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Stream of Consciousness from a Half-Finished Girl

Poetry, Brody McGee


i. the ritual is sacred


It begins knee-deep in muddy water

where there is no chlorine

to cauterize, to shoot up

my nose when we are girls

                          doing hand

                                  stands

and don’t recognize this cesspit

of ourselves.

soon, they will pump us

with preservatives and package us up

pretty, so no one can see all the sticky scabs

                                         all the spots going soft

                                         all the tarry kisses 

that taste like you will forget

like you are an animal

my only addiction is the chemical

purity,

not me, but clean. clean. clean.

        bleached out and so white








                                                 it stains.


                                                                      







i don’t know                                                                            but i know

where i am i have always been


                                                    in the centre



                                                 of this confluence. all rivers run together eventually.

                                                 alllriversruntogether, smoothing the poultice of all my

                                                 foremothers, all my sculptors in the margins.

                                                 i live in the affection of the artist

                                                 in the sweet preconception. the humid moment

                                                 before she is consumed by her creation.

                                                 they call me frankenstinian and

                                                 offer me their baptisms

                                                 when i am drenched in sweat and eaten alive,

                                                 on the precipice of a nightmare,

                                                 where i watch my father’s eyes

                                                                                        and see the truth.


ii. the ritual is sacred


                                  close your eyes

                                  tip back your head


into the hands of unspeaking women,

dancing naked over the family tree 

which tomorrow, will be hacked down

to build the witch pyre and the paper

for the litanies.




iii. the ritual is sacred


                                  let your hair clump into matts

                                  kneel before your mother,  

                                  let her untangle you

                                  with her cheap, plastic brush.


     know you are unraveled

     eating yourself and eating yourself and being eaten

     bite off your tongue and lie

     beneath granny’s sewing machine

     she has done this before, she loves you, she loves you she will

     unpick her seams for you, she will weave you 

     from her, from abrasions, from grass stains,

     from layer on layer of dust-

     skin cells- and endocarp rust,

     know what you are 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                  and live,

                                  ab initio.


 

Brody McGee is a student from the middle of nowhere in Scotland. She explores psychoanalytical themes, mother-daughter relationships, and the experience of women through her work. Currently, she has a publication underway in the inaugural issue of Petrichor Gazette.

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