Owning the Lie - By Mara Lemanis

 

Owning the Lie

It’s all a lie
a bogus bone
of blurbs
that build a home
for what I want
to see me be —
my lips flap up a V
and flag a victory
my gullet funnels sound
I paste into a wall of pulp
to plug integrity
a thick bold parka
fits my carcass
stuffed with
fluent craft with
the pitch I chant
I own my want

It’s all a lie
this carcass of memes
sawdust schemes
that shoot their payload
straight into my desert cell
and bond the void
populate my vacant lot
so pulp that daily
births and dies
can staunchly live in me
sport a heartbeat
pump up hype
scoured to equal me
to warm my arctic soil

It’s all a lie
what of it?
I’ve built a storied self —
a carcass thick as parka
breaks the gutter wind
from jaundiced mouths
that spit and slur
my graceful rind
their lips creased thin
as pitted prunes
that swiftly swell
with false applause
and spring up gusts
of sour grins
vinegar on rosy crusts
that toady to
the nimble pitch
they itch to snitch

It is a lie
is what it is
but I have built
a storied me
a Brand I gamely sell
to those who dwell
in desert cells
I hatch an effigy
what can I say is true?
I am the cant
that makes me be
I fit the want
you pay to free

                                                                                                                             Mara Lemanis

 

 

 

 

Biography: Mara Lemanis is a literary scholar. Her essays have been selected for 20th CENTURY LITERARY CRITICISM and are included in undergraduate student textbooks in the U.S.

She has worked as an archivist for Historical Preservation and with the IRC, assisting refugees in Oakland, California.