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You Left,

May 21, 2014/in Poetry, Poetry, Summer-Fall 2014 / by Michelle Reed

and I ate all the sweet potatoes.
I’m sorry. The raspberries,
the honey, that locket

you gave me. They’re gone.
I was so hungry. I ate
the metronome and the black

bear skull we keep on the bookshelf.
I ate the books. I ate the empty
frame on the wall. And our bed—

the mattress that was soaked
in rain when my roof leaked
in Pennsylvania, the throw pillows,

the feathery down—I ate
it all. I was ravenous. I went outside.
Forgive me, but I ate

our lawn furniture. Even
the porch railings, covered in snow
and ice. I ate them whole.

I ate the neighbor’s wind chimes.
I ate her welcome mat. Her dead
cactus. I went inside and watched

the sun filter into the living room
and light our couch up like an altar.
Then I ate it. The sunlight

and the couch. I was so hungry.
I left. I walked into town. I bought
a chicken from the market.

I brought it home and covered
it in butter. I roasted it.
I fried its kidneys in oil

and rosemary. I sautéed
its liver with shallots. I ate
its body slowly. I didn’t

know what to do
with its heart. I sliced it into pieces.
I held them in my hands,

and they were red
against my skin. I baked
them into a pie.

It was a lovely thing. Golden
brown and bulging
at its seams. I didn’t want

to eat it. It was beautiful,
but it tasted too much
like a chicken’s heart. It tasted

like another body inside
my body. It tasted too much
like I had held it in my hands.

Michelle Reed HeadshotMichelle S. Reed is a Michigan native working as a freelance writer and editor in Chicago. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Split Lip Magazine, Prick of the Spindle, The Smoking Poet, and Watershed Review, among others. She completed her MA in English at Bucknell University last spring. She is the founder and editor of Pink Slayer (www.pinkslayer.com), an online feminist magazine. She is usually hungry.

 

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 Kristin McCandless https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Kristin McCandless2014-05-21 16:04:082019-05-19 12:09:13You Left,

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Genre Archive

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Glitch Wisdom

May 12, 2023/in Blog / KJ McCoy
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Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

April 14, 2023/in Blog / EJ Saunders
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How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The Secret Histories of Everywhere

June 2, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Brian Lynn
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Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

May 5, 2023/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
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Dancing into Detachment

April 7, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Robert Kirwin
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

LitDish: Ten Questions With Isabel Quintero

May 26, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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Chop Day

May 19, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Hannah Felt Garner
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Litdish: Ten Questions With David A. Robertson

April 28, 2023/in Amuse-Bouche / Interviewed by Gail Vannelli
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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