Poetry / Amanda Chiado 

From the writer

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On your sobri­ety birth­day, you dress up as the Mars Rover and sing hap­py birth­day to your­self from the zero per­cent of a non-alco­holic Coro­na. Your new body is not as pli­able as your test dum­my body. You still believe that there is a killer in you. You are the burn­ing star that once dressed as a sat­u­rat­ed wish. It is hard to see who loves you when you are float­ing in undis­cov­ered space. You still believe some­one is com­ing to save you. No one has arms long enough to rip you from your wild ruckus of star-crossed drown­ing. In new ways, you believe in your lone­li­ness. Your melody sings out from your emo­tion­less throat into the con­stel­la­tions poised in arabesque, and reach­ing toward & through obliv­ions for a musi­cal score that explains pain. You wish you had a soft­er mouth to eat Oreo ice cream cake, that you would not always feel like a satel­lite, sick of yourself.

Aman­da Chi­a­do holds degrees from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co, Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts, and Grand Canyon Uni­ver­si­ty. Her chap­book Prime Cuts was just released from Bot­tle­cap Press, and she is the author of Vitiligod: The Ascen­sion of Michael Jack­son (Danc­ing Girl Press). Her work has most recent­ly appeared in South­east Review, RHINO, The Pinch Jour­nal, The Off­ing, and numer­ous oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. She is an alum­na of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Writ­ers and the High­lights Foun­da­tion. Her poet­ry has been nom­i­nat­ed for the Push­cart & Best of the Net. She is the Direc­tor of Arts Edu­ca­tion at the San Ben­i­to Coun­ty Arts Coun­cil, is a Cal­i­for­nia Poet in the Schools, and edits for Jer­sey Dev­il Press.