#torrin a greathouse

torrin a. greathouse, in an excerptfromMedusa with the Head of Perseus, featured in Wound from the Mouth of a Wound

[Text ID: My mother says her first crime was beauty, that my father’s was how he imagined himself a god. Call me bloodcurse, fair hair shriveled and sprouting teeth, stain across the temple floor. Do not make me tell this story without a forked tongue. Before me there was a mother and a god—I mean a man—and a choice. Imagine, her body a home. Call my father burglar, my birth a breaking and entering. At least this crime gives a name to the shatter. Invents a reason for the curse birthed into this body.]

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound, ‘An Ugly Poem’ by Torrin A. Greathouse

[ID below: 

excerpt from ‘An Ugly Poem’
Once, I searched for softness on my tongue, ground my father’s anger, sour mash cavities from my teeth. I just wanted to talk pretty enough to be mistaken for what I was. Hot flush of girlish blood. I edited all my ugly out, made a perfect poem of my soft & lacquered mouth. Now, I’m looking for the ugly of my tongue, lolling serpent curled in the slick of my jaw, searching for its own teeth.]