hulley poem's collection: girl dinner (2023) by claire donohoe

girl dinner by claire donohoe was something i came across on tiktok, a girl in her room reading out a poem to her phone which struck internet popularity. i love this poem. it has the same grit as catherynne m. valente, and it's wonderful. here is it attached :)

girl dinner by claire donohoe

when i met my stomach for the first time
i found it was actually attached to my mother's

when my father makes a joke about how i am
"carrying on the lineage" of not knowing how to cook
i think about the kitchen
i think about the dishes and the holidays
and gripping a fitted sheet
it's marinara from a can
it's 6 p.m. and the coats are still on
it's the dogs eating loudly
someone has just opened a bag of chips for dinner

built into my beast is an alarm system
and also just enough to keep someone entertained
before it goes off
i think i am clever
i think i am pink enough
firmly quiet enough
you know- the best part of having this skin
is learning how to slice it up 
everyone wants a piece but not everyone wants to cut

when my younger brother says he cannot wait to come home
to a woman who cooks
i think about the grocery store our mother was almost
trafficked at
i think about the sink and the dishes again
and the loud silence of a meal once it's in the stomach

girlhood grapped my neck on time,
pushed me against the wall and said
if i go anywhere too fast
she'll kill herself

i didn't know know what she meant until i decided to try to 
become one single thing
i have a feeling she didn’t actually do it, though
Sometimes 
i can hear her laughing at me when i am too quiet at the
Dinner table

when my brother says its my mother’s fault
he forgot his baseball bag for his practice
i think about the large calendar she details every month
she is left handed
so she has to write the dates backward- bottom to top
nothing was made for her, really,
except maybe this option to try

and inside every woman there is a soul
laying on plate
laying on a table
we pass around garnishes long enough
for someone to complain
the food is getting cold

when i got my period for the first time
my mother said congratulations
when i came into the world, she wrote in a diary
she was so thrilled she could hardly sleep

i cry for her
and by this i mean i cry at the mirror
i am my mother before she became a mother
i think i am girl enough
firmly unsure enough
one day i will have a child and they will forget my name 
they will just call me mom

when you eat fear for all three meals
you will realize that your stomach looks the same
as every other woman’s stomach

i did not learn how to prepare anything else 
i did not learn how to make anything else look more
appetizing than this quiet firmness
i tell everyone i know that fear is tonight’s special

my stomach is actually something i eat out of
girlhood told me she wants everything to have a second life

I cannot find my mother to tell her this
I guess she already knows