Hallie Nowak The Farmer’s Almanac Predicts My Survival
When I was six, I wrote to you in a way that mattered. I dreamt of becoming a woman. I dreamt of becoming you. Our bodies floated in your above-ground pool, your german shepard drooling on my wrist. When I was 19, a drunken sparrow nestled in my throat. As it learned to croon, I learned to weep at the sound of Radiohead in my ears, at your emerald-spattered eyes that bled gold near your small dark pupils. My body once consumed your body: your perfect silken hair, your ashy laugh that survived a bout with pneumonia. When the stars began to settle in the blue summer evening, I’d shiver in your sister’s tattered towel. Mosquitos kissed my knees until they bled. I’d kill this memory if I could, lead it into an empty pasture in the middle of the night, wait for it to lay down in the tall grass, and wrap my arms around its neck. But as it lay gasping, I’d always let go. A sparrow always lands on the creature’s back at the right moment, and when it opens its mouth to sing, the garbled whisper of loss is deafening. The last we spoke, you pretended you never left me here. The crops we sowed withered when you chose to marry the man who tore the dress from my bones. Sometimes, I use the tattered cloth to keep from freezing overnight. Tonight, I’ll let the creature sleep, let it drift away into my lap, its eyes red from weeping when it remembers that I love you. I loved you. And now? The sparrow dies.
* * *
On Being Made of Meat
I once heard that love and grief
breathe into each others’ mouths
until the world gets dizzy.
When I think I can’t handle another day,
I close my eyes.
The same white crow guards fresh roadkill
on the curve of a road.
I walk the same moth-studded path every night.
Maybe this time it’ll lead to a home.
Every night
I dream of all the kisses my mouth can take,
and all the kisses I can take doesn’t change
the way I look in the morning.
Love flutters in
between two sets of teeth. A red-tailed hawk
scours sour arteries for moths
with broken wings.
Without grief, there is no love.
Without love,
I sleepwalk
in my pajamas on a highway,
waking up the corpses to feel something,
gravedirt on the corners of my mouth.
I often compare men to wolves
without saying anything aloud.
This comparison feels obvious,
almost as obvious as my neck
dotted with teeth marks. I eat the earth,
a sob lodged in my throat. In time,
maybe I will grow into the woman
no one wanted me to be.
Some part of my brain lights up
when someone acts like they want me.
My lungs inflate with strange affirmations
until little white stars blur my vision
and transform into starving moths.
If love is a golden band, then grief is the hole
where the finger fits. If I am a woman,
I am made of meat.
There will never be another mourning
like this one.
* * *
Chimera
My therapist asks me to recall the details,
be specific, as specific as you can,
clicks her pen three times,
hands me a tissue, expects to witness
trauma ripple through my skin
and drip down from my eyes.
When a snake grows from my scalp,
I cut it with scissors. In its place,
two snakes emerge. The process repeats:
hundreds of flicking tongues turn silent
and still.
In the gas station bathroom, I burn
the evidence of my ritual: the receipt for the bar,
the note you left on my car. Rain drips
from the sleeves of my coat as the flame
devours the pain. A voice overhead
announces that this storm could destroy
the pink flamingo in your front lawn,
tells the audience that my throat will be dammed
with branches torn from trees, will be singed
by the white sparks of loose power lines.
If I’m going to go
through the trouble of transmutation,
I might as well do it right: you bought me
four too many drinks that night,
the night when you cracked
and oozed onto my belly. The night when
your body
just weight,
my body
waking up
falling back
into the endless night,
reconstructing myself
as your fists
bruised the moon.
Before I understood the consequences, the sun-scorched
the bedroom with a rare kind of anger
and reduced me
to a nude myth.
What I left behind: a soaked pillow
in the bed your daughter shares
when she has a bad dream.
I wonder what the end looks like.
If, in the end, there will be a cave
to hide my body until my many heads
crumble to ash. With no one to give
this part of me a proper burial, it looks as though
it’s up to me.
My therapist’s pen taps idly on her desk.
I place the gifted tissue on my lap.
You’re in the room now. You let yourself in
with a key made from my jawbone.
You, who sunk your teeth into my jugular
and wept into your hands like a child
when the blood stained your rug.
Hallie Nowak is a poet and artist writing and residing in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She has her Bachelor’s degree in English Writing from Purdue University Fort Wayne. She is the author of Girlblooded, a poetry chapbook (Dandelion Review, 2018), and is currently working on her first full-length book of genre-bending poetry and flash fiction, A Dissected Body Speaks. She’s been published in numerous literary journals, including Okay Donkey, Honey & Lime Literature, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. When she isn’t writing, Hallie can be found teaching English writing to high schoolers, advocating for and educating at-risk youth, painting pictures of sad cats, and/or eating a crunchwrap supreme in the Taco Bell parking lot.
Why we chose this piece: Hallie’s voice is incredibly striking, and the way she wields imagery and surrealism sucked us in. She tackles difficult subjects fearlessly, and we admire her ability to be vulnerable.
Beyond her age with wisdom, insight and the ability to paint a picture with her WORDS alone.