Poetry by Aly Acevedo

    Adrian Scottow CC




no

for the first time in my life, i told you no. the word fell out of my mouth. heavy, startling & like an anchor thrown into rough seas. i didn’t recognize my own voice. then the words you aren’t the daughter i wanted noosed around my neck. choke. i fell asleep to the echo as it bounced off my walls all night. you aren’t the daughter i wanted. & suddenly, i was done with desire. it’s needy grip ruining everything i was. the next night, i cried myself into countless liquor bottles. i kissed a boy to feel something. i traded glances with strangers just to see myself through another’s eyes. was i truly disgusting? i thought so. my legs became only blood as i fell onto the walls, the couch, the floor. i scraped my knee & felt nothing. i giggled my way onto the darkened sidewalk. i watched the cars dance down the street. & i wanted to dance too so i looked to the boy walking me home & declared that i was going to kill myself. what else is there to do when your entire being is denied by its first home. so, my legs ran before my mind could blink. & before the pavement, i felt my wrist being pulled back to the safety of the curb. the boy looked at me like i was so fucking fragile & i wanted to be. then he carried me home as my tears left a trail from that spot. the next morning, i followed my tears back. the dirt flinched when i sat down & all the cars ran away from me.





nine years later 

now, he lives in the town i was born in, halfway across the country from where 
he turned his body into a whip. am i a monster for looking at the
memories & letting forgiveness boil out of the sides of my mouth? 

if i close my eyes, i swear i can still feel the cloth of his couch grazing my skin. 
can still envision a map of his childhood home, every cupboard, every utensil & drawer. 
still remember how to reverse out of his driveway to avoid hitting my bumper on the concrete.

what a shitty poet i must be, dancing around the truth like a ballerina prepping for the final act.
let me say it straight, my high school sweetheart raped me the day before he left me. 
love sick lunatic. i am fucking infected. it’s all playing out again. 

the cloth of his couch was his accomplice, strapped me down equally as his hands. 
upstairs, his mother was in the kitchen putting the dishes away. 
she couldn’t hear the crime scene in the basement over the clatter of forks & knives. 

the sahara desert was once completely underwater.  i too, beg my atoms to dry in the sun 
& breathe air again. yet still my body is a possessed museum to when our love was good. 
the poem he wrote about me, how i would reach from the passenger side to fix his glasses,

when he said he loved me, i felt infinite.            i still feel infinite. still. still. i laid there so still.





curse of curves
after kathleen sheeder bonanno

you could say i was plagued by A-cups. 
double zero jeans, extra small everything. 
all the girls in seventh grade paraded their 
new bodies around like curves equaled currency. 
like all we could ever aspire to be were
victoria’s secret angels & playboy bunnies.

with foam in my mouth, i envied them. 
studied them. prayed for at least B-cups. 
looked in every mirror longingly
as i cradled my breasts in my hands. 
i wanted to be the reason boys looked twice. 
wanted to know what it felt like to be touched -

until i was touched & touched & touched. 
now, i want to beckon my old body back.
to hide in the thinness i once crucified. 
before, sexual assault wasn’t a word in my
vocabulary. now, it is a memory that 
comes to me in the thickness of midnight.

it is why i flinch at the gynecologist. 
the reason him & i do not speak anymore. 
the revolting gift of betrayal that licks my
earlobe & whispers, this is all you are now. 
this is all you are allowed to write about.
let me consume you, i want to eat you whole. 





child, 
after rachel mckibbens

child, you were carved from my mistakes, baptized in my love
& brought to life by the worried arms that i cradle you with.             forgive me. 

                                                            i have to admit it, when i think of you 
                                     i cannot deny the fear that hides in the flesh you will lay in.
                                   i do not want to make the mistakes of the mothers before me. 
                                                 but, what if i don’t beckon to your cries in time?
                what if you reach for me & i am not close enough to hear your hushed breaths? 

child, you have always been my beginning & ending. when i was birthed, 
you were the smallest particle in me.
& when i wanted to end my life, you weren’t a thought in my mind.                 forgive me. 

                                         one day, i will take you to the sidewalk that bruised my 
                                     shins instead of my entire body. we will sit on the concrete 
                                 & i will explain to you what it was like to once not see a future. 
                                        & how i fought with bloody fists to be here in this skin. 
                                                i will look at you & say i am so happy i am alive.
                                                          my pulse will sing with every syllable.

child, i was flawed by nurture. i have made wrong decisions 
& trusted everyone but myself. i come to you now, on my knees
waiting to be salvaged by your laugh.                forgive me. 

                                                          i have waited for you since i was small. 
                              there were nights when my only lighthouse was the thought of you. 
                              there were moments when i whispered to the emptiness of my room
                                                                                 that i will be better. 
                                                     & haunting thoughts of but, what if you’re not? 

:::

let the hurt roll in like fog, masking me away from 
reality if it brings me to you. 
 
let the loneliness take me hostage again & again 
if it brings me to you. 

let the rolling hills of my mood sweep me into incredible highs
& suffocating lows if it brings me to you.

let the all the wrong words slip from my tongue 
if it brings me to you.

but most importantly, let my maker brand me with 
her fire if it brings me to you. 

:::

child, i am all that is left.            forgive me.

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Aly Acevedo is a Kansas City-based poet. She has been previously published by Glass Kite Anthology, ink & marrow and The World Poetry Movement. When she is not writing she is playing with her cats, creating through photography/videography, or crafting the perfect playlist. Aly is currently working on her first manuscript.
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