The Hollow-ed Woman

a Saturday morning poem.

Shona Ortiz

Made in earnest,
she carved out of herself
parts previously grown in.

The vines were trimmed, 
trellised and divined to be what 
was deemed and defined as holy.

The pulp was scraped from her insides
replaced with a longing in the lungs 
that never filled.

Empty rooms bound and possessed
by demons and static.
I am not alive; 
I am here. 
Trapdoors line the floors in dopamine
wells promising better, but
only delivering 'well-enough.'

I am at once timber;
I become ash, 
an ember. 

I can no longer hold her here. 

I am forever in the spaces in-between, 
liminally speaking through your memories
blending your thoughts into a fury. 

I hope you look for me in the face
of the mountains you cannot climb.

I hope you search for my hands in the clouds
only to grasp at nothing. 

I hope you feel me in the warmest, 
suffocating summer rain 

and drown
in all of what you left behind. 

You carved the hallways that settled 
deep within the splintered bones
scattered to the winds that blow through
what is left of me. 

Burn my effigy and, 
set her free.