Photo by Kyle Glen
The way the world spins,
I don’t know what side I’m on
(children in the grass twirling, arms outstretched, sunshine fizzing over fanned out hair)
Under my skin, I can feel the pain
cover ground, splintering out and
it digs deeper and deeper into me
fracturing all the superficial layers.
The trees triumph in the sky, but all I see are roots,
leaning in, reaching deep for sustenance.
I’m whittling down.
The water stolen from the maple tree boils until it’s syrup.
I am upending. I feel it deep between my skull and brain,
breath and lungs, heart and mind. The pulsing has stopped soothing the normality feels like pressure.
I am burning off the fat that keeps me from floating away.
Underwater, there's more than we are, even on our most expansive day,
and we can hold our breath longer than we think.
Seahorses nestle up to my toes, sunshine melts through my vein streaked skin, lines in my forehead smoothing into ocean waves, sinking into the sunset.
The Author
Tesa Blue Flores is a nanny, wedding planner, house cleaner and poet. She loves dollar pizza, stray cats and hotel robes. She has been published in Bodega Magazine, the Voices Project, the Showbear Family Circus, and Hamilton Stone Review.