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 First published in Overland Issue 228 10 December 2023 · the arts A call to action from Creatives for Palestine Creatives for Palestine We are the artists, producers, front of house staff, audiences & beyond who keep this industry alive. We’re here, unified in ‘Australia’, a colonised country built on the genocide and dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from colonialism, apartheid & […] First published in Overland Issue 228 8 December 2023 · Fiction Fiction | The Victims Emma Jayne Willson Every morning I checked the Director’s calendar to ensure there were no meeting clashes, no opportunity for her polished façade to slip. Once I’d made the mistake of booking two meetings without leaving ten minutes between them, thus forcing her to run across the sprawling campus. She arrived late for her meeting with the Provost, […]