Joanna Acevedo
Joanna Acevedo is the author of poetry collection The Pathophysiology of Longing (Black Centipede Press, 2020) and short story collection Unsaid Things (Flexible Press, forthcoming 2021). She received her BA in Literary Studies from the New School in 2019 and is currently studying Fiction at New York University, where she is working on her MFA. Her work has been seen in Track Four, Mikrokosmos, Seventh Wave Magazine, and others. She is a Hospitalfield 2020 Interdisciplinary Resident, NYU Goldwater Fellow, Prose Editor at Inklette Magazine and teaches creative writing at NYU.
self-portrait if the girl is on fire
i was a fold. i was folded in half, cleaved in two. 
i was joan of arc.
i was joan of arc. i was burning. i was gasoline and matches, i was lighter fluid, i was striking a flint. i was in a pact with myself, i was a suicide, i was trial by fire. i was a firing squad.
i was a firing squad. i licked both my palms for something to do. i banged on your window, late at night,
i kicked myself in the anklebone, on purpose? only god could tell me that. i was a fury. joan said, sometimes when you want something bad enough, you’ll do anything to get it.
i wanted you. i would have punched out a mountain fought a forest if it meant i could hold you in your blue t-shirt for one more night.
i was a fold. i was folded in half. i was a non-believer.
the fire clicked itself off. someone had turned off the darkness.
now, can you believe that i was dangerous? i was unruly. i took all the bullets from the guns
and made a soup. i was a feast. i was feasting. joan said, sometimes burn scars are the only way to prove that you were really here.
i made my mark. the moonlight made the flames look holy.
do you know where you are yet? i was a fire. i wasn’t afraid. i was firing. 
©2021 West Trade Review
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