Good monster

"I'm stuck / in the past, I know. I'm stuck in the present, / I know that too", writes Antigua in her second poetry collection, following Ugly Music (2019), a work anchored by themes of illness, the body, trauma, and time--what each gives, and what each can take away. The poems follow seasons ("September comes and I still / want. There are no precious seasons left"), illness ("it is meaningless how invisible / the body in pain"), and the imprint of abuse ("O little day, / damned day of the unforgettable punishment of touch") to explore how past monsters and dark forces manifest in both expected and unexpected ways. As Good Monster remains in conversation with Antigua's debut collection regarding an abusive stepfather, loss of faith, and sexuality, she deploys form (Sad Girl sonnets, sestinas, collages), direct language, and bold attempts at reconciling with the past to freshly illuminate a self that can avert the presence of trauma or perhaps even overcome it. Antigua writes, "I want to leave behind a legacy of light. / I want to leave someone better."

DIARY ENTRY #34: EPIGENETICS It's been eight years  and the ancestors in me are still  burdened. I don't know if I am gentle with them.  I reheat the coffee in the microwave,  find gratitude when they take what's theirs  and leave the rest. There will always be  scarcity--less food, less Klonopin--  which is to say I own a legacy of fear.  Tonight, another grandmother is dying,  and I cannot heal her. But I line up  my idols like bruises on my belly  and perform a nostalgic ritual:  I shower with my clothes on  like I did as a girl with a man  who wanted to be my father,  when I became a little bird, helpless  to affection. Did he make me  a good monster or a bad one?  I can keep my cage clean,  wipe my mouth with my thumb. PANTOUM IN CASE OF EMERGENCY Don't call my doctor. Don't call the neighbor. Maybe I like to be devastated, to make a medicine out of neglect. Maybe there is another neighbor in me who doesn't like September--another birthday, another year of neglect, maybe another day to smell violence in the air. I barely live till September, another year of birthdays to stay alive for my eggs, so they can't be used for violence. To leave their smell in the air, sometimes I take a spoonful of pills to bed and see my eggs still alive, never used. Sometimes I dream of shoving whole loaves of bread into my mouth, as I spread my worth like pills on the bed. And I can't stop looking for more bread, even as I spit out whole dreams shaped like loaves, my whole mouth open wide to the aisle of the grocery store, even as people stop to look for more bread. Each time I come back from the hospital, I open myself wide like an aisle at the grocery store. I throw away the comforter and paint the walls. Each time I come back from the hospital, the deer show up in the parking lot to eat from the bushes. I throw it all away--my comfort, my walls. I'm the doctor you didn't call. I eat the deer. I eat the bushes to be devastated, to make a medicine. Excerpted from Good Monster by Diannely Antigua All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.