I was born into broken arms 
expected to hold 

me. Wedged between the bodies 
of a woman who didn’t want to be alone 

and a man who deserved to be, I slept. 
The body is barely anything more 

than flesh for the first few years. In 
Blue’s Clues overalls, I stood 

with chocolate on my nose 
and smiled for a picture I don’t remember 

taking. The holes in my memory 
can be filled with something sweet, 

too, if I let them. No sense in connecting
the dots of who might have hurt me 

and why. I keep the lights on 
when I sleep, and still cannot breathe 

if there is an arm around me. Maybe 
it’s nothing worth knowing. Maybe 

I remember enough.

Micaela Walley is an MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore. Her work can be found in Huffpost, ENTROPY, Gravel, and Hobart. She currently lives in Hanover, Maryland with her best friend--Chunky, the cat. You can follow her on twitter @micaela_poetry and on instagram @micaelawritespoetry.

Portia Zvavahera is an artist born in Juru, and currently based in Harare, Zimbabwe. After studying at the BAT Visual Arts Studio, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Zvavahera attended Harare Polytechnic for a diploma in visual arts. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg (six times), the Marc Foxx Gallery in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, and the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean in Mauritius. Her work has also been shown in New York, Minnesota, Texas, Mexico, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Russia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other places.
The recipient of numerous residencies and awards, Zvavahera was part of the Zimbabwe Pavilion exhibition at the 55th Venice Biennale. Zvavahera’s latest exhibit, Ndakavata pasi ndikamutswa nekuti anonditsigira, opens on September 15th at David Zwirner Gallery in London.