Andy Lopez
Revenge Arc¹
¹—& should we wake / to a blue-bloated page / a mistranslation of memory; / should they take this seed, / too, / I will call on my own undead, / walk across the fracture / to be your world-ender, / your very own 10,000 year-old warrior bruha / garbed in bone / & grief, / lifting a moon-sized fist / to crush the script to powder, / & that’s how I’ll love you, / darling, / that’s how we’ll go out. / Watch closely: / a calamity cannot undo / its nature, / & I am only ever what my country taught me to be: / mouthfuls of bitter / & hard to pronounce / Look: / the river pinpricked with dead girls rising. / You must smoke the air now / before the hours burst / into locust storms. / Brand the ocean’s blue way / into your eyes before / I swim into its major arteries. / I’ve become an invasive species / of girl that grows / into godhood / with every unbeliever that bruises / their knees in prayer, / so say it with me: / Nobody wants to watch / another ghost story, / but you haven’t seen this one yet. / See?
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Andy Lopez lives and writes in the Philippines. Her work has been anthologized in the Best of Small Fictions 2021 and can be found in Longleaf Review, CHEAP POP, Underblong, and elsewhere. You can find her everywhere at @andylopezwrites.