know how to control the sun. 

 

carrion

my mother pulls a flattened black bird 
from my hands/plucking its greased feathers
one-by-one/swallowing beak & eyes/to steal 
its suffering. not bothering to savor coagulation 
coating rotten teeth. i choose. i am trying to choose.
i am trying to choose to walk away. to run. to vanish 
between guilt tumbling & polished in my stomach.
two crows flew past my moving car this morning.
i wanted to touch their bodies/feel the sky inhaling 
& exhaling feral/fearless. 

my mother continues to swallow bone 
dust & marrow/anything within reach.

About the Author:

Jennifer E. Hudgens (they/them) is a disabled writer from OKC. Jen holds a BA in Creative writing  from University of Central Oklahoma as well as a MFA in Poetry from Oklahoma State University. Jen watches the sky the way most people watch television & is obsessed with their yellow lab Penelope Garcia. Jen has been previously published in some poetry & fiction (print/online). Jen hates talking in third person but really hopes you like their work. 

*Feature image by Kseniya Lapteva at Unsplash