My Dear, my hands shake after all these years when I write your name.
I remember how you were tucked between the pages of my journals.
Everyone else has always been eager to call you a monster.
Even though I stitch you with the best qualities of all the men in my life.
I remember how I tucked you into a budding list of accomplishments.
My husband would come home to admire your arch of story and the curve of your plot.
He even stitches his poetry within your body and includes all the women in his life.
I learn jealousy in empty beds, and I teach you anger with rewrites.
My husband calls another woman home and enjoys the curve of each coin from my son’s fame.
I build you into a monster from crushed promises, steady resentment, and electrified hatred.
I learn revenge in empty rooms and plot twists, and you teach me regret in splinters and tides.
I see your hands scoop up the boat and slam it into the rocks over and over again.
I build you a cage from crushed promises, steady resentment, and electrified hatred.
It is easy to exile someone when you put them in a raft and shove them out of sight.
I see you scoop up the boat in my dreams, but it is my hands that shake the boat into driftwood.
My monster, you love me with each unconditional action; even if it makes you the villain.
It is easy to exile a broken heart when you strangle it with ink and shove it into the margins.
Maybe, I have always been eager to call myself a monster.
My son, you love me with each unconditional action; even if I am the villain.
My hands shake after all these years when I write your name.
Originally published by Ink and Marrow, March 5, 2023
Amanda Hawk is Best of the Net-nominated and Pushcart Prize-nominated Poet. She lives in Seattle between the roaring planes and the city’s neon lights. Amanda has been featured in multiple journals including Ink in Thirds, Rogue Agent and Palindrome Journal. She has had short stories featured in the 2024 Seattle Crypticon Horror Short Story contest and Belladonna's Garden literary magazine. Recently, she had a short story accepted at Oneiroi Journal.
