‘I Chewed Through the Curtain’

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet.

I Chewed Through the Curtain 

I wasn’t born I was belched 

from a government throat 

wrapped in a napkin that said 

“best before austerity.” 

They taught me God lives in spreadsheets and kneecaps are negotiable. 

They put sugar on the pills, 

then taxed the sugar, 

then sold the sickness 

back to me in bottled ads. 

I swallowed my mirror 

because the man in it looked 

too calm. 

Now every time I scream, 

it comes out symmetrical. 

Mum cried into instant noodles. Dad ironed flags. 

I traced class lines in biro 

on my face 

and called it eyeliner. 

They call it freedom, 

I call it a lease. 

They call it patriotism, 

I call it unpaid grief. 

At school they said 

dream big 

but only if you can afford 

the landing. 

So I dreamt sideways. 

Crooked. 

Got detention for it. 

Now I move like a debt. 

I haunt 

the future tense. 

I get nosebleeds 

whenever I think about hope. 

You want my humanity? 

Here it is, raw and glitched, 

feral and factory-bred, 

duct-taped and divine.

I chewed through the curtain. I bit the hand. 

I licked the floor clean then set the room on fire just to feel warm.

Abby Pullan is a 21-year-old creative writing graduate and working-class woman from Huddersfield. Her debut collection Bread & Blood is available on Amazon.