Julia Story
Julie the Astonishing (Her Time in Purgatory)
Would you rather stay here or return
to your body?
Return to my body.
Even if the body is wrong:
A lump of no limbs, or invisible
to most people. Even if you have to live
away from the world.
Yes. Even then. Away from
the world.
And will you climb into ovens
and pour boiling water onto
your limbs to show people
who I am?
I don’t know who you
are. But I am willing to
endure pain however
it comes.
And will you tell no one
of this place, but allow a piece
of yourself to live here
until I am ready to bring the rest
of you back?
A piece of myself has always
lived here. A piece of myself
is all I have.
Julia Story is the author of Post Moxie (Sarabande Books, 2010), winner of the Ploughshares 2010 John C. Zacharis First Book Award, and a chapbook, The Trapdoor (dancing girl press, 2013). Her recent work can be read at Sixth Finch, Salt Hill, and Gulf Coast, and she is 2016 recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She teaches writing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
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