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Smoke & Mirrors<\/strong><\/p>\n Alice finds it curious that her friends are hell bent They slip easily into the illusion, strings attached They\u2019re as whittled as sticks, living on treacle, Like her they yearn for cakes marked EAT ME, beyond the glass, but they\u2019re trapped in the gloss flimflam promises, useless as ships in bottles, Alice tells them it\u2019s all hookah and looking glass, she should know. Being big makes her feel small, to be,\u00a0ME.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stella Wulf<\/strong>\u2019s poems are widely published and appear in several anthologies including, The Very Best of 52,\u00a0three drops,\u00a0Clear Poetry, <\/em>and #MeToo.<\/em> Her pamphlet, After\u00a0Eden<\/em>, was published by 4word in May 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Smoke & Mirrors Alice finds it curious that her friends are hell bent on contortion, their minds and bodies unhinged by perception, dislocated by notions of perfection. They slip easily into the illusion, strings attached to riggings of fancy, pipe dream masts, waiting to be pulled by the model makers. They\u2019re as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17228"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17577,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17228\/revisions\/17577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\non contortion, their minds and bodies unhinged
\nby perception, dislocated by notions of perfection.<\/p>\n
\nto riggings of fancy, pipe dream masts, waiting
\nto be pulled by the model makers.<\/p>\n
\ndrained from the well of Selfiedom.\u00a0Cheese<\/i>\u00a0splits
\ntoo wide a grin; they shape their lips to\u00a0Moo<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\ngorge like caterpillars until they\u2019re full of remorse,
\nstomachs like lead balloons. There\u2019s a Wonderland<\/p>\n
\nof pose, seduced by tricks. Alice watches them
\nfinger-lick-flick; sees white rabbits at every turn,<\/p>\n
\npaper chains of Tweedledums and Tweedledees,
\nmade bland by the wave of an airbrush wand.<\/p>\n
\nthey may hanker for longer legs, but they can\u2019t find themselves
\nin another\u2019s face. It\u2019s a long fall down that passage,<\/p>\n
\nwhen she feels small she eats. She often asks herself,
\nwho am I, what do I want to be?<\/i>\u00a0Hopes, one day, for the answer<\/p>\n