By KATE BESTALL
feed me love & i’ll crack it
open like a sunflower
seed, my own private autopsy:
carve it apart & split it
at the seams, a quick motion
like gutting a fish. i can only
stand to witness the anatomy
of something so devastating:
the parts but not the whole.
i was made only to be devoured,
& that’s the truest thing
i know how to tell you. on the ride
home i was reminded that my
mother’s family is not my family.
i smile as if there’s a pair of
teeth at my throat, the feeling any
ex-ballerina knows; the anti-best
american girl consumed by being
all too good at shapeshifting—i still
remember it, how i scraped my skin
inside-out, how i threaded my body
through the eye of every needle. i only
feel real when i’m incomplete: split me
open & spit me out when it turns out
i’m not how you imagined—you won’t
be the first. & i miss it, sometimes:
to let someone drain you dry is to
be comforted by a discrete purpose;
pain makes for a delightful alarm.
memory, too, is a weight-bearing
body part.
Writer | Kate Bestall ’27 | kbestall27@amherst.edu
Editor | Sarria Joe ’27 | sjoe27@amherst.edu