they told us it was a choice
now, that only in middle school
did we need the monthly class fieldtrips
to the school church at the other side
of the parking lot. back then, we’d sit silently
in maple-colored pews and wait for our turn
with the priest. we memorized the same lines:
father forgive me and it’s been 1 month
since my last confession. then we’d list
it all out: sin by sin by filthy, stinky sin.
in high school, it wasn’t mandatory anymore
but some of the girls still went, cutting
their lunch hour short for the catharsis of it all.
i sat with my friend at a table of other people
we didn’t really know. we’d rather be eating
our subpar pizzas and getting all the hot gossip
about who slept with who and who got a secret
abortion to avoid getting kicked off a sports team,
which is what would happen if you got
pregnant at Catholic school. I never saw any
classmates knocked up before I left, after I became
violently depressed. the nuns thought I got lost
to the sins, the ones I never bothered to confess.
they were right. my sins were letting fear and shame
be built upon me, judging women as “whores,” letting
outdated men tell me what I could and couldn’t do.
but my biggest sin was carrying all of this and still
not realizing what a feat it had been to resist. how even
after all the memorizing and forgiving, I still slipped through
some crack, knowing damn well I had nothing to confess.
About the Poet:
Amanda Conover writes poetry that is often surreal-leaning, mystical, and confessional. She is the Poetry Editor for Carolina Muse Literary & Arts Magazine and holds an MFA from Arcadia University. Her poems appear in Atlanta Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Lumina Journal, Witches Magazine, and elsewhere. Outside of poetry, she works as an editor in scholarly publishing and loves hiking, traveling, and attending raves. Find her at www.amandaconover.com or on Instagram @amandamconover.
Ephemeral Elegies 
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