By MEL ARTHUR
to you, for Carmen Maria Machado, after Lisbeth White
I. rev.er.ence
/ˈrevərəns/
noun: reverence; plural noun; reverences
to know what fear tastes like when eyes glance upon similarity
“the blue shine buckled jeans allowed me to show reverence for loss”
Similar to: form, ache, fingertips, incomplete, beauty, mouthfuls of daisies, beginnings, unkindness, choice, precarious, motion, mud, is, were, and, are…
Abstract:
…the researcher nibbles at [murmurs] and learns what it means for hands to enfold in one, too, tree steps. Tensions that are touched upon include affliction, transformation, the lily that decimates, unforgiveness, and more. Overall, what this research finds is that to glance at what lies behind means to know more than a body and its accompanying grief, knowing lips that rest gentle on a nape can enact a wound, to know breaking oneself into fragments means– knowing the rot that starves, to know want is an unheard condition experienced only by you, knowing desire lops at demise, to knowing……
Hypothesis:
an abject posture of despair
is more than feeling frenzy with grief
odd mixtures tickling at fingertips that
bend whenever it’s too cold to breathe
this is the moment
This is-nt the moment you say
you say in mighty gusts that knock the wind
out my lungs, till gasping in prolonged
aw and awe
oozes bouquets of
untethered annihilation
Methods:
I slurp in tufts of grass, I gnaw on bites of un/flesh, I wish-, I plead with the moon to caress my jaw, I detach-ment as a 2-step process; 1. learn that guilt tastes like sin. Two. refuse to show how missing licks languidly at your lips. I wish this isn’t all I–, I take you away from clarity, I dunk your head into the spit-grass phlegm that wines my veins, I call this feeling [ ], I wish this isn’t all I can–, I grasp at longing like a child does thunder, I sound at & sometimes I ghost in hollows. I wish this isn’t all I can write. please. Please
Then the researcher inputs their-our-your opinion.
We allow mold to flower on your insides. We write tears into every line of every poem. then We proceed to sink into forgiveness or not. We take turns rewiring organs to produce softness. We play jubilee, say consume consume with a soft exhale and let the disassembling of your body core happen. We gouged open; throat first; so all the inky slime-gripped letters can finally spill. We spit out barbed-wire-hurt, chew on wounds sticky with terror. let We cling to your innards, holding mounds of slick cracked open flesh. let We procure slow sludge touch that barely survives.
Results:
all
signs
end
in
mumumusic babblebuzzmusic
even
the
part
of
yourself
that
refuses
to
learn
unlearning.
The dreadfulness
of knowing you more
than I miss you
will
rework
itself
into a new taste of
sin.
Writer | Mel Arthur ’25 | marthur25@amherst.edu
Editor | Tapti Sen ’25 | tsen25@amherst.edu