Published in print in issue #44 of Sand Hills, 2020
There was no awards show for me,
no posts of amber flesh squeezed into navy linen, navy spandex.
No drunken hurrah! with a whiskey bite,
no toppled stack of printed shirts- all fuzz and color.
I was a no-toothbrush girl
with all the other no-toothbrush boys.
A few little words to my mother and it was all Shakespeare-
Out, out, brief candle.
But there are no lights under the overpass, no beeswax either,
just stink of canned meat
just foil-glint and muddied-shoe
just pitter-patter from the blue.
There was no awards show for me,
no boundary-breaking sitcom with those hollow laughs, all robot and diaphragm,
ha ha ha.
There was no awards show for me.
Holly Eva Allen 