Self Portrait
by Amanda Woodard
When we got the eviction notice
the one we knew we couldn’t
fight, we sold our TV, our VHS
tapes, our favorite movies.
We didn’t make much.
Some women from church said
God told them to pity us & take us in
to their sturdy, brick houses with extra
empty rooms.
We made ourselves portable
threw away family photographs
portraits of me as a kid
posing in front of those cheesy
greenscreen backdrops
the flash shining off my glasses
my smile, big & dorky.
We threw them away & it was easy
to mimic those pretty girls at school
who slept in clean sheets at night.
About the Author
Amanda Woodard is a freelance poet, essayist and ghostwriter, as well as an MFA candidate at Antioch University. She studied Social Science and Journalism at the University of North Texas and attended writing workshops at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference and Writing Workshops Dallas. Her work has been performed in Oral Fixation and published in Ten Spurs, eris & eros, Cathexis Northwest Press and Button Eye Review.