for my cousin Nadia.
Peeled back as a baby
to reveal her delicate insides –
heart laid bare.
Someone wished upon her
like a flower and
stripped her of her petals
like the girls in the clubs
thick and rife with fathers of daughters
with everything to drink away
and no idea how to sprout a bulb
and free it from the dirt.
Her feet are planted
but the earth is undressed.
It’s difficult to move a tree
without traumatizing it.
Her name ends
where the hull breaks in two
and drowns what comes after.
And even though the draft missed her
she still went to war.
The fallout happens inside the shelter.
Someone hurt you
with words of a serrated edge
and still broke bread in the dark
with you on their table.
Promises like snapped sand dollars
and half-built houses
that mold in the rain
and crumble
with someone
still sleeping
inside.
Wake up.
Nadia means “hope”
Lia Smith-Redmann is a Wisconsin-based writer, dancer, and artist. She is currently pursuing her undergraduate degrees in English and Dance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work has been published in Furrow Magazine, Steam Ticket Journal, The Yahara Journal, and Inkblots Magazine. Her writings for the stage have been performed at the Wisconsin Interscholastic Theatre Festival, Hampshire College, and the Peck School of the Arts’ New Dramaworks Short Play Festival, and have been awarded the Women’s and Gender Studies Award from UW-Milwaukee and second-place in Hampshire College’s Comedic Monologue Competition.
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