in the autumn, the monster ripped his way through my bosom, twisted my heart until it became a deadened thing, & buried it somewhere in the leaf-littered wood. he left no marker, no signs leading back to it. when i asked him why he did this, he told me that he was finished with it for now & he didn’t want anyone else to find it in the meantime.
- the ending.
in the spring, the thawing began. with a hand clutched to my chest, i stumbled down that overgrown path, dug through the softened dirt, & took that beatless thing back into my hands. i leaned in & whispered to it, “please don’t give up. not yet. there’s still someone you should be beating for—me.” somewhere in that darkness, the faintest sparkle of light bloomed.
- the beginning.
i stand
i stumble
out
of
your
shadow-bursting
lair
&
with
the little
i have left,
i
stretch
my arms
wide o p e n &
i spin
spin
spin
spin
meanwhile,
the gracious sun
mumbles
between
each kiss
to my
scarred
back,
“darling, you are worthy.”
“darling, you are worthy.”
“darling, you are worthy.”
“darling, you are worthy.”
to
my surprise,
none of it
burns.
- darling, i am worthy.
once my eyes adjusted to the brightness—that’s when i first noticed him. a shovel in one hand, a mud-splattered heart in the other. i waved, offering a small, hopeful grin in his direction. a cautious smile grew in return. i so desperately wanted to say to him, you can do this, you know. you can come back from whatever it is that they did to you, but i knew he already knew that. he didn’t need any reassurances from me, just as i didn’t need any from him. but if nothing else, there is so much comfort to be found in knowing that we aren’t the only ones who feel like the freezing season will never relent.
- the sun-heart.
“but my heart—i don’t know if it can love again just yet,” i warn him.
“let your heart take its time,” he replies, his voice surer than any i’ve heard before. “as it so happens, mine needs a rest, too. we’re both here, anyway—we can take them both & lock them away in a box so they can figure things out together.”
- closed for repairs.
his name
rests
inside
my throat
like
i was
born trying to
say
it.
- the kind of inevitable i don’t dread.
he’s got a green thumb.
where you
& let the weeds
overtake,
he’s always
so very nurturing.
& you’ll never
guess what—
he made for
damn sure
he repotted me
where i could
stretch towards
the light
& finally
outgrow you.
- my new love is here to ruin your day.
when i was finally feeling brave enough, i told you, “i can’t do this with you anymore. if you’re never going to leave me, then this is me leaving you. there’s someone else seeping in through the fractures you left, & i swear he’s the most honest thing i’ve ever known. he’s not shadow-touched like i am, like we are. it’s like the sun herself radiates from his freckles.”
“you don’t deserve him,” you replied. “& don’t try to convince yourself that you ever will.”
- one of the few things we agreed on.
“that girl is mine,” the monster-boy growled.
“that’s where you’re wrong. that girl belongs to the coffee shops & the bookstores & the treetops—but mostly she just belongs to herself,” he said, unafraid.
- thank you.
make you think
every person
you meet
is wearing
a mask
to hide
their fangs.
- & they will be wrong.
yet . . .
how am i
supposed to believe
he’s not just
wasting time with me
while he waits
for a girl who doesn’t
have to
reach through the dark
to keep making sure
the other side
of the sheet
isn’t turning cold?
- trust issues.
“only if i’m with you,” he cried back.
- guess i was good enough after all.
told me
he never
learned
how to
swim;
i
told him
it
was okay
because
i did.
- i will carry him across treacherous seas.
playing with matches
surrounded by
the letters
my monster-boy.
catch me
lighting
blowing out
lighting
b l o w i n g o u t
the flames
next to the sleeping
sun-heart
who sits up to
eat the fire with me
& lets the letters
remain unharmed
without having to be
asked.
- our quiet understanding.
realize that
i am
always learning.
right now,
i am learning
how not to see
the image
of your face
coming through his
&
that’s okay.
i know you’re
somewhere
doing the same,
albeit for
very different
reasons.
- my fear / your regret.
after it ended,
you still
snuck up
to my mailbox
to deliver
bundles
of letters—
half
half
hate notes.
when
you found
someone new,
all your letters
came back
to you
marked
[return to sender].
- find a new partner in crime.
i used to know
told me that
love was forever
& if you ever
feel it waning,
then it was never
truly there.
but you’re
the solid,
tangible proof
that they were
dead fucking
wrong.
- this girl has learned to love with conditions.
anyone ever
warn you
not to
try
to trick
a girl
who reads?
she’s
already
seen
everything.
- don’t try to waste your time again.
i would be lying if i ever said you served no greater purpose in the book of my life. there is at least one good deed that i can attribute to you. it was only after you left me stranded & i found myself still breathing that i knew i could withstand everything that came after you—even the tempest that rattled the hinges on all the doors & blew all the shutters off & split every tree around me in half. she was nothing in comparison to you.
