In Shadow We Own All Our Names

Sam hollman

You contain multitudes, mother:

freckled pillow, red-eye landing pad,

endless bubbling lithium spring,

deep, dry well, virgin mine. Oh god,                                  

oh babbling wall, oh laboratory; tattered

makeshift shelter, table made of hips,

on-call smile salesman, sharpening

stone, pillar of salt, an accessory,

a limb, a rib, an appendage. Daughter:

orphanage for disowned

dreams, molding clay, soft bundle

of hair and flesh, parasite, money pit,

floating mirror, sounding board,

echo chamber. A self for each minute

and hour, nine million, long-suffering,

threatening to surface, in the car,

in the meeting; fragments of former

selves existing only in faraway

minds, glimpsed by abandoned

acquaintances, frozen, unalterable,

cemented. Gold lacquer kintsugi

selves who made wounds into ornaments,

unsuspected, emerging victorious, etched in deep

pockets of internet, illuminated

on bathroom break cell phone screens

of men, conjuring new selves who

wish for a name to be a pocket-sized

container for self and seven generations

of selves before. Samantha:

the flower that God heard or

white trash American daughter?

Sam Hollman (she/her) creates poetry, prose, and visual art. Her work explores the intersections of creating, nature, trauma, and mental health. Sam is an MA candidate studying creative writing at Kennesaw State University. She serves as Content Editor for The Adroit Journal and Co-Editorial Director for The Headlight Review. Her work is published with Herstory Writers Network Anthology and others, and she received a fellowship in the '21-'22 Herstory Writers Workshop cohort. She can be found grant writing for arts and environmental spaces, getting lost in the North Georgia mountains, binging 90s anime, and being silly with her partner, two toddlers, and cat in Acworth, GA. Find her on Twitter @samjoy__