just something i wrote for an assignment in 9th grade English. also if you recognize the mitski quote hidden in the poem don't tell my school I plagiarized pretty please
i.
I am to be born anew in ten days.
I can feel it
In my skin.
It pulses under the flesh
Like a river, rushing through my veins.
A change is fast approaching and I am not strong enough to withstand it.
ii.
I am too vulnerable, too fragile to change.
I am one to be crushed under a boot, I cannot endure this change that will come in 9 days' time.
I am afraid.
Afraid.
iii.
My mother changed only weeks ago. She is as young as I soon will be.
Her children, my siblings, are many. I am one in one thousand and I will be lost in a haze of orange when we change. It will be brilliant, it will be,
Fleeting.
Our beauty will last only seconds in the eyes of those who look upon us.
Mother, I am to be young again.
Mother, were you scared? Were you scared mother?
I am scared of the change to come.
iv.
My hunger grows with each passing day, as does my fear.
Some of my siblings have already started to settle. They seek out the places closer to the sky, as if, even in this life before the next, they long to be weightless, held only by the cold wind that I feel on my back.
They do not seem afraid, as I am. They turn their heads to the sky, facing down the wide expanse of blue like the ant faces a hurricane. They do not cower, only waiting for the change they know is coming. They are resilient in ways I am not.
I am not, I am not, I am not.
Please, I am not them, please, I cannot withstand this.
I am afraid, do you hear?
I, who make no sound, am screaming
I am afraid of the change to come.
v.
Today, I reflect.
My life, as short as it is, is coming to an end. In five days, I will become someone else.
In five days, I am to live a new life in a new body.
Mother, you are dying soon. Soon, my new body will replace yours in the kaleidoscope.
Soon, mother, soon. I do not want to leave the ground, I do not want to take flight like I am intended to. Mother, soon, too soon.
vi.
I have begun the change.
Soon, mother. Soon.
ix.
This barrier between me and my new world has begun to crack. I push at the walls of my chrysalis with new arms, new legs.
This new body has not seen the outside world but it is unafraid. How? How did something so sensitive become a rock in a river? I had thought, before my new mind settled in my head, that my fear would remain.
Even if my body had changed, my mind would remain.
But it has not, and I am just like my siblings. Their resilience which I had only witnessed when I had looked into their dark eyes, and seen the look on their faces, has become mine.
Oh mother, is this how you felt? Was I wrong to ask if you were afraid? You were, weren’t you? Just like me, my mother, like me. And like me you weathered your storm, you were born anew and unafraid.
i.
I am different.
I feel it, in a way unlike any other. My body has changed but my mind as well. Before, I was guided by the will to survive. Before, I was not looking to the skies because there was nothing in them for me to look at, but now, now my weary head turns to the sky as almost second nature. It calls to me, to my newborn wings and my young resolve to conquer it.
I am finally living.
Mother, is this what you felt like? Did you live as well?
This change, this change,
I am alive, for the first time, I live.
Oh, mother, I am not afraid. I will face the skies,
Unafraid.
And the wind will push my frail body
but I will not fall, no,
These new wings,
they will take flight and I will rise,
Do you hear? Mother?
I will rise, just like you.
I am born anew.
Related Recs
I read it in first grade and it accelerated the development of a profound sense of consciousness and independent thinking and fortified my existing love for animals/nature/the environment. I was already an overly existential child and it helped me learn to focus on beauty and joy in the face of death and suffering!
—
The leaves were falling from the great oak at the meadow's edge. They were falling from all the trees.
One branch of the oak reached high above the others and stretched far out over the meadow. Two leaves clung to its very tip.
"It isn't the way it used to be," said one leaf to the other.
"No," the other leaf answered. "So many of us have fallen off tonight we're almost the only ones left on our branch."
"You never know who's going to go next," said the first leaf. "Even when it was warm and the sun shone, a storm or a cloudburst would come sometimes, and many leaves were torn off, though they were still young. You never know who's going to go next."
"The sun seldom shines now," sighed the second leaf, "and when it does it gives no warmth. We must have warmth again."
"Can it be true," said the first leaf, "can it really be true, that others come to take our places when we're gone and after them still others, and more and more?"
"It is really true," whispered the second leaf. "We can't even begin to imagine it, it's beyond our powers."
