Love In The Injustice Age (published in the Fall Issue of Shantih Journal [Oct. 6, 2018]) is when you know someone so well you could be her scream. Tia and I, we have caught a glimpse of our extinction; we are hunting it down. We build peace with justice, Tia and I. She cracks jokes like belts and I dig like an insult and the scant trees seize in the wind. We make this ditch with pick axes and fear and sick hope and just us. We are trying to prevent wasteland – place where no mystery can live – at least somewhere and so we have to dig. Past dirt, through the fat bones of old trees, below water tables, screaming with life. Barrier. But we must find what everyone will believe is worth saving. Tia shares personal opinions about love and cancer. I press her to keep digging with me. We must find something gold for humanity and we must find it here. We do stop – for snacks, for sleep, to watch darkened light plunder the growing thunderheads. Birds fly in off the tsunamic sea that is hooked like a rubber band around God’s thumb. ‘Do you hear that sound?’ Tia asks, leaning her shovel into juicy soil. Nothing from the birds but the moon, small but good shepherd, yelps against our never-dulled blades. Frogs, the ones we haven’t dissected in our hurry, waddlecrawl across sticky leaves we’ve tossed aside. Blades buzz in the sepia breeze. Tia gets to the ground, wrists, elbows, triceps, ear. “Here.” She handprints the pulped dirt. “Here.” I see the scream – blue holes in my vision – before I feel it gash my throat. Tia buries her face in the slit shoulder of earth. It is painful to believe that every rock is sacred because nothing survives love.
Instructions For How To Live My Life published in Issue 10 The Rush (December 18, 2021) if I should die. Use resistance as formaldehyde. Refuse to accept the fact of change. Reserve the right to refuse, and refuse the right to be reserved. Stop eating when you’re upset. Burn off the rest in punishing workouts. When you hear about emotional eating or exercise addiction, don’t identify. React to every word or change like it’s a harpoon. Pump your cortisol day and night ruminating on safety. When you have to set your alarm, forget to turn it off. Believe you can remember everything else. Resent always being called upon for miscellanea. When you read—and read everything, save acting on it for later. Make mountains out of marginalia. Believe the dark is made of bears. And if you should die…
Megan Wildhood:
My book: Long Division, a poetry chapbook
My business as an editor and writing coach:
https://reedsy.com/megan-wildhood
My newsletter of monthly musings, building a research practice and mental health in the age of censorship: http://eepurl.com/c_ziW1
Megan Wildhood is a neurodiverse writer from Colorado who believes that freedom of expression is necessary for a society that is not only safe but flourishing. She helps her readers feel seen in her poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017) as well as Yes! Magazine, Mad in America, The Sun and, increasingly, less captured media outlets. You can learn more at meganwildhood.com. She’s also an editor and writing coach, which you can learn more about here: https://reedsy.com/megan-wildhood, and has a newsletter about building a research practice as well as how to care for mental health in an age of censorship, which you can sign up for here: http://eepurl.com/c_ziW1.
Find more poets reading their work on the Gyroscope Review main page, search Let the Poets Speak or National Poetry Month 2022.