Published in Overland Issue 233 Summer 2018 · Uncategorized Learning Allison Gallagher the way sovereign bodies grow into one another enclaves coalescing to form new imperfect states when we are produced together it becomes impossible to tell the difference between good bodies and bad bodies there are just beautiful things to blossom inside broken ribcages there is just the way birthmarks of trauma dissolve when my love holds pieces of myself that have only ever seen what violence looks like i think about what the body inherits my grandfather’s wounds become my father’s wounds become mine passed down like a jawline & only ever spoken about through silence there is so much viciousness in only knowing these things through absence slowly i am learning that no one heals in solitude we cut out the ugliest parts of each other in quiet queer rituals on shared double mattresses i am learning to live inside a broken thing when i call this body a wreckage in the middle of the night you ask me not to speak about your home that way Image: Open arms / flickr Read the rest of Overland 233 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Allison Gallagher Allison Gallagher is a writer from Sydney. Their debut chapbook is Parenthetical Bodies (Subbed In, 2017). Writing has appeared in Overland, Potluck, Scum Mag and Kill Your Darlings, among others. They also sing and play bass in the band Sports Bra. More by Allison Gallagher › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 18 December 202418 December 2024 · Nakata Brophy Prize Dawning in the rivulet of my father’s mourning Yasmin Smith My father floats words down Toonooba each morning. They arrive to me by noon. / Nothing diminishes in his unfolding, not even the currents in midwinter June. / He narrates the sky prehistorically like a cadence cutting him into deluge. 16 December 202416 December 2024 · Palestine Learning to see in the dark Alison Martin Images can represent a splice of reality from the other side of the world, mirror truths about ourselves and our collective humanity we can hardly bear to face. But we can also use them to recognise the patterns of dehumanisation that have manifested throughout history, and prevent their awful conclusions in the present. To rewrite in real time our most shameful histories before they are re-made on the world stage and in our social media feeds.
