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box of bones

Writer's picture: hil hooverhil hoover

(y'all, i was gonna write a funny thing about decorations, and then i opened my doc and... didn't. oops)


it came in a box. 


like those model kits that 

your favorite relative buys 

you for your birthday, 

the one who actually 

understands your interests. 


there were no instructions, 

though, 

and you couldn’t quite figure 

out which parts went where, 

so you were reduced to 

holding pieces together 

and seeing what you could 

make line up.


it’s a little… unstable.


leans slightly to one side, 

doesn’t bend properly

where you’re pretty sure 

it was supposed to be 

articulated. 


you’ve told this story so 

many times that I wonder

if you’ve started to believe it: 

distanced yourself so far 

from your own bones that 

you can’t just say

they were broken, 

but they are mine.

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5 Comments


Omar Najam
Oct 24, 2024

I can't decide which sentiment I'm more impressed by: the one who actually 

understands your interests.  or distanced yourself so far 

from your own bones that 


Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic

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Ruth Anne Burke
Ruth Anne Burke
Oct 23, 2024

There's something here connecting to all of us this year apologizing for our artistic burn out and health/mental health challenges, but I'm too tired to figure out how to express it properly...

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hil hoover
hil hoover
Oct 24, 2024
Replying to

I feel like I always wonder if too much of my work is grief-or-illness focused, like, every year. But it is very interesting to see that it's aligning this way this year. I hope that it's cathartic and comforting for everyone, and doesn't feel like work that needs to be done.

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durham42
Oct 22, 2024

This is magnificent.

I was intrigued by it from the beginning, but when I read the last stanza, I was stunned; it is such a powerful missive to so many human beings, to anyone who struggles to hold together the pieces of their lives that just won’t work together in the way one wishes and yet also acknowledge that “yes, these pieces are mine,” an acceptance of one’s own self even when it isn’t working the way one wants, an acceptance that honors the self, even forgives the self (feelings which, I believe, might even open the door to some of the changes one might hope for).

I hope you can publish this somewhere where a world of people will…

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hil hoover
hil hoover
Oct 24, 2024
Replying to

This is such an amazing comment. I rarely think to do anything with stuff I write here - I was just talking about this at a local event where I read a couple of the poems - and now I really think I want to try with this one. I write a lot of work about trying to claim my imperfect painful body, but some of it feels too... specific? detailed? to be relatable, and I'm really glad that this one came across this way. Thanks so much for commenting! Now to decide whether to slide it to a journal or find a place for it in the book I'm working on.

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