Improbabilities
Amritha Selvarajaguru
University of Iowa
Horror, Romance
TW: mild body horror
there is an unloveableness
that haunts me, stains like a
terrible wound unchecked
but this attracts to me men
like sharks who only want a
bite.
but no one wants to make
love to the bleeding belly of
the world, ugly and ripe.
i know this is true
no good man will
ever love me;
there is a desire, like a
scream, housed with the bile
in the curlicue of my gut,
but no good man will ever hear it -- only the ones who
claw it out
but if i speak, no on will love
me. beg anyone to hold you,
and they drop you like a coat.
there is a loneliness that
haunts me, some ghost a
lover's touch could dissipate.
but my longing haunts me
too, hand in sepulchral hand.
but this is unlikely. ask anyone
about love and they tell you
about heartache first
i hope this to be false
there is a desire, like a knife, that parts the skin over my
breastbone and the fat over
my womb,
but its fruition would kill me
with shame, like a brand, on
the back of my throat.
but to be loved, despite the steel of terrible men and wants, would be so, so sweet.
Amritha Selvarajaguru is a second year English and Creative Writing and Secondary English Education double major who aspires to be an English teacher one day. She admires the works of writers such as Ada Limón, Louise Glück, and Ocean Vuong, hates cockroaches with a fiery passion, and always eats M&Ms in rainbow order from red to brown.