out onto the porch and unscrew its lid,
let the gentle bodies spill out like wedding doves,
frantic and blooming into night.
IN THE FUTURE, I LOVE THE NIGHTTIME
every night, a cup of juniper tea.
a window cracked for breeze.
a drawer of clean knives
in the kitchen. only used for fruit.
never under my pillow. my sleep,
a steady march. it’s been so long,
that the thing i read that one time,
about how he woke the girls up
with a flashlight to the face, is rusted
and untouched at the bottom of my skull.
you can find the pink mace in thrift stores,
lipstick turned to blade, nail polish that changes
color when dipped in a drugged drink. a reminder
of the rituals we had to keep each other out.
a girl watches the sky go and keeps laughing.
the water only knows her body
moving. we walk everywhere. there is no such thing
as hurried unless to beat the clock. i am old.
my body a thousand lines, feeble and aching
to sit. my hair still sheds at the same rate
but now, the color of oysters, silver
and wet and curled in my drain. my feet
still fat and full of blood in the heat.
i still love to smoke but still don’t, i still think
i will pay for the days i did. i still have the memories—
the ways i made this breed of fear a religion. the ways
i rehearsed my day to be taken. but most days,
i choose to forget what it was like
when they walked the Earth—the men
who wanted their say in when a girl’s body
goes still, the men obsessed with our necks,
the men who earned nicknames like Zodiac,
BTK, Ripper, Bone Collector, men who
said they would be gone in the dark.
ultimately, it was a sickness that killed them.
a sickness reserved only for the ones
who wanted us gone. the papers want to tell us about
the science of it and i’ve heard things, how it forms
a host in the part of the brain that houses
violent fantasies. how the worse the thoughts get,
the worse the sickness gets, grows so big,
it pushes out the teeth. i remember seeing them,
heads cocked back at parties and laughing with
their jaws slung open, a quick flash of missing
molars. the worst ones had dentures, posters
warned women to reject date offers from men
with a veneer smile. eventually, it climbs towards
the neck, pushes the blood towards the surface
till the flesh grows blue and bulging. you didn’t see
those ones out much, quarantined by their mothers
who shoved romance novels in their faces, begged
them to thirst for something tender. but most often,
it was too late, most often incurable, and soon,
their chests collapsed, quiet as a slow-leaking balloon.
yes, there were vaccines. yes, a surgeon with conviction
in the good spell of his blade. yes, many a man
with his throat cut open, or a small slice behind his ear.
but always, they return. if left alone for long enough,
the blue would crawl back to the stage and sing.
all we have now are the memorials in this blessed
apocalypse. gravestones shaved clean and wordless,
planted by their mothers to mourn in shame.
the radical girls will rip them from the ground
and smash them along the highway, a trail of shattered
stone for miles. all that’s left are those of us who remember.
the rest are newborns or missing.
what do you call a feeling
that no longer lives in your body?
do you call it a memory? do you call it an ex?
do you call it and beg it to come back?
sometimes i say it out loud to see if i can still pronounce it.
i say it into the mirror. watch the way my mouth wrestles.
then i snatch it by the neck and squeeze it till it’s limp,
shove it back down to the bottom of the river.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the editors of the following journals, which first published these poems:
“A Story Ending in Breakfast,” “The Lover As a Dream,” and “Here Is What You Need to Know”—Poetry City, Vol. 8.
“The Scholar” and “The First Shave”—Tinderbox Poetry Journal
“Gamble”—The Missouri Review
“Backpedal”—Muzzle magazine
Thank you to Button Poetry for giving the following poems a home in New American Best Friend: “The Scholar,” “The First Shave,” “Ode to the Women on Long Island,” “Backpedal,” “Ode to My Bitch Face,” “The Summer of 2008 at Altura Park,” and “The Autocross.”
I owe so much to my agent, Mackenzie Brady Watson, for finding me and then finding this book inside of me. You changed my understanding of myself as a writer and no amount of words can properly express my gratitude for that gift.
Thank you to my editors, Whitney and Clio, for your excitement and joy and for believing in my ability to write the book I wanted to read. Thank you for taking a chance on me. Thank you Avideh, Maria, Jess, Dhara, and the entire Dial Press and Random House team for your incredible support.
Thank you to my booking agents, Peter Agoston and Luna Olavarría Gallegos, for your persistence and making my dreams come to life.
Thank you to Melissa Lozada-Oliva, for your sisterhood, for coming with me to Vermont, for encouraging me to say more and teaching me what it means to keep friendship alive. To Maríajosé and Joaquina, for saying yes to riding with me through the most important two months of my life. Thank you for being the most gutsy bitches I know. What I know about unconditional love I know because of you. Thank you for healing me.
To the rest of my patient friends, who read many versions of this book and helped it become what it is now: Sam Rush, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Desiree Dallgiacomo, and Sierra DeMulder. Oompa, for the love you gave me during so much of the creation of this book.
Thank you Paul Tran, Rachel Gubow, Blythe Baird, Donte Collins, Alec Loeser, Noah Brown, Edwin Bodney, Angelica Maria Aguilera, Ashlee Haze, Raych Jackson, Jazzy Dena, Mason Granger, Mahogany Browne, Josh Karp, Jeremy Radin, Megan Falley, Andrine Pierresaint, Chrysanthemum Tran, and Janae Johnson for above all else, your friendship. Thank you, Niko, for showing me the stars.
Thank you to my family for continuing to encourage that I tell my story how I remember it. To Ms. Bernstein, without you I would not be a writer. Thank you for seeing something in me that took much longer to see in myself.
Faustino Villa, Khalid Ali, Mickey Figueroa, Eva Crespin, Reed Adair Bobroff, Kenn Rodriguez, Trae Dahl, Hakim Bellamy, Joe Romero, Jessica Helen Lopez, and Damien Flores, thank you for raising me.
To the girls I grew up with and the women and girls I’ve lost: Stephanie S., Barbara, Natalie, Taylor C., Taylor H., Jenny, Shauna, Stephanie D.C., Avry, Meg, Joanna, Leigh, Lydia, Gabby, Sam, and DJ.
To my readers and listeners and viewers who have been so endlessly supportive over these surreal few years, my body of work belongs to you. You are my favorite fangirls.
This book is for all of the women who have survived violent men or whose lives
were taken by them—who have either become celebrities in the wake of their deaths or who have gone unnamed by the public. I write for you.
BY OLIVIA GATWOOD
Life of the Party
New American Best Friend
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OLIVIA GATWOOD has received national recognition for her poetry, writing workshops, and work as an educator in sexual assault prevention and recovery. She is the author of the poetry chapbook New American Best Friend, and her poems have appeared in such publications as Muzzle magazine, Winter Tangerine, Poetry City, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and The Missouri Review. As a finalist at Brave New Voices, Women of the World Poetry slam, and the National Poetry Slam, Gatwood has been featured on HBO, HuffPost, MTV, VH1, and the BBC, among others. She is a full-time touring artist, and has performed at more than two hundred schools and universities worldwide.
oliviagatwood.com
Facebook.com/oliviagatwoodpoetry
Twitter: @oliviagatwood
Instagram: @oliviagatwood
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