“The Minefield of Human Need 2” © Edward Michael Supranowicz

 

Dial Tone

It was that year I subsisted
Entirely on the tasteless hope
That disintegrated on my tongue

Shortly after mouthing amen.
I can still feel the day old despair
Lodged deeply in my throat.

I spent those evenings on heaven’s hotline,
My knuckles knocking against the ribs
of the phone cord that wrung tightly around my heart.

I was seeking salvation.
I spoke only to the angels with appetites larger than longing.
There are few things more

Deadly than a girl who is capable of
Cutting her hunger up into even smaller pieces,
Each one sharper than the one before.

They bite. I have spent most of my life trying
To grow a thicker skin, ensuring that I would not
bleed out every time I felt those teeth scrape up against me.

I feared that hunger, the massacre of mouths.
But I did not yet know how to escape my body, or how to stay.
Body & bed unmade. The

Ache I swallowed in the middle of the night
Was not my own. It continues to chase me through
The crowds of half-eaten smiles.

 

Grace Moloney is a 25 year old physically disabled multi-disciplinary artist from Australia whose passions are laid in the foundation of wanting to advocate and provide meaningful discussions, primarily centred around disability & mental health related topics. “I believe that writing through the lens of a lived experience is a way in which these discussions can be held in meaningful and impactful ways. I want to see stronger representation and closer communities coming together through the importance of the arts.”

Edward Michael Supranowicz has had artwork and poems published in the US and other countries. Both sides of his family worked in the coalmines and steel mills of Appalachia.