books by amanda lovelace the women are some kind of magic series: the princess saves herself in this one (#1) the witch doesnt burn in this one (#2) the mermaids voice returns in this one (#3) slay those dragons: a journal for writing your own story *** the things that h(a)unt duology: to make monsters out of girls (#1) to drink coffee with a ghost (#2) this is dedicated to the one who loves ketchup as much as i do. trigger warning child abuse, eating disorders, sexual assault, self-harm, violence, cheating, death, gore, blood, trauma, grief, & possibly more. remember to practice self-care before, during, & after reading. co n t e n ts when she thinks i have forgotten her, every phone rings off the hook every television screen turns to static every faucet twists on & off every clock strikes three a.m. every book flies off the shelves every cabinet swings wide open every stool turns upside down every door locks & unlocks itself every lightbulb explodes into pieces. - welcome home. whenever i think of you, i envision our little white kitchen table. inside the drywall, i imagine years of collected stories & laughter burrowed like chestnuts from stowaway squirrels. my secrets are hidden among them, toothe ones you expertly ignored so you could still look at me & see the perfect daughter who never existed. none of these memories would be complete without our coffee. so i sit down at our little white kitchen table. i pour not one but two cups. i wait & wait & wait even though i know you wont show up to hear what i have to say. - communication was never our strong suit.
lately, it seems like everywhere i look, i only find daughters haunted by something their mothers did to them. we tell each other that we would raise our daughters differently. we do this while wondering if our mothers made the same promises to themselves. - ghost-mother. you walked underneath streetlamps & they flickered until they died. you wore watches on your wrist & time forever paused. you drove brand-new cars & they stalled on the freeway. you held my bundled-up body & i looked up at you like you were the sun. - power is power even if it takes. you were an accident, she said. -it always sounded like the thing that ruined everything. you wanted me to adore you most of all, so you handed me prettily wrapped lies in the hopes that i would hesitate before trusting anyone besides you. - not even myself. while i was growing bigger & bigger inside your stomach, you still decided to smoke your cigarettes each & every day. it was normal back then, you explained to me once. no one knew how dangerous it was. no one knew it could kill. - even if you knew, it wouldnt have changed anything. i wonder if anyone would be surprised to find out that i came out of you searching for the scent of smoke, which really just ended up being the smell of you. - something toxic. the little girl was so desperate to feel loved, to feel like she existed at all, that she took anything she could get, even if it was nothing but a bunch of make-believe. - dont accept scraps. i watched a strange man punch a hole through our family. i watched you hold his hand & do nothing as he pushed your children through it. - arent mothers supposed to protect? you had me rehearse the tales that would protect you. - white lies. & you were shocked when i started telling tales to protect myself. - red lies. relationships fail. people break up. families completely collapse in on themselves, folding up at the spine like a bedtime story finished much too soon. but what those bedtime stories fail to do is prepare us for any of it. - some lessons we must learn for ourselves. she was like a mother when she should have just been my sister. - thank you for your sacrifice. she was busy hiding her bruises while i was busy hiding my tears. - we were all each other had.
your mother taught you to hate your body, - family heirloom. so you taught me to hate my body. - family heirloom II. it wasnt long before i realized i could never be who you always wanted me to be. - i tried desperately to be her anyway. what you told me after you saw the thin lines on my wrist. - depression doesnt exist. i used to turn to you. with scraped knees. with paper-cut fingers. with battle wounds from playground wars. then things changed & i didnt feel like i could do that anymore, so i turned to people who knew exactly what i was going through. help, i cut myself so deep i think i may have to go to the emergency room. help, i havent eaten in two days & im afraid ill die if i dont & also if i do. help, he touched me & i still feel his fingers. when you found out, you locked me up. buried the key someplace you forgot about. you gave my pain a name & it sounded like rebellion, not depression. no one ever bothered to tell you about the sad type of daughter & you did everything possible not to see her. - blindfold. you did not have a medicine spoon filled with poison. you had no gun. no knife. no ax. no belt. no ready hand. however, the weapon you did wield proved to be equally as dangerous. - your words. if i didnt lose weight, you said i was disgusting. - there was never any winning with you. if i lost too much weight, you said i was disgusting. - there was never any winning with you II. your best friend. your fear. - they can be one in the same. everything i love, i love because you taught me to. when you decided i was finally old enough, you gave me my first deck of tarot cards for my birthday. you told me, these arent magick. not by themselves. theyre magick because your hands are the ones holding them. - my high priestess. most of the time, the person who hurts you is the person who makes your face light up more than the moon at full brightness. they can even be the person who takes you out for your favorite dessert after youve had an awful day. or the person who teaches you the names of crystals. or the person who shows you which offerings to make faeries to get them on your side. - its not your fault that you trusted them.
you gave me this great escape shelves & shelves of adventures but i used them to escape you. - books upon books upon books. i walk the thin line between nostalgia & trauma, never fully knowing the difference. - maybe there is none. if poetry showed me how to bleed without the demand of blood, then why do i keep picking open all my old wounds just to get some red on the page? - my ledger. I.a noun. I.a noun.
II.one word. III.five letters. IV.two syllables. V.a shot to the lung. - cancer. deteriorate from radiation. lose every hair. grow bedsores. become unrecognizable. confuse me for others. clutch your dusty rosary. receive last rites. (twice). - going... going... gone. you suffered for so long no one believed it would ever end. - nobody deserves that kind of pain. there is a kind of cold youre overcome with when you see your first dead body & it has nothing to do with the temperature outside. you keep that cold with you for the rest of your life. it reminds you to live your life more cautiously. to cherish every autumn sunrise & every smile from a loved one. you never know what youll be allowed to bring with you into the unknown. - what if its nothing? what do we do with all the things we need to say to someone well never see again? - maybe thats why i write. the july before you left, it rained every fucking day. everything in your precious garden drowned. - how can life be over so quickly?
