Ginny Lee
We couldn’t fathom how anyone could love us
With our sharp tongues
And our sour little hearts, coated in bitter butter
So frozen in fear that they reached out in all directions
And recoiled at the last second
Springing back into our rib cages with such force
That our chests heaved and wheezed
Whenever we laughed
We sat under dark foliage
Picking out the stones from lumpy, foul peaches
Gnawing at old bones like dogs
Discarding the remains
Into an ever-flowing sea of ink
We didn’t care if anything bobbed up to the surface
Or sank
The only light that ever reached us
Were the faint beams of flashlights
That feebly pried between the branches overhead
From those
We never hid
For it was never us they were searching for
We talked about starting a fire
By poking out the lens of your left glasses frame
Because you could no longer see out of that eye anyway
If only we could catch a ray of sun to glint off the
Curvature of that lens
And start a smoldering hole in the ground
But we decided against it
Because we wouldn’t know how to put the fire out anyway
And we were afraid of what we might look like
Against the flickering tongue of even the smallest flame
You with your empty eye socket
Me with a leg that had gone limp many months ago
Now reduced to a mangled silhouette in the dark
We were afraid of what we had made of each other
Afraid that if a fire warm enough
Illuminated the beginnings of some vague trail
That the other might leave
So we weighed each other down blissfully
Drinking in the darkness
Swallowing it whole
Singing hideous hymns
Till our throats rattled
Cursing the ones who came after us
The ones that were raised up on solid ground
And lifted towards the sun
Ginny Lee is a senior studying Radio/Television/Film and environmental sciences. She thinks chocolate mashed potatoes can be a thing. If you just change your way of thinking. It can work.
