The Aftermath

by Tiffany Elliott

I am stone today. By necessity or circumstance or because I saw a crocus on our walk. I remember in chunks, then forget. I brake myself, the pulse slows around me, all the rhythms broken and confused. On my leg, purple veins flower where my balled fist bashed my thigh. I pick at them like petals, every one he loved me not.

6S

Tiffany Elliott, a mental health professional and teacher for over a decade, received her MFA from New Mexico State University in 2020, where she was awarded the Mercedes De Los Jacob’s Thesis Prize and the Sutherland McManus Prize for Literary Criticism. Her writing explores the mythologies we experience, those we create for ourselves, issues of abuse and trauma, and how people can remake themselves. Her work has appeared in Spectrum, Riggwelter, Atherton Review, isacoustic, Inlandia, MUSE, Pacific Review, and others.