Taffy Girl
Poem by Elizabeth Upshur
An acquired taste.
For the cannibals we say we aren't we look at femme bodies. For the taffies better known as flatteries between liars and whoever isn't. For that lump of gold, lump of fool’s gold hard as knowledge passed from god to man, just as sharp in the throat, scratching out new words from my voicebox. They were my first, those caramel sweets from my grandmother, a woman of the generation removed from insistence on caramel, and one day, hopefully, white chocolate children. the sticky sugar meant to lasso my loose tooth out of my jawline from a, shall we say, inventive dentist. the color of my winter skin at my wrist, like the Lord's own wrist yanked, bloody, for a soldier's nail to pierce my palm, hold my body up for crimes I have never remembered, and the vinegar at my lips harsher than my own tears. Pull me until that hard, glossy armor breaks. Until everything sweet about me melts on your tongue, and me and thee, and thee and me seethe all in your blood. |
About the Writer
Elizabeth Upshur comes from a long line of Black Southern storytellers, and her work can be found in storySouth, Mujerista, Pomona Valley Review, and Red Mud Review. She is the inaugural winner of the Brown Sugar Lit Mag prize and recent Gigantic Sequins flash fiction winner. Follow her @ https://www.instagram.com/elizawriteswords.
|