All this talk of aesthetics – the paint that flakes my hair, the charcoal that stains my knuckles. I wanted to be an artist.
(I wanted to take your breath away.)
I thought of the beauty of certain words – “freesia” and “chenille”,
the names of pagan saints (mortal gods) and constellations.
I lingered over dictionaries (their pages – paper butterfly wings) like some inhaled memories of past lives through pages of scrapbooks & photo albums.
No one told me what I could be – impossible, beautiful, wild.
They concentrated on limitations (liminal spaces where you could confine a woman’s worth inside of a box – a jewelry box, a shadow box, a coffin).
No one told me what I could be (only what I could not).
& those limitations (those barbed wire boundaries, those glass boxes) became my home.
To the west, I could smell foxglove and to the east, oleander. Though everything inside of me reeked of woodsmoke & perhaps, petrichor’s sinister cousin –
the stale cologne of former lovers,
I thought I could liberate myself.
(Theoretically, was it still primativism if we go back to paradise
where there was simply you & I?)

Love this one so much.
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Thanks, Halla. It’s a bit different than my usual poems, but I’m really pleased with it.
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This is so so so so incredible. I’m standing in my kitchen stunned!!
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Wow, thank you! That js so kind!
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