<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Parasites<\/strong><\/p>\n I recreated you in sleep. perfect teeth, and scars that followed the path Your wounds were never visible clawing your ribs, unable You came again last night, The strangler who feeds on the modified How have you grown, I cut you off, And still, you come. My daemon, my ghost, Bethany W Pope<\/strong> is an\u00a0award\u00a0winning\u00a0author of the LBA, and a finalist for the Faulkner-Wisdom\u00a0Awards. She received her PhD from Aberystwyth University\u2019s Creative Writing program. Her work has appeared in:\u00a0Anon, Art Times,<\/em> Ampersand, Blue Tattoo, De\/Tache<\/em>d\u00a0(Parthian),\u00a0The Writer\u2019s Hub, New Welsh Review<\/em> and her work is due to appear in the next issues of Planet, Poetry Review Salzburg, Tears in the Fence<\/em> and Anon<\/em>. Her first poetry collection,\u00a0A Radiance<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>was published by Cultured Llama Press in June. Her second collection,\u00a0Persephone in the Underworld\u00a0<\/em>has been accepted by Rufus Books and shall be released in 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parasites I recreated you in sleep. Not as you were; A lanky black teenager with natural hair, perfect teeth, and scars which ran the length of your solid-root body in raised keloid whorls that followed the path of the knife from anus to breasts. We were children, then, we’ve become something else. Your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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-3964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964","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=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3966,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions\/3966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNot as you were;
\nA lanky black teenager
\nwith natural hair,<\/p>\n
\nwhich ran the length
\nof your solid-root body
\nin raised keloid whorls<\/p>\n
\nof the knife from anus to breasts.
\nWe were children, then,
\nwe’ve become something else.<\/p>\n
\nin photographs. I knew them
\nby touch. My white hands
\npressed against your hard belly,<\/p>\n
\nto shift the weight of you.
\nI felt those ridges, moist
\ncrevices. I feel them now.<\/p>\n
\nbreathing very hard.
\nOur adult legs entwined, muscular,
\nthe fig and the palm.<\/p>\n
\ngrass. The trunk bears it up
\nuntil the vine consumes the pith
\nand stands, for a time, alone.<\/p>\n
\nyou dark, twisted girl?
\nHow have you met me here,
\nin power and force?<\/p>\n
\npressed you down.
\nI sliced you from me, tore
\nyour teeth from my skin.<\/p>\n
\nShuddering against me,
\nwhich death are you dying,
\ndo you hunger or feed?<\/p>\n
\nthe twin that I buried, clawing up
\nfrom the soil. Keeping their roots,
\nthe palm tree, the fig.<\/p>\n