- stronger than all the storms.
i already know i shouldn’t be writing these poems about you anymore. if it’s any consolation, they’re more about me than they are about you (in other words: it’s not you, it’s me). the only reason i’m letting myself write them now is so i can finally write about all the worthwhile things that disappeared when you sent them off to sail the foggy, forbidden sea. despite the best of your efforts, the ship found its way back to me & i’ve realized there is so much more to my existence than the memory of a man who would love to see me drown in search of happiness without him.
you’re married now, but not to the first girl. not to me. no, you ended up marrying a completely different girl. that seems like it should be the punch line to a really, really bad joke after everything you put us through. after everything i contributed to.
yes, i can admit my fault now. i might have been young, but i was nowhere near blameless in the end of our dream. you’re not at fault for anything i said or did—only i am.
the first time i heard the news, i expected tears. i expected a cry so loud that it would land upon stars in other galaxies. in other universes. in other dimensions. at the very least, i expected a vodka-neat scorch to rip through my body. but you know what? that didn’t happen. the world did not stop mid-spin, nor did it lose a pigment of its color. the sun never became eclipsed by the all too self-important moon.
i imagine going back in time to tell my younger self about this moment—the one where i finally realize that my life truly did go on without you wreaking havoc inside of its walls. i try so hard to imagine it, but i know she wouldn’t believe a single useless word i said.
yet here i am. i stand before you the woman who managed to become everything you said she could never one day be. in the years since you’ve been gone, i’ve managed to find love again; more importantly, i’ve managed to find myself again. now i’m the one who takes all our mistakes & sells them to strangers.
- the letter i never sent II.
just like in the movies, we quite literally bump into each other at the bookstore one afternoon. i’m not sure what kind of books you like to read anymore—probably something like stephen king—but all the ones tucked in your arms go tumbling to the ground & mix with my gillian flynn. i don’t even sense them falling. i’m too mystified by the sight of you to bend down & help you pick them back up.
“why don’t we grab some coffee & catch up?” you ask. so we do. you tell me stories about your children & i try to smile politely at the correct times. you avoid mentioning your wife & i avoid mentioning my spouse, which is probably best for both of us. i try to tell you about my writing & you can’t hide the red draining from your cheeks, so you find a way to change the subject. no, you don’t want to hear about all the hollywood monsters i turned you into to make people understand.
there is no slow blast of fireworks. there are no heartstrings finally coming to relax underneath the table between us. there is no magical moment of lost love found. inside this moment, we are not allie & noah. no, in this moment i am allie & you are lon. or maybe you are noah & i’m martha. i can’t be certain.
what there is, however, is a sort of silent understanding. in a different life, we could have been holding hands across this table, discussing ordinary things like grocery lists & who will pick which child up from what at which time, but in the life we currently occupy, we’re two almost-strangers struggling as we try not to look at each other too closely while we pick the splintered apologies out from the cramped space between our teeth.
in this life, you want to tell me, “i’m sorry i didn’t know how to stop the pretending.”
in this life, i want to tell you, “it’s all right. i’m sorry i let you stay despite the pretending.”
(none of this ever happened.)
- the letter i never sent III.
no longer
remember how
warm your
nicotine laugh
felt
when it
slid through
me.
no longer
allowed
to know
who you
are,
yet
i sleep
soundly.
- how to know when it’s really over II.
the act
of
putting you
before
myself,
i
successfully
spat on
the grave dirt
of
every woman
whose
skin i wore
before
waking up
inside
this one.
- they didn’t deserve this.
my poetry
classes
taught me
anything
about this
life,
it’s that
you were the
ted hughes
to my
sylvia plath
& now he’s
the robert browning
to my
elizabeth barrett.
- he dropkicked my heart back to life.
love does not need to be tragic in order for it to be good. the truth is that i would much rather stir to the feeling of his lips meeting my forehead at 5:30 a.m. every morning for the next eighty odd years than settle for living an eternity alongside someone who can’t even be sure where he left his promises the night before.
- fuck those fairy tales.
the person
they swear
they’ll never
turn into
is the person
who’s
always been
standing
before
you.
- the perfectly woven lie.
you cannot make the ones with the wanderlust eyes pause in one place—not even if that place has your name etched all over it.
- maps & eXes.
ever doubt
that you
will rise
from
the ruins
of all
who
wanted power
to grow
in their palms
for all
the wrong reasons.
- this isn’t the end yet.
can’t settle
for
always-retreating
wave
when
you deserve
all the
oceans
&
not just
the
cloudy reflection
of them
in the skies.
- the sun? she told me you are worthy.
trust
anyone
with a cross hanging
from
their
neck
&
hate
buried
inside
their
chest.
