{"id":3091,"date":"2023-12-01T17:31:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T17:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/?page_id=3091"},"modified":"2023-12-03T05:41:33","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T05:41:33","slug":"i-have-never-been-hotter-than-i-have-been-in-my-mfa-program-by-bella-gross","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/i-have-never-been-hotter-than-i-have-been-in-my-mfa-program-by-bella-gross\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I Have Never Been Hotter than I Have Been (in My MFA Program)&#8221; by Bella Gross"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">I pull out armfuls of clothes \n&amp; just about anything looks good, \nfeels better. When something\u2019s laying \nagainst my hips funny \nI put something looser on \n&amp; turn out hotter anyway. I wear less\n \nmakeup than I did, \nor maybe I don\u2019t \nbut I make it look like I do\u2014\nexcept my lips, which I keep lined &amp; bold \nwhen I smile my teeth are shiny \nlike I can call a man a hypocritical bastard \n&amp; he smiles back \n\nin slight delay how big screens in stadiums do. \nI buy less but feel expensive. I make clothes, recycle \noutfits. I take a hundred selfies and keep fifty \npost them nowhere. I speak in full sentences most of the time. \n\nHard to say what made me hotter\u2014\nthe Zoloft was a good start. Maybe \nit\u2019s that I\u2019ve written more poetry than I ever have\n&amp; read even more. Thumped my heart on the desks \nwhen my fists didn't do. \n\nMaybe it\u2019s that I cuffed someone I liked first \nfor once. Made some of the same mistakes \n&amp; some new ones. Cut him loose \nlike every time before\n&amp; crushed my heart to numbness. I\u2019m hotter \n\nbecause I cut my hair off in the bathroom sink when I hit fuck it \nbut everyone tells me how much hotter I am now \nbecause I learned the choreo to Seventeen\u2019s \u201cHOT\u201d in my spare bedroom \n&amp; because I sing Adele from my bed at the top of my lungs\n\n&amp; don\u2019t mind if the neighbors hear because they\u2019d be impressed. \nMaybe I\u2019m hotter now cuz I\u2019m less vulnerable than I used to be,\ncan\u2019t get cut all the way to the quick.\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Isabella Gross<\/strong> is a poet from Northern Michigan. She received her MFA in Creative Writing Poetry from Miami University and is currently a lecturer in rhet\/comp at University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. When she&#8217;s not practicing K-pop choreography, she&#8217;s running her independent micropress, <em>And Then Publishing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I pull out armfuls of clothes &amp; just about anything looks good, feels better. When something\u2019s laying against my hips funny I put something looser on &amp; turn out hotter anyway. I wear less makeup than I did, or maybe I don\u2019t but I make it look like I do\u2014 except my lips, which I &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/i-have-never-been-hotter-than-i-have-been-in-my-mfa-program-by-bella-gross\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8220;I Have Never Been Hotter than I Have Been (in My MFA Program)&#8221; by Bella Gross&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2310,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3091","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/oxmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}