Sam Moe ​
​

Synonyms for Love

Icy. Killing. In the forest, gloved hands. Rapid
slope of blue ice into the lake below, vulnerable
as a rabbit with a robust throat. Atrocities and
it was April then flimsy May, I was entirely
frail in the summer months. Another word for
God is house. Another word for knife is mouse
and you expect me to forget their contortions,
men folding my body with the rage of their
fathers, but you misunderstand, I was a sacrifice
a pit and a corpse but never a girl. Yes, blood.
yes, I am a curse. Yet when I sit beside you
in the darkened room, there is a loud and terrible
sound in my heart, I’d sooner wash the skin off
my fingers than speak, there is a new fleet off
the coast of the Atlantic, my father has forgotten
he has an older daughter, ruins his life at sea,
you tell me this is just what fathers do, they fall
to the ocean floor, they dream, they slaughter
the daughter, leaving them alone with a mother.
Love the ghost of you. Want to sit by you when
your teeth turn to fangs, your hands as claws
and in your stomach is a soft exposition, hazy
blue day, I know you know, it’s so comical.
Another word for hatred is nothing. Another
word for my blood is hare. I’m bad at talking
to you so I turn you into poetry. Unfortunately,
there’s weather at sea. I imagine you as my
home yet refuse to tell you the true stories of
my youth. When I was a little older, the moon
would ooze through my window and whisper
to me stories about belonging. My mother
and I are both broken in the mouth. Want to
tell you but know you’d sooner wash me off
the deck with a mop and a scowl. Another word
for love is cycle. Don’t test me. When have
I ever looked at you and not meant it. When
have I ever extended my hand and not bore
in the center an intersection of thorns, blades,
haze. No, I can’t be unfurled during dinner. If
it would please you, I’d transform into any
flower, a pile of blue wings, an observation
without any consequence. Good morning, I
love you and hate myself.
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Sam Moe is the author of Cicatrizing the Daughters (FlowerSong Press, Winter 2024), Grief Birds (BS Lit, 2023), Heart Weeds (Alien Buddha Press 2022), and the chapbook Animal Heart (Harvard Square Press 2024). Her short story collection, I Might Trust You is forthcoming from Experiments in Fiction (Winter 2024). She has been accepted to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (2024) and received fellowships from the Longleaf Writer’s Conference and the Key West Literary Seminar, and Château d’Orquevaux.