Amanda Nicole Corbin: 6 Poems

(CW: miscarriage, alcoholism)

nest

i plucked patience
off a tree long ago
shoved its gritty pit
inside my pocket
filled my gut
with thick desperate plea
spent mornings drinking
soil over water

wishes return
cracked & dislodged
pieces that once fit
hang from my sternum
& fall like loose teeth
​onto the floor

so i will stand
arms lightning-bordered
& outstretched
i will gouge a trench
like a birdhouse nest
​inside my abdomen

i will pack it
with the bloody bedding
of freshly fallen feathers
& i will remember
there wasnt a hole in me
​until i dug one

​i miscarried so we made carbonara

we drip with the unused raw yolk i am
now allowed to eat again & i learn
he prefers flat-leaf parsley over curled,
the pastas made fresh & i dont count
the carbs & i say its like a little
light went out & he says he can feel space
where something heavy was removed too soon

i tell him i am lucky suffering
with him & he blames his tears on onions
we never bought & i wash my hands
while a teeny bubble flutters to my nose
a small hello in its hands from the past
or from the future or from another time
where things lined up

thanks, i think.–a sonnet

you loved me with your trashtalk, like the tags
on bottles meant to sell you ways to feel,
so i buy the kind you like and you brag
about me being the one with the real
bad drinking problem surviving on shots,
but then why do i come home to you red,
your face so faded from booze and so hot
with that dumb laminated look, you said
in drunken stupor that you didnt want
me to leave; you just wanted me to get,
much better, but, without you, but, no, not
away from you–just wanted me reset–

and so i did, but not with your sculpted gross
vision of me, not with you anywhere close.

we leave the past in knots

​its past choices
sheathed by toilet paper

where we quaff of tranquil waters
& the sweet release

of yesterday, inside a porcelain
reminder–then,
from a distance: a shot
in the dark & bleach on the tiles

​cabinets dappled by the acid
that slowly holes us all

while we sweat tears
from eyes & bile from noses

​wincing into an ocean
of recycled

liquid decantation:
vomit, vodka

effluvium
of the previous night

flowing like burned
out tapes & its only the humid

​footage in our guts
where we finally forget

to bring along the feeling of endless
regret & leave ourselves

floating
on the buoyant nature

of dumb luck
& new life

revisit

when asked to retrace my steps
backwards becomes a circle
an upstream creep of brackish
past the way wounds are ugliest

when starting to heal (ive been called
a glutton for punishment more than once)
i revisit when my resiliency is awake
and ready to drink good at the foot

of the geyser bleeding every toothbrushing-
turned-vomit morning, i hold my breath
in case the tempest returns and swallows
me back–when i look at the apartment–

the one where i decided i was ready to die–
the one where i decided i was ready to live–

i see only suburban paint and cracking cement;
its neither grimacing haggard nor grinning
palatial and instead of a squall of terror
im met with silence both inside and out

it is this apartment and it was this apartment
but it was never this apartments fault
the air does not change and the sky keeps blue
and no blood bedews my windshield

instead–there is no instead–there is no
dam break, no bubbling slap cringe
but there is also no fluvial wave of relief
no surge of pride even the ponds outside

do not move–the only change is the face
of backwards percolating every drop i ever drank
through plush skin so i become the only part
of anything i ever drank left

Amanda Nicole Corbin is an Ohio-based poet who has had her work published in The London Magazine, Door is a Jar, Pile Press, Constellations, the Notre Dame Review, and more. Her chapbook, they drink with the sun (Bottlecap Press, 2023) focuses largely on her journey and struggles with mental health and addiction. Find her on Threads and Instagram at @ancpoet or www.amandanicolecorbin.com.


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