But I Ended Up

E. Kristin Anderson

1 Minute Read Time

This photograph is an aerial view of a white vehicle driving down a road. There are mountains in the background, visible fog, clouds, and spots of water in the photograph. — Photo by Spenser Sembrat on Unsplash

after Tanya Donelly

I’ve left that driveway so many times. And I tried
to rest my anger there, chewed hard at your home,

cracked my teeth. You planted those teeth like tulips
before the first frost. I cried when the blast came

and ate what grew in spring, stopped calling home.
It’s not that healing is hell, but hell is healing—

it’s taken root beneath my skin, scar tissue white
and permanent. If I am brutish, it’s just that

I’ve lost my words to medicine and these teeth are
still hard in my mouth. I’ve only seen my cloven feet

because you told me I should know they’re there;
when my eyes split sideways I knew to expect it.

I knew the color of my dreams, bright and sharp—
waking up breathless and strange, the child in me

lets the lion go, feels the fire curling from her sleeves,
makes her calls on a tin can and a string. I bury the echo

in a ditch by the highway. I’m planted here now—all knees
and tongue and a road that stretches to touch the Pacific.

E. Kristin Anderson

is a multi-Pushcart-nominated poet and author who grew up in Westbrook, Maine and is a graduate of Connecticut College. She has a fancy diploma that says “B.A. in Classics,” which makes her sound smart but has not helped her get any jobs in Ancient Rome. Kristin is the co-editor of Dear Teen Me, an anthology based on the popular website, and her next anthology, Hysteria: Writing the female body, is forthcoming from Sable Books. She is currently curating Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture for ELJ Publications. Her poetry has been published worldwide in many magazines and anthologies, and she is the author of eight chapbooks. Kristin recently took a position as Special Projects Manager for ELJ and is a poetry editor at Found Poetry Review. Once upon a time she worked at The New Yorker. She now lives in Austin, TX.

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