{"id":3162,"date":"2022-01-30T23:18:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T07:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2024-12-17T08:29:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T16:29:58","slug":"night-prayer-of-a-woman-living-alone-by-meggie-monahan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/night-prayer-of-a-woman-living-alone-by-meggie-monahan\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNight Prayer of a Woman Living Alone\u201d by Meggie Monahan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"issue71\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 71<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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\u201cNight Prayer of a Woman Living Alone\u201d by Meggie Monahan<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Lord, make me a glitter ceiling that sings Billie Holiday songs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to distract me when the men start shouting down the street<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I only want to hear crickets and a dishwasher hum<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and Billie’s sweet croon. Make me a tree house<\/p>\n\n\n\n

full of sandwiches, Lord–Thanksgiving stuffing sandwiches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with extra butter, tomato & pesto sandwiches, peanut butter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

& cinnamon sandwiches–and let all of my sandwiches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

be on my favorite thick white bread, the kind my shitty doctor says<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not supposed to eat anymore. Lord, let me just rest<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on a bed of ciabatta, plug my ears with dough and disappear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

into the spongy holes. Make me a romantic comedy marathon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and a German Shepherd that won’t shed and won’t piss the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make me a party with bite-sized appetizers, loafers and heels,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and let everybody laugh for all the right reasons, and let them stay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and stay. Lord, just make me an invisible cape, and the next time<\/p>\n\n\n\n

my boss straightens his tie to tell me everything I’m doing wrong,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ll be out the door and into the sun. Make me camouflage<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the alley fence, the broken glass, the flattened pigeon wings,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and let it wrap around my stupid heart and make me stand,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

unseen. Make me small and forgettable, Lord. Or make me a taser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A faster runner, a black belt, a booby trap–I’ll be crowbar,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

blowtorch, razor blade, and fresh ice on concrete. Make me<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the eight-inch chef’s knife under the mattress, the one I stole<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from my parents’ kitchen. Make me a padlock and a panic button.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make me a night-light, a cell phone that won’t die in the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make me sleep. Make me wake up on time. Make me a fist,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a gun, a hit list of my own. Or, Lord, just make me a man.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37909,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions\/37909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}