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halloween ritual by Lip Manegio

March 22, 2021
Reading Time: 2 Minutes

 

she drags the needle though the red

body of the thread, back stitches

my shoulder blades, my sacrum,

the pulse points at the corners

of my lunates. i keep red just under

the tip of my pitted tongue, but do not

let it loose, do not stop this

staggering. & listen, i’ll admit, i

wanted

the stigmata, the gentle puncture.

i want to be bound into the horror

of this body. i want the want, the

desire in someone else’s eyes for this

unholy frame, my graveyard of a

chest. so

when she says color, i grind out

green, even as the flashback rises up

the tendrils of my throat —

what else could my body have been

made for, if not this stringing— what

good is the tolerance if you don’t

know how to put it to use —

all i know is fawn, wax and wane,

count to ten and back, say thank you

every time. i forget where my breath

lives, forget i am more than a

whimpering against someone else’s

knuckles, more than a mess

waiting to be made by any hands
that will have it.

tonight, i will rub the raw out

of my purpling skin, go out under

the full moon, dig my hands into

the maw of silt, drag up the teeth of

the earth. i will make a lamb of

myself one more time, lay myself

open across another altar. i will tell

her to consume me. she will say

Art by Lois Emma Harkin


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Poetry

Manegio, Lip
Lip Manegio (they/he) is a Pushcart & Best of the Net nominated poet, organizer, designer, & dyke. Their work has appeared in Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Puerto del Sol, the minnesota review, Tin House, and elsewhere. They hold a BFA in creative writing from Emerson College, serve as editor in chief/jack-of-all-trades at Ginger Bug Press, & are the author of We’ve All Seen Helena (Game Over Books, 2019). Find them at lipmanegio.com.

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