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Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

15K followers 7.8K following 5K posts

Just trying to put words together. God Elegy forthcoming from BOA Editions 2028. The Tiger and the Cage: A Memoir of a Body in Crisis (Soft Skull 22), House Is an Enigma (Bull City Press), medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press, 16).

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Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

A photo of a crate of pumpkin pie flavored cup noodles. No, i am not kidding. The world has gone this wrong.

November 5, 2025 at 1:50 AM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

heyyyyy i've got four poems in the latest issue of @loverseyepress.bsky.social about being a woman in this apocalyptic hellscape, including this one. you can visit the poems holding my rage here: www.loverseyepress.com/post/4-poems...

DISCOUNT SHOPPING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE

All of us women in T.J. Maxx are sweating. We talk

ice packs, plant estrogens, black cohosh, the shots

that will lead us to love our bodies by losing most

of our bodies, the internet says. The hangers slip off

their clothes. It is not summer. The radio proclaims

a high of 90°. I’m looking more than ever at the mirror,

which looks back at me more like my mother than ever.

Eat your vegetables, the mirror says. Hold your shoulders up.

Why do you never mop. I glow a rage so incandescent

it’s indistinguishable from the sun, which the internet

wishes would just go ahead and explode. A friend sends

an article about an asteroid that may or may not be

aimed to end the earth. Destroy me, daddy, my friend

writes. Three emojis eject their tongues from pink

half-moon mouths. I refuse to walk down the pinkest aisles.

This isn’t the time for pale, I say. This isn’t the time

for longing or low-slung pants, for pretending

the eyes are windows for anything other than reflected

light. All of us women in T.J. Maxx dwell in bodies

that have fewer rights than the day they were born.

I wish my teeth would grow into knives, my nails

into actual nails. At a frequency too high for human

ears, each woman’s body emits a constant wave

of sound. Like a siren. Like a howl.

October 22, 2025 at 7:52 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

i need my cat to get a job, two years of freeloading is enough

A small brown and white cat is lounging in a small blue bed with his unicorn stuffy. Neither he nor the unicorn bring in any actual substantial income and frankly this freeloading has got to stop.

October 18, 2025 at 4:06 AM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

me every day this year

It’s that screenshot of Ralphie from The Simpsons sitting on a bus. The subtitle says: “(chuckles) I’m in danger” and that’s the exact vibe of 2025 except the danger is increasingly fucking serious.

September 26, 2025 at 1:19 AM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

hey friends, i have a poem about how weird it is to have a body in the latest issue of @whaleroadreview.bsky.social and I hope you'll visit the issue here: www.whaleroadreview.com/bolden/

This Castle Is a Creature

I palace the heart centered in my chest. No part
of my body tells the truth. Not a single brutal clot
of wisdom. Not the zero asleep in each bone.

Will I ever stop being so childish. Sometimes I sharpen
my lead and sometimes I watch as much television as I
want and it’s glorious, a shrimp’s eye of color. The subtitles

tell me what to hear, which I appreciate. There’s something
lost in the gray translation of air and anyway I’m just so over.
I’m just about this close to. There’s too much weather

in my body’s center. There’s no shelter to seek in the interior,
blank rooms, bald windows and etceteras, no way to shutter
the bud and the beauty, the dream of what I thought I was

going down smooth. I palace the heart because it can
bring the whole city down along with it, because I’ve never
known a verb more terrible, more gorgeous than to fall.

Emma Bolden is the author of a memoir, The Tiger and the Cage (Soft Skull), and the poetry collections House Is an Enigma, medi(t)ations, and Maleficae. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship, she is an editor of Screen Door Review.

September 16, 2025 at 7:05 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

you cannot tell me that this antique wooden secretary someone is trying to sell on nextdoor isn’t haunted. it is so haunted. there are ghosts oozing out of this thing everywhere.

An antique wooden secretary (the desk kind, not the people kind) posted on Nextdoor for $500. You can practically see the ghosts oozing on out of the thing.

September 12, 2025 at 1:52 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

this is blurry but i need you to see the very specific expression of joy on my cat’s face when he realizes i am about to throw him his pickle toy

A small brown and white cat is sitting on the arm of a white settee with an expression of pure wonder, delight, and anxiety that may also be gas.

