What is mine / to carry / hold / keep / but the inner ache / the way pineapple / lacerates a lip / so intimately / the tension sting / of three-day-old hair / my own / smell / the way skin peels / from left foot / lungs seize with virus / every october / every miss is a poem / every nod a need / hitched breath / held exhale / the stink of morning / grime of each season’s sweat / map of every / body / I miss / crack of pollen / discolored patch / line / symptoms of growth / misery / memories that come / go / I was nothing before yesterday / witness / all the ways / I weep / all the ways I / open my jaw / to salt / synthetic sweet / lemons crushed to yellow / to mark the tongue as lost / and / found / I always carry a handful of advil / a shriek / a rotting honeycrisp / I sleep in silence / just to dream of friction / wish on every toenail / I slice / this body the only thing / that is mine / even that / a lie / call me by / any name beginning with / my own.
Emory Brinson studies poetry and policy at Brown University. She is terrified of spiders and obsessed with writing about the body and its fragments. Her piece “poem with resonance” was the winner of the 2022 PRISM International Pacific Poetry Contest. She was a finalist for the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, and is published or forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit, The Apiary Magazine, Olney Magazine, and more.
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