2 by emily o'neill
Out of Control
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was, perhaps, the wrong epithet. The worst
we got into: a single stolen Rolling Rock, some shoplifted pewter jewelry turning our ring fingers green. Danger arrived unremarkably suburban. We'd take the iguana out on the lawn, watch him lunge for flies; take ourselves on sushi dates, gossip loudly about the girl we knew who took too many pills in the Meatpacking District and then a walk on the West Side Highway and then a ride from a "kind" stranger that ended with her dismembered in a motel dumpster. Before graduation, but after honesty and parents became mutually exclusive; when Alana lived alone above a D'Agostino's, we'd sneak into the city as if hunting for a bigger rack of antlers, for new skin to stuff full of our problems. They looked so pretty in city light. We'd dress them in borrowed clothes, send them spinning downstairs in impractical shoes, watched them graze their knees on some rough corner of night. |
religion is other people
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the “happy” pills stretched
my stomach taut, an angry kite / I flew so far from hunger I ended up in high school again: smoking Parliaments filched from my dad’s pack with the shower tuned to foggy moor. I know kids who tripped on Sudafed and how to abuse an asthma inhaler so the backyard furniture looks Cubist, but tell me I’m down a trench without ladder back to No Man’s Land and I’ll fill a prescription as if Jesus himself handed it round, tucked into the mouth of a cloned fish. you’re supposed to fast before mass. I got so good at that empty I’d faint in the pew while the priest cried miracle. I dance back towards zealotry some days, when the rage is right. most people don’t know I wore black corduroys to the rosary for the unborn, don’t know I can shout down God (the bearded one) in Aramaic. depression stings less when I blame what made me instead of myself. hell is other people knowing something I’ve forgotten how to name. I used to be the penitent girl who recited every commandment in order when asked but there’s an aphasia for laws same as words. the only one I have left to live by: “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s health.” |
EMILY O'NEIL is a writer, artist, and proud Jersey girl. Her recent poems and stories can be found in Flapperhouse, Gigantic Sequins, and Profane, among others. She is the poetry editor for Wyvern Lit and teaches writing at the Boston Center for Adult Education. Her debut collection, Pelican, is the inaugural winner of Yes Yes Books' Pamet River Prize. You can pick her brain at http://emily-oneill.com.
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