​If I Stayed
by Jessica Lynn Suchon

​would have worn
his bruises like
badges, like a good girl
scout, filled kelly
green sashes
with little white scars.
would have cut out
my tongue and braised
it with port wine,
served it to him
in an ivory bowl
carved from the back
of my skull.
would have melted
down every family
heirloom to fill
the cracks
in my bones
with gold and platinum,
cradled
his childhood
like armfuls of gray
maggots, sang lullabies
to his blood-
crusted knuckles,
would have bowed
in prayer to the oak
roots that bulged above
the dirt
when they reminded me
of the angry
veins in his forearms.
would have kept living
that way forever,
offered my teeth
like handfuls of opals, stayed
hungry for blood
in my mouth, kept
my skin pale and shaved
thin, let him
kill the baby
just to convince myself
he’d kill me too
and he wanted to
and if I loved him
then I’d let him
and what kind
of woman am I
if I loved him
and I did.

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​Jessica Lynn Suchon is the author of Scavenger, winner of the 2018 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest and forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2019. She received her MFA from Southern Illinois University and has received honors from the Academy of American Poets, as well as an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellowship. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Willow Springs, and Ninth Letter, among others. She is a 2019 Tennessee Playwrights Studio Fellow and the 2019 FEMOIRE Poet-in-Residence. Her librettos have appeared or are forthcoming in works by Stephanie Ann Boyd for the Eureka Ensemble, EKMELES vocal ensemble, and Æpex Contemporary Performance with the Dark Sky Project. 

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Winter 2019
"An Unkindness" by Jessica Lynn Suchon

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