September 1, 2025 at 7:04 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

the spectrum guy had to come and repair my internet and my cat is never going to forgive me for this

A small brown and white cat stands in a door frame, staring at his owner with a look that tells her he’s suspicious of her motives and will never again trust her.

August 14, 2025 at 7:08 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

it is international cat day so please enjoy this photo of my cat with his pickle

A small brown and white cat perches on the edge of a dark blue chair. He is holding his favorite toy, a stuffed pickle. He has like six of them and i can only find one at any given time.

August 8, 2025 at 7:08 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

just wanted to show you how my cat hides from the roomba

A small brown and white cat is sitting on a bedside table, hiding from the Roomba behind a white lamp. He is almost fully visible and therefore not doing a great job at hiding, but he tried.

August 6, 2025 at 7:46 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

ok so they renovated my neighborhood sushi place and now there are all of these silver minnie mouse statues everywhere???

Two of the four giant Minnie Mouse statues now in the entryway of the sushi restaurant by my place. What are they doing? Why is Minnie’s hand so big? Did she clone herself? Am i haunted now?

July 31, 2025 at 12:59 AM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

THE BEST WAY TO RECYCLE A BOX, LIKE THE DUDE IS STILL THERE TODAY

A small brown and white cat is STILL lounging in his cardboard box instead of trying to show off his butt on the zoom

July 29, 2025 at 8:07 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

i had to put a cat trap on the table where i work in order to work without a cat on my keyboard

A small brown and white cat is lounging in a small cardboard box. He’s looking towards the camera and i think he realized i tricked him so he doesn’t stand on my keyboard or try to show people his butt on Zoom.

July 29, 2025 at 2:33 AM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

fondly remembering the hate/love relationship between ozzy osbourne and his gigantic tv remote

Ozzy Osbourne sits on a floral sofa with an absolutely gigantic remote control in his hands. The subtitle says “This fuckin’ space-age shit.”

July 23, 2025 at 1:41 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

i'm way behind on posting this, but i've got a poem about god and mythology and othering in the latest issue of the Potomac Review, which you can see here: mcblogs.montgomerycollege.edu/potomacrevie...

ARACHNE BEFORE THE GODS
A summer sharp as venom, a warp
and a weft and a woman’s work

means always working. The gods weren’t
listening because they were gods.

I tried to tell them nonetheless. That
even if divine, any will that shrinks another’s

is a will that must be punished. The gods
said that’s none of my business. Of course.

In the room loomed my own heat and speed
and the blood rubying my palm, the tender

bracelet of pain as I passed the shuttle back
and forth again. It is unwise to open

a stranger’s wrapped gift, to offer your own
breast to all of hunger’s mouths. It is unwise

to tell a truth you know to be the truth,
to forget that the gods play-carry us

in their mouths like cats, and so they must be
treated, tempted, a lurid little yarn above

their heads. I gave the gods only the story
of their own nature, though the gods have

forgotten that they did the same to me.

July 1, 2025 at 8:10 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

my cat is so sick of this rainy weather’s shit

A small brown and white cat sits on a yellow floor cushion, looking out at the rainy weather. There is actual yearning in his eyes.

June 18, 2025 at 3:28 AM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

day four of siding replacement and at this point my cat is just materializing in random locations with a 100 yard stare

a small brown and white cat crouches on top of a record player. he stares into the middle distance, and his eyes say that he has seen too much, that he wishes he could unsee all the horrors he has seen.

June 2, 2025 at 6:49 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

thankfully i only live with a cat but that relationship is definitely strained rn

A small brown and white cat sits on a blue velvet pillow and he is giving the grouchiest death stare you can imagine on a cat’s face

May 31, 2025 at 9:36 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

having some major home repairs and my guy is not having it at ALL

A small brown and white cat peeks out from under a bench. His expression is unhappy but he is also clearly blaming his owner for the noise.

May 28, 2025 at 6:36 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

this diva

A small brown cat is lounging in a fluffy white bed, giving the camera a cheeky look

May 25, 2025 at 6:42 PM

Emma Bolden

@emmabolden.bsky.social

i don’t even know where to begin with how much i love this chapbook by @dustinbrookshire.bsky.social from @smallharborpub.bsky.social. the most necessary kind of poems, gorgeously crafted, and a triumph of forms. you want this one, trust me!