mainland.

mainland.

by cori amato hartwig

i-iii. longing parts i—iii

iv. lost at sea 

v. sea glass

“we are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”

–william james

longing 

i wish i were more like the grass, flexible and resilient,
but i am far less green and much more fragile

—who are you
—i am a flower on fire, i say 

longing part ii

your silhouette against the ocean is a mark against you, as no one can be the ocean. her power slips between my fingers. her tides are mathematical and mystical and magical, yet you look at me instead. i am none of those things. 

i want to be low-tide. i want you to wade in. 

longing part iii 

i am not interested in lovers that proclaim themselves loudly on rooftops or amongst a crowd or during people’s parties or on valentine’s day or on new year’s eve

i want a love that caresses my face on a tuesday afternoon or the dullest wednesday or even my ugliest thursday and doesn’t mind my cold feet and swears over midnight silence that he likes my nose and talks about introducing me to his mother and dances with me in our own private spectacle over glasses of wine and finds it funny when i burn the toast at breakfast and reads next to me while i fall asleep and always 

stays awake 

lost at sea 

—i have nothing to confess. do you?

a resounding cry for homeland, a 
newborn mother i have never known, an
umbilical anchor i’ve searched to find
i have drowned my own head under 
the meniscus of ancestral reckoning but

i will not poison the land with my grief.

all of our oceans are connected
why do we name them? 

the sea rises and the sky falls
where do i begin? 

the earth plummets straight down, only marking its history in 
bands that strangle its own identity as it 
looks down on its rising fate  

if i keep walking the land would sharply leave my soles so i 
stand and oscillate and dizzy myself until i
fall like the edges of the 
cliffs 

i jump and call it a 
bluff

sea glass 

—am i haunting you or are you haunting me?

the echoes and shards of 
loss
do not concern me 
i cannot be concerned at all

find me tumbled on the edge

i dove in at midnight 
the rain heavy with
a hand around my neck
weathered by nothing short of a storm

don’t you wish you were the water

cori amato hartwig is a writer, musician, comedian, and mental health activist. cori is also known as @manicpixiememequeen on instagram. she is a lover of the color yellow and dramatic faux fur coats. she is known to make lists in her sleep, take astrology very seriously, and overshare about her life through her art and memes. find more about cori on her website and blog, coriamatohartwig.com. 

instagram: @cori_amato

twitter: @cori_amato

facebook: @coriamatohartwig

youtube: @coriamatohartwig

an ode to the sunshine through my bedroom window during springtime

an ode to the sunshine through my bedroom window during springtime

by cori amato hartwig

(dedication)

to my mom, gina, who is all seasons at once.

this chapbook does not negate my love affair with the moonlight, the dignified silence of snow, or the respectable chaos of a storm.

every year, i forget about the coming of spring.

there is no novelty in spring because there is no novelty in resurrection.

(ode)

a void fills up with cherry blossoms & the sounds of bare feet padding on pavement. there sits an indescribable aching in all of my petals. a sonnet buried deep in my gut. an ageless sense of urgency. an anonymous longing. desire is the disease. she is riddled with impatience.

i dream in chamomile flowers & dandelion root. i forget about winter’s violence & settle into the softness of violet clouds. how could you forget about the earth beneath your feet when the poppies bloom in communes across our mother’s newborn landscape? the glorification of permanence ends at earth’s surface.

at her murky dusk, the sky morphs into a belly. she swallows the sun & its colors. days end just as quickly as seasons. long after the sun sinks, its touch lingers on my face like honey stuck to a spoon’s handle. today is just an echo of all of the days i’ve lived before. i wait for tomorrow.

(spring is)

softly pedaling a bicycle

remembering & forgetting childhood street names

a porch without a swing

resenting nine o’clock

learning palm lines of new lovers

rosewater & roulette  

equinox with anticipation

asymmetry

using stationary i have been afraid to waste

a garden tended to in moonlight

gazpacho

half a cigarette

a freckle on my life’s skin

a lawsuit

an unwritten poem about winter

a kiss on the neck

goosebumps

a ribbon

a blindfold

making love with the blind half-drawn

a healed broken toe

tendon attached to bone

a drop of blood in a fresh loaf of bread

communion

eulogy

justice

kindness

god

matrimony

divorce

a one-way ticket

a delayed regret

spring knows no calluses

the spring sun is the reason i love yellow.

cori amato hartwig is a writer, musician, editor, comedian, and mental health activist. cori is also known as @manicpixiememequeen on instagram. she is a lover of the color yellow and dramatic faux fur coats. she is known to make lists in her sleep, take astrology very seriously, and overshare about her life through her art and memes. find more about cori on her website and blog, coriamatohartwig.com.

instagram: @cori_amato

twitter: @cori_amato

facebook: @coriamatohartwig

youtube: @coriamatohartwig

pomegranate woman

i am standing in front of a mirror examining my body under interrogation room lighting. i did not plan for this, my body says, i have no alibi. i raise the light closer. i ask my body what fruit a man would compare me to. men don’t like apple women, supposedly, but i am not an apple. nor am i a pear. in the light i see a layer of wax from the produce department carving out my body into lines that do not form shapes. i shine my skin with a cloth and buff out the lines, making sense of my shape that enters many planes. perhaps a man would call me a persimmon, or a pomegranate. the most important part of the pomegranate is the bitter seeded middle.

Published in Seen And Heard, volume 1 in August 2019.

how to write about your eating disorder

count how many teeth you are missing by biting down into your hand & counting the gaps in the marks you leave. count the marks that you leave. count the marks that are left. count the marks. tally them up & begin. buy denture cleaner. place the tablet in a glass of warm water. lukewarm will not do. watch the water fizz up. bubbles attach to the sides of the glass. remember how you cling. take out your jaw & place it into the glass. watch the bubbles cling to the bone. remember how you cling. place your hands around the glass. remember the warmth on your skin. do not place your body onto the page. leave it in the glass with your jaw & all of the teeth you are missing. create a new body from the gaps you see in the glass. give her a name that is not yours. alter it. your words are the diet to change her body that you forged. do not use the name ‘anorexia’ as if you say her three times in the mirror, she will appear bloodied behind your candle, toothless & angry. she will not allow you to name your baby. she will brand you as the madwoman in the attic. she will take your feet & bind them. she will take your hands & break them. she will take your will & starve you. do not write her onto the page. write around her. write in the gaps. wish for more gaps. less teeth. more fingers. more toes. double-jointed knuckles. write until the water is cold. write until the skin around the jawbone has become wrinkled. write until her body is papier-mâché & the words on the newspapers have bled into white glue. (she could have been built with newspapers & flour & water but the flour had too many calories. she chose the glue instead). write until the body forgets the sound of her own name & she leans against the bathroom counter to regurgitate & all that comes out is her name three times, appearing bruised & soaked in anemic blood behind her own candle. she does not recognize herself.

Published in Transfer Magazine, issue 116, in December 2018.