1.
the doctor pried me open yesterday.
sorry, it was a metaphorical prying.
telehealth, white screen.
inside the blue box,
the scalpels looked smaller.
hypothesis 1a.
systolic murmurs, angina pectoris.
anxiety disorder, unspecified.
major depression (severe, ongoing).
would you like to see me do a trick?
dialectical behavioral therapy tells me:
run headlong into the thing, and not around it.
2.
I was watching Gossip Girl.
with the lights off.
and the quality grainy.
I took the night off,
counted every pixel.
“you held a certain fascination when
you were beautiful, delicate, and
untouched. I don’t want you
anymore. and I can’t see why anyone
would.”1
hypothesis 2a.
you are S and I am B.
my line is to ask my mother to fly me to Paris.
avoidant-dismissive attachment style.
urges and sticking fingers down the throat
and triggering my pharyngeal reflex and
your line. do you remember?
you ask me to stay.
3.
please don’t say that
he wanted to see me undressed again.
I’ll give in. blue veins and
raised scars and
wet places and
the parts you won’t touch and.
hypothesis 3a.
he didn’t love me.
unless I test a new definition
that Merriam-Webster has yet to print:
love
/ləv/
noun
1. possession of need
2. perversion of desire
3. objectification of body
4.
I ran out of lines a long time ago.
used up. run dry. ran out on you.
you’re Stella! Stella for Star!
I’m Blanche DuBois.
Legacies!
now I’m simply stealing, I’m sorry. take me
away now.
hypothesis 4a.
I wore a woman’s skin. it looked almost like
my mother’s. the seams were loose. the
elastin wearing itself out to hang off
my musculoskeletal system.
won’t you
help me with the zipper, dear? can’t shed—
it will ruin the carpet.
5.
I lied. I’m sorry about that, too.
legs crossed tightly, I sat
in the waiting room. foot
bounce
bounce
bouncing—
a careful dance, to know
how close to sit. when you
laid your head in my lap, I
thought—
hypothesis 5a.
I maybe love you. in that
stupid way all poets do. or
the mania (µανία) the Greeks
talk of—madness. it’s madness.
I've never been good
off of a page. I've never been
good—
6.
I write most at the worst of times.
do you want me to talk or
is this good?
how are you feeling? worse or
better?
I read synopses of horrible YA romances
to you, and you laughed at every
stupid thing I said while sleep
deprived and delirious.
hypothesis 6a.
I am a bad person for wanting
to kiss you more than ever
in the emergency room last night.
we were scared, and I guess scared
is how I do things. or else
I have a savior complex, but
show me it again.
the ghost shark—
chimaera.
sound the word out.
close enough for me.
Emiliano Lievano
Emiliano Lievano (he/they) is a senior at Columbia College Chicago studying Creative Writing and Playwriting. He is Colombian American and moved to Chicago for college after being raised in North Carolina and Massachusetts. Their work has been seen on stage through Columbia’s Playwrights Aloud series, which he also produces for. Currently, they are working as an intern and non-fiction reader for Hypertext Magazine. His work centers the personal, the familial, and the things we’re afraid to speak aloud.
Find Emiliano at @emiliano.ianthe on Instagram.
- Gossip Girl, Season 1, Episode 13, 31:12 ↩︎
