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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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![]() :: a portrait of my mother mother dresses in white satin, she presses her thin lips together and dabs with pale handkerchief, smiles with rouge- stained cheeks, and yet reveals nothing-- a portrait of relentless tenderness. mother teaches me to walk with feet pointed inward as a bird on earth before taking flight. she walks this earth, too—tender, imagining roses across the sky, falling. :: study in red and yellow hibiscus bloom next to mother’s vanity mirror, gold-flecked lullaby. she sits and stares-- something bloody stares back, it terrifies. (she lets the sun flood in.) :: native speaker of elegance mother teaches me to hold my body at sloping curves as a swan does, back arched and nose pointed upward. she teaches me to hold a gaze, as when an eagle locks eyes with its prey—somewhere, doves skim a lake. i unravel with lidless eyes rolled back, swallowing back sobs with the burning of something soft. mother teaches me to dissolve my edges, flares of brittle hegemony-- she teaches me to accept a man pressed against the soft lines, to suffuse my mourning with the sacrifice of something being holed. i shudder and harden, the chaste moon makes me a gate. :: notes on birds an eagle, claws injected with brutal instinct, a dove, enshrouded in clouds of innocence. the eyes of a swan—radiant, empty. (think of a swarm, birds clattering in a silvery cage.) :: note from my mother it’s late and im trying to teach you how to fly, to wrap your fingers around the moon, unfurling in chaste luminescence. i want to show you how the shadows promise too much, how to listen only to your hands. they are your eyes in the night-- that makes anyone an enemy. and i’m trying to remind you that it’s cold outside, that shudders of glass breath will break. and I’m trying to show you how even the smoke chafes the skin as you walk past. i’m trying to teach you to forgive - to know that this thing called imagination is a dagger, that none of us were ever pure. :: my fair lady mother swallows the burning church, tulle and lace dragging behind. the water swells over the bridges, dry and bloodless. london, london, london. :: eulogy with unanswered question and now that you are eclipsed in glittering ashes across the sea, please, reassemble your bones, torn carcass feeding unanswered prayer, and teach me once again-- how to minister the wind, how to to polish thin skin, how to envy a flame. :: in my dream
a bird’s bones in flight—no, crumpled paper set alight-- no, satin burning the color of sky. Comments are closed.
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Unless otherwise noted, all pictures used are open-source images in the public domain. Archives
May 2023
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