Tag: Bethany Jarmul

Two Poems by Bethany Jarmul

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Poem In Which I Bleed

for the first time at 13, at that charismatic church
up that gravel road in that rural Appalachian town
during youth group, with the four of us teens,
our fathers the church’s only deacons. I fled

the purple carpet & purple padded chairs
& purple banner with El Shaddai & a dove
hand-stitched & locked myself in the women’s room
with red & red & red. I thought to use my sock,

as I’d read in some preteen magazine, but I looked down
& saw my Old Navy flip flops. Some wadded up
toilet paper would have to do. In the sanctuary, I sat
cross-legged for an hour, stealing glimpses

at Jesus’ portrait, the blood dripping down his brow
from every thorn, as I squeezed my thighs
until they were sore. At home, I threw the soiled garment
in the trash. When I confessed to mom

she rescued the panties & scrubbed them
in the tub. Scolding me, for in that house
wastefulness was the darkest stain & blood
was how we were cleansed like snow.

*

When a Friend Tells Me I Look Beautiful Because I’ve Lost Weight Due to Prolonged Illness

Many things wither away—
a scorched tomato plant,

an orchid never watered,
a worm on hot cement,

a slug when salted,
a tire riddled with nails,

a balloon with a hole in its skin,
the runt kitten unable to suckle,

a miscarried twin.
They are beautiful too.

They remind me I’m not alone
in my diminishing.

*

Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer and poet. She’s the author of a poetry collection, Lightning Is a Mother and a mini-memoir, Take Me Home. Her work has been published in many magazines including Rattle, Brevity, and Salamander. Her writing was selected for Best Spiritual Literature 2023 and Best Small Fictions 2024, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on social media: @BethanyJarmul

Ordinary Illumination by Bethany Jarmul

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Ordinary Illumination

I’m going nowhere, but I’m sweating
on the elliptical machine.
My husband works at his desk nearby.

Outside the glass doors, the leaves
on the trees are beginning
to bud, but from here they look naked
and cold. “Look, a blue jay.” I point

to the winged visitor
preening on a branch.
“Do you think it’s Blue?” my husband
refers to the blue jay we named

at our old house, five years ago.
He tells me the lifespan
of blue jays is seven years,
give or take.

All of us, all of the living,
exist in that give or take,
in that short burst of light
between birth and death.

A red-headed woodpecker
pecks at another tree.
A cardinal flits by with his mate.

I am undone by the wealth of beauty
in flight, wondering if
I’m soaring in the brief

sun-lit sky of life
or just flapping my wings,
going nowhere.

*

Bethany Jarmul is an Appalachian writer and poet. She’s the author of two chapbooks and one poetry collection. Her work has been published in many magazines including Rattle, Salamander, ONE ART, and South Florida Poetry Journal. Her writing was selected for Best Spiritual Literature 2023 and Best Small Fictions 2024, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on social media: @BethanyJarmul.

My Atheist Friend Asks Me to Pray by Bethany Jarmul

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My Atheist Friend Asks Me to Pray
         For the victims of the Lewiston, Maine shootings

By the time
I pray, 18 people
have prayed

their last prayers.

*

Bethany Jarmul is the author of two chapbooks and one poetry collection—This Strange and Wonderful Existence (poetry chapbook, Bottlecap Press, 2023), Take Me Home (nonfiction chapbook, Belle Point Press, 2024), and Lightning is a Mother (poetry collection, ELJ Editions, 2025). Her writing was selected for Best Spiritual Literature 2023, nominated for Best of the Net and Wigleaf Top 50, and published in more than 70 magazines. She lives near Pittsburgh. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on social media: @BethanyJarmul.

The Home I Abandoned by Bethany Jarmul

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The Home I Abandoned

I’d touch our home—
the red-brick house
at the end of a dead-end
street, with my heels,
our neighbor’s with my palms.

Scripture hanging on the walls.
My father’s fiddle atmospheric
in folk song, hymn.

A cracked alley, hills with oak,
maple, sycamore leaves loose.

The Appalachians as
makers, mothers, or
captors.

The girl who caught fireflies
in Tupperware, bare toes in moss,
marveled at hail clanging
against the tinny awning
over the porch.

*

Bethany Jarmul’s work has appeared in more than 50 literary magazines—including Salamander, Emerge Journal, Cease Cows—and been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Spiritual Literature. Her prose poem chapbook This Strange and Wonderful Existence is forthcoming from Bottlecap Press. Her nonfiction chapbook Take Me Home is forthcoming from Belle Point Press. She earned first place in Women on Writing’s Q2 2022 & Q2 2023 essay contests. Her essay “Intersections” earned the award for “Best in Show: Creative Nonfiction” for Winter 2023 from Inscape Journal. She lives near Pittsburgh. Connect with her at bethanyjarmul.com or on Twitter: @BethanyJarmul.