by Mariya Mykhaylova
I took my heart out last night
Bound with nerves,
Dressed with tears,
And served it rare.
A new cavity, spacious and empty
My lungs took up the newfound room
The heart—you didn’t know what to do—
Mostly pushed it around on your plate.
You rarely show your soft belly,
All of your organs in their rightful place.
Suddenly I feel very silly
As I look at the big mess I made.
So different and so dear
(If only I could take a look inside)
Maybe then I’d understand how to
Open up without opening up.
The morning after
Alone with the leftovers,
I mend myself back together
Wounds raw for the licking.
Focus
by Pia Quintano
Mariya Mykhaylova is a writer, poet, and psychotherapist living in San Francisco. Her previous work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Apofenie Magazine, ROOM: A Sketchbook for Analytic Action, NCSPP’s newsletter: Impulse, and Psychology Today. You may view her previously published works at https://linktr.ee/mary.care.
Pia Quintano is a New York based writer painter who attended Mills College and resided in the Bay Area for many years. Fascinated by the narrative in paintings and the visual worlds in fiction. Paintings were sold at the Frank Miele Folk Art Gallery in NYC until it ultimately, after many years, closed.
Ignatian Literary Magazine 