Sarah Wallis
The way you’re sad makes sense
so be sad, don’t say you’re sorry,
don’t say how you shouldn’t
be sad. I’ll buy you a coffee.
Let’s eat something sweet, eat
what we want without
touching our stomachs
or the outsides of our thighs
because this world is not
for apologies, not for eating
air and water, not
when it eats us whole and
it eats our children and
it eats our hearts. I’ll buy
the expensive coffee, have them grind it
for us, and make a pot
late in the day, we’ll be up all night
anyway, let’s make it intentional,
make it our own, eat our own
hearts, fast, without tasting them, unhinge
our jaws and swallow them whole
then go up to our children’s bedrooms
and carefully take their fingers,
outline their hearts
on their chests, as they sleep.
Remind them, nobody
eats your heart but you.
Hannah Grieco is a writer in Washington, DC. Find her at www.hgrieco.com and on Twitter @writesloud.
Sarah Wallis is based in Scotland and publishes cross genre. It is through staging her own work that she started making experimental visual art, posters for marketing, and designing the cover of her chapbook with Dancing Girl Press. Other chapbooks include Medusa Retold and How to Love the Hat Thrower. Follow her on twitter @wordweave.