Category: Poetry

Dear Larry,

The day I learned your name was the day

I execrated the female body. Her palms acclimated to

being bound up with contorted knuckles and tape, only softened

by springboards and white chalk. How long is a doctor’s

appointment supposed to last? An hour, a life

sentence? The length of a drone strike? Your eyes keyed

into her ribcage, her mouthcage, her thighcage, her soul.

“Dismount” is to leave an apparatus

at the end of a routine; usually done with a difficult twist

or salto; to take a mechanism to pieces. It was you

who stained her first maxi pad, drew the copper

blood of a girl who still believed that a gold medal could pay

for what you stole. You kinked her tightly wound coiffure into

elflock, you offered no comb, you never fixed

what you broke. Dead is the pity

poised in the judge’s eyes, a landing

unstuck. One hundred and seventy-five

years will never unburn the soles of her feet.

Goliath was a woman, a force unchallenged by

sword or stone until God (a man) sent David (a man)

to throw rocks (a phallus) at her mighty stature – a spectacle

for kings (all men) to revel. You found a chink

in her armor, you reminded me that no woman can ever be

too careful, too covered, too poised or too pure.

Dear Larry, you taught me how to lust after

vengeance rather than justice. You taught me that

Some sentences never deserve the peace

of being finished

Kiley Roach is a Drake University undergraduate Honors student studying Political Science and English Theory and Criticism. She has been studying the art of reading and writing poetry under the direction of Kyle McCord, 5-times published author and Co-Executive Editor of Gold Wake Press, for two consecutive semesters. She hopes to eventually pursue a career in higher education administration but enjoys writing about women, sexuality, and politics in her spare time. This is her first time having her work publicized.

You don’t owe me an apology
for the restless school nights
the tossing and turning
while little arms wrapped around my neck
and suffocated me.
They crawled and crowded into my bed
drifted to sleep. It was another night
spent waiting for you.

Don’t feel like you need to explain
rationalize, justify
every bottle against the crumbling plaster,
and the hairline fractures crawling up the walls.
The glass was beautiful as it rained down,
glittering and coarse against soft skin.
Your words were cinder blocks on my head,
So I begged for broken glass instead.

I could never be resentful,
of the loads and loads and loads
of laundry I washed.
Folded myself into towels and socks
and drowned in Great Value Detergent.
Hours spent at the scoured kitchen table,
Monitoring grades and report cards
Doing everyone’s homework but my own
with only Hamburger Helper to assist me.

(Some days, it was too much-
I wished they would disappear
just slip away
as silently and easily as you did.
I guess on those days we both wanted the same thing.)

I loved them, and hated you,
and despised myself
for every moment I tried to fill.
I bet you never realized how
the responsibilities of being a parent
could wash out everything else about you.
I’m as drained as the dirty dishwater
from cleaning their dishes again.

Please, don’t apologize

all the nights you staggered into bed
at four a.m.
and I staggered out
to hold your head over frigid porcelain
and brush the hair off your sweaty forehead.
It was easier to strip you,
scrub away the cloying smell of sin
and gin on your skin.
Good thing I was so good at handling dirty laundry.

You never remembered enough to regret.
An empty house, full of empty pantries
empty bellies
empty hands.
Those kids were starving,
but I was inadequate to fill the space.
But you don’t owe me an apology.

Abbey Elizabeth Murphy is an English and Sociology double-major at Drake University, is the Treasurer of the campus English fraternity Sigma Tau Delta, and is the incoming president of the Grant Writing Corps. Published in three other literature magazines, she realized that submitting her most recent work to AGORA would be a new and exciting opportunity. She enjoys writing poetry and short stories and reading science fiction novels and comics in her free time. After having spent a semester abroad, she realized her love of traveling and studying new languages, and much of her recent work focuses on the experiences she had with other cultures.

I feel safest behind the cold stone;
There is comfort in thick doors and empty halls.
Please don’t rescue me,
I’ve only been locked away
from hungry gazes
and glinting mirrors.

The Queen can leave me here,
Free from rotting atop her throne.
I’ve had enough of the steel at my back
Scraping down each vertebra bone
Spine shivering, jaw clenched,
as I anticipate the blow.

In this cage, my body isn’t withering.
Here I can linger in all the rooms,
and dig my toes into the carpeted floors.
The whispers of slithering
Down the winding corridors
Aren’t as daunting as those
Of golden heels on marble
Stalking towards my bedroom door.

Tails don’t lash out unexpectedly,
Pinning me to walls, trapping me.
The dragon doesn’t force me
To lick the venom from an unhinged jaw
Gather it in the back of my throat
Burning until I’m forced to spit it back out.

How do you never spot
The fangs stretching her smile?
They always give her a slight lisp;
Her eyes aren’t yellow from the firelight.
Your too busy looking for the monster,
That I’ve already found.

Abbey Elizabeth Murphy is an English and Sociology double-major at Drake University, is the Treasurer of the campus English fraternity Sigma Tau Delta, and is the incoming president of the Grant Writing Corps. Published in three other literature magazines, she realized that submitting her most recent work to AGORA would be a new and exciting opportunity. She enjoys writing poetry and short stories and reading science fiction novels and comics in her free time. After having spent a semester abroad, she realized her love of traveling and studying new languages, and much of her recent work focuses on the experiences she had with other cultures.