By Amy Devine
It is not enough to be soft, you must become fluid.
Your mother cannot hold the things that leave grooves
in your shoulder blades as much as she may clutch for them.
They will grow on you, they will grow on you, they will grow on you.
Not every opalescent reflection is yours. If asked,
all of your friends would rank you the least likely to be kissed.
If you spin the chair fast enough you can blur the world
into a neutral pallet, just for a moment. There are worse things
than having a panic attack in the storeroom of the theatre department.
There is nothing worse than being alone in the last stall
of the second bathroom block. If your friend holds out her threaded wrists
she is asking for help and you simply cannot give it to her.
Every flower petal beneath your foot is paving the road to your birthday
in the emergency room. The most beautiful woman you have ever met
smiles as she weaves screams of frustration through her ribcage.
If you measure the space from her front teeth to her navel then you
could learn to weave too. When you are the first of your friends to be kissed,
it will taste like caramel and sunburn. Art is the most valuable
to the loneliest bidder and right now that’s you. You and your whole heart.
You can teach yourself to live on vinegar and tuna cans but somewhere else
someone will break their nails on the ring tabs you throw away.
You will get older and you will never forgive yourself for being so young
and for knowing so much. What a wonderful thing to be hard to kill but alas.
Alas.
Amy Devine is an artist from a lineage of artists whose work has been featured in several publications including Orange Peel, Gems and Beyond the Veil Press. She is based in Sydney, Australia and she is inspired by history and the narrative of humanity.
Leave a Reply