- take it from me.
no closure
tells us
more than
the closure
ever
could.
- some people were never worth your words.
to give yourself
permission to
fall harder
than the wine
does
into
the bottom
of your glass,
but make sure
you do it
while knowing
there’s no one
you should trust
more than
yourself.
- gut feelings are a survival tactic.
instances
where
you are
the
toxic one—
where
you will need to
step back,
apologize, & reflect.
i know;
i’ve been the one.
but
even still,
that fact
doesn’t
excuse
their abuse.
- false equivalences.
i won’t let you shut me inside an inescapable yellow room. i won’t let you force me to become the keeper of a secret journal hidden underneath a thin mattress. i won’t let you tell everyone i’m just a hysterical woman who clung to every word you said & warped them to convince people to join her in a manhunt. this story doesn’t end with my silence. this story ends with the yell of every victim who’s ever felt hands come behind them to cover their mouth just as the truth started to leak out.
- come, take back your hatred.
better have
your stakes
in hand
when
the
beautiful
monsters
with
fangs & claws
come
running
towards
you.
- we’re in this together.
sun-filled sky.
these were the
singing blackbirds.
these were the
empty pews.
this was the
cracked piano.
this was the
choking choir.
these were the
withered roses.
this was my
little black dress.
these were my
tear-dry cheeks.
this was my
red lipstick grin.
this was your
silent eulogy.
this was your
word-wrapped coffin.
&
this—
this was how
i took myself back.
- like it or not.
first, i want to thank the enormously talented illustrator of this book, munise sertel. this story wouldn’t have been complete without your beautiful mark on it. from the very beginning you understood my vision & helped make this book the very best possible version of itself, & for that i will always be grateful.
as always, i want to thank my spouse, cyrus parker, who happens to be the sun-heart who appears in the last section of this book. thank you for convincing me to resurrect the chapbook this book was eventually birthed from, even when i didn’t think it was possible—ESPECIALLY because i didn’t think it was possible. you are what gives me the motivation to do most things in this life. <3
this book wouldn’t have seen the light of day without christine day. in fact, none of my books would. there isn’t a piece of writing that goes out into the world without you seeing it first. i trust you with my life, & more important, my words. i would be lost without your guidance, my writing cheerleader, & my best friend.
my beta readers are incredibly important to the readability of my books. my deepest appreciation to everyone else who helped me push this story in the right direction: mira kennedy, trista mateer, sophia elaine hanson, & alex andrina. it was an honor to work with you on this fickle monster of a book.
aaron kent, thank you for writing the poem that inspired my piece titled “our quiet understanding,” on page 100. this wasn’t the first time you inspired a piece that went into one of my books, & it probably won’t be the last! (the first version of this poem originally appeared on aaron’s website, poetic interviews. you can visit to read that poem & more.)
to my dad, my stepmom, & my sisters for their outpouring of support when it comes to my writerly endeavors. i couldn’t do any of this without knowing you were all on my side. please hear me when i say: thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you.
a special thank you to a few people whose enthusiasm for my work keeps me blooming: danika stone, gretchen gomez, nikita gill, lang leav, caitlyn siehl, iain s. thomas, k.y. robinson, shauna sinyard, summer webb, & olivia paez. i’m most likely forgetting so many of you, but just know i’m grateful for you, if you’re reading this.
thank you to the bookselling team at the barnes & noble in holmdel, new jersey, for treating my books as if they were their own children. in fact, a massive thank you to the company in general for treating my book with such love & kindness—both online & off.
to my editor, patty rice. to my marketing manager, holly stayton. to the rest of my family at andrews mcmeel publishing. thank you for loving my work. thank you for trusting me. above all, thank you all so incredibly much for giving me & my books a home where i know we will be kept safe & sound.
& finally . . . thank you, dear readers, for taking the time to read my words. for every photo. for every drawing. for every poem. for every comment. for every message. for every email. for every letter. just—thank you. your very existence gives me comfort.
growing up a word-devourer & avid fairy tale lover, it was only natural that amanda lovelace began writing books of her own, & so she did. when she isn’t reading or writing, she can be found waiting for pumpkin spice coffee to come back into season & binge-watching gilmore girls. (before you ask: team jess all the way.) the lifelong poetess & storyteller currently lives in new jersey with her spouse, their bunnycat, & a combined book collection so large it will soon need its own home. she has her BA in english literature with a minor in sociology. her first poetry collection, the princess saves herself in this one, won the goodreads choice award for best poetry of 2016 & is a usa today and publishers weekly bestseller.
to make monsters out of girls copyright © 2018 by Amanda Lovelace. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.
Andrews McMeel Publishing
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ISBN: 978-1-4494-9867-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018941272
Illustrations by Munise Sertel
Editor: Patty Rice
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