- 23 -

Consecrated Restraint
Emily Lemke
Colored pencil, watercolor paint, watercolor pencil, gold leaf, 12" x 20"

it hits my giggle with a shovel & churns the sound

into mud & gravel. it runs a thick hand down 

my stomach & turns the mirror away, cracks open 

my bones & sucks out the please & thank you. 

when a man grabs me in the club, it is both 

my ready fists 

& my silence after. it cracks my tear ducts 

like beer bottles,

lets them drip onto the floor. it says that I am 

always 

the shoulder & never the one embraced, 

always the fire 

& never the thing burning. it replaces my spine 

with a steel rod, yanks back my hairline & burns 

the skirts in the back of my closet. it inspects my cologne 

for any hint of flower, insists I must only smell of tobacco 

& burnt pinewood. it hacks into me like a 

tree, makes angles 

from what once was body. it scrapes the 

birthname from 

my tongue with a sawblade, leaves me to 

choke on the blood

& I am a wasteland of jagged stumps, worth 

more empty.

Apology: masculinity
Nathan Marquam