Poetry by Erica Abbott

               ​Øyvind Holmstad CC



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Poem Beginning with a Retweet
after Maggie Smith

I dream of never being called resilient again 
in my life. I am not a rubber band, 
made to snap back with elastic bravery-
watch how she rebounds so effortlessly! I’m sick
of battered ships being viewed as nothing 
more than a floating metaphor for survival. 
Picasso’d portrait of an enthusiastic party-
goer slapped across my eulogy-laced lips. 
I don’t wish for my trauma to ever be seen 
as an emotional gymnasium, only there 
in the name of making me stronger. Never 
will I ask to be another Atlas, holding 
this weightless burden on my shoulders.
Won’t frame different perspectives of it 
on my fridge for people to view as art.
Your find meaning means nothing to me 
if I have to crumble to obtain it. Tired 
of being told when to spring back 
to life and how not to make it look 
like spiraling. As if the clock monitors 
my face for any gear shifted out of place 
for too long. Never dreamed of being called 
a piggy bank of grief, collecting heartache 
until I’m shattered and spent. Look how well
she responds when the hammer meets her skin! 
I never asked for these personal teaching tools-
had enough of these lessons in becoming china 
and learning how to rebuild after each strike 
of the bull’s horns. I’m throwing away the red cloth 
and searching for a white one. Please, I’m fine 
with being fragile instead. Knowing I could break 
apart at any moment. In the right hands.

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Erica Abbott (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based poet and writer whose work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Kissing Dynamite, Midway Journal, Serotonin, Anti-Heroin Chic, and other journals. She is the author of Self-Portrait as a Sinking Ship (Toho, 2020) and volunteers for Button Poetry, Kissing Dynamite, and Mad Poets Society. Follow her on Instagram @poetry_erica and on Twitter @erica_abbott.

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