Sarah Freligh
Assistant Editor Jess Jelsma Masterton: Many writers shy away from the second-person perspective. Some literary journals go so far as to caution writers against submitting stories written in second person, suggesting that the point of view is somehow gimmicky or overwrought. While it certainly draws attention to itself, when the second-person perspective is done well, it also serves to distance the speaker even as it implicates the reader in the narrative. The reader is forced to inhabit the character’s body and mindset, creating an (often) unsettling experience. In “Any Body,” Sarah Freligh uses this power of implication to great effect, compelling the reader not only to look at the protagonist’s self-destructive behavior but also to try understanding and identifying with it.
To hear Sarah read the story, click below:
Any Body
Down under was your stomach, hollowed out and shouting. What it said, you didn’t listen. You counted ribs, a xylophone of bones that lullabied you into sleep.
You heard Beautiful. From the six-ounce glass of tomato juice that stunned your tongue. From the fork you stabbed into lettuce leaves, from the cube of cheddar cheese that fueled your six-mile run along country roads. Whole rows of corn bowed down and whispered: Beautiful. The east-west swish of cars on Interstate 70: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Your world reduced to an equation of yes or no. No to the smear of chocolate frosting on cellophane, to chicken thighs frying, to glistening coins of pepperoni on a discarded slice. A storm of no, so much thunder and lightning. But yes to your hip bones sharpening the pockets of your size-five Levis, to the bathroom tiles cool white against your cheek. Yes to water when you withered and curled.
Nights, you bloomed under black lights, danced with your dwindling shadow. When the fat lady cut in, you knew to excuse yourself before she could crawl inside and live in you. In the bathroom, you leaned against the sink and whispered Yes. Afterward, you were clean again. Hollowed out and shouting.
Sarah Freligh is the author of Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize and the 2015 Whirling Prize from the University of Indianapolis. She was the recipient of a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2009. Follow her @sfreligh.
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