Now Kiss the Word Lips on This Paper

I eat a piece of paper with the word honey written on it and give my son the word toast and he eats it whole. I cover the windows with the words white sky, red brick and 7 AM, though it still feels like night, so I write to the weak sunlight, let us feel worthy of your love. We do not feel worthy, bound in our clothes made of paper with clean written all over them. We go out into the streets with our post-its made of fire and stick them on everything. Nothing burns. I take a note to my son’s teacher that says help and she gives it right back with her red ink covering mine. Help. On my forehead, I write, What? I write on the school walls, I hate you words. You are not worthy of my love, anymore. And the words are quiet. So, I say them out loud. I yell all the words I can yell. Walnut! Suitcase! Pistol! Wastebasket!  I keep spitting words trying to rid them from my mouth.

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Elizabeth Hughey is the author two poetry collections: Sunday Houses the Sunday House (University of Iowa Press, 2007) and Guest Host (National Poetry Review Press, 2012). She is a co-founder of the Desert Island Supply Co. (DISCO), a literary arts center in Birmingham, where she teaches poetry in the public schools. New poems have been published or are forthcoming in Open Letters Monthly, The Bennington Review, The Hunger, and Tinderbox.