"It makes me very sad," added the first leaf.
They were silent a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, "Why must we fall? ..."
The second leaf asked, "What happens to us when we have fallen?"
"We sink down. ..."
"What is under us?"
The first leaf answered, "I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows."
The second leaf asked, "Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we're down there?"
The first leaf answered, "Who knows? Not one of all those down there has ever come back to tell us about it."
They were silent again. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, "Don't worry so much about it, you're trembling."
"That's nothing," the second leaf answered, "I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure of my hold as I used to."
"Let's not talk any more about such things," said the first leaf.
The other replied, "No, we'll let be. But—what else shall we talk about?" She was silent, but went on after a little while. "Which of us will go first?"
"There's still plenty of time to worry about that," the other leaf assured her. "Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid things..."
"Now the nights are dreadful," the second leaf complained, "and there is no end to them."
"We shouldn't complain," said the first leaf gently. "We've outlived many, many others."
"Have I changed much?" asked the second leaf shyly but determinedly.
"Not in the least," the first leaf assured her. "You only think so because I've got to be so yellow and ugly. But it's different in your case."
"You're fooling me," the second leaf said.
"No, really," the first leaf exclaimed eagerly, "believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me."
"Thanks," whispered the second leaf, quite touched. "I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank you because you're so kind, you've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are."
"Hush," said the other leaf, and kept silent herself for she was too troubled to talk any more.
Then they were both silent. Hours passed.
A moist wind blew, cold and hostile, through the treetops.
"Ah, now," said the second leaf, "I..." Then her voice broke off. She was torn from her place and spun down.
Winter had come.
Sep 8, 2024
⭐
i remember wondering what they must have been thinking. while the bombs were being dropped, while their high school crush was sent to fight a war he didn't want. i wondered what they spent their days doing. what their older coworkers were whispering about in break rooms. what the best cook in their friend group was thinking as they fed dinner parties with ritz pies and canned vegetable casseroles. i wondered how it felt to keep spinning when the world was falling apart, surely the citizens knew better, surely they spoke up, surely their bones were alight with rage and confidence and desperation! surely it felt cataclyismic. that's how it's always been taught. looking back, we see the patterns. looking forward, we just see another day.
these days, as my rights are being taken from me every morning, as the farmers are scared to farm and the reporters cannot report and the people are stirring unsteadily- these days i know all too well. i cut my strawberries in fours wondering if next week there will be any left. i listen to conversations in break rooms and elevators, making a tally of who's husband has a red hat and who talks about lowering taxes and whos eyes shift to the floor whenever someone says the word immigrant. i savor, save, and wonder. i worry, don't we all worry?
i hold my lover tight and blanket us in gratitude, praying it is enough that we never discover how lucky and rare this moment is.
when i was young i signed myself up for the revolution because it was exciting. then because it was necessary, and now because it is all there is. we expected songbirds and battle cries and passion, instead we carry casual, mundane grief. maybe there is no better future. maybe all there is is the hope of one.
so i no longer wonder. i know what it is to be one of the unlucky ones. i know the lack of glory in living through the next generations 'never again'. we are not revolutionaries. we are not martyrs. we are people just getting through the day. no one will write me a biography when i am gone, my diary will not be published. but my hands will be dirty and my soul will be light when they accuse me of the crime of being human. i lived, despite it all, during it all. isn't that what it's all about?
Jan 28, 2025
📜
Ocean, don’t be afraid.
The end of the road is so far ahead
it is already behind us.
Don’t worry. Your father is only your father
until one of you forgets. Like how the spine
won’t remember its wings
no matter how many times our knees
kiss the pavement. Ocean,
are you listening? The most beautiful part
of your body is wherever
your mother’s shadow falls.
Here’s the house with childhood
whittled down to a single red tripwire.
Don’t worry. Just call it horizon
& you’ll never reach it.
Here’s today. Jump. I promise it’s not
a lifeboat. Here’s the man
whose arms are wide enough to gather
your leaving. & here the moment,
just after the lights go out, when you can still see
the faint torch between his legs.
How you use it again & again
to find your own hands.
You asked for a second chance
& are given a mouth to empty into.
Don’t be afraid, the gunfire
is only the sound of people
trying to live a little longer. Ocean. Ocean,
get up. The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world. Here’s
the room with everyone in it.
Your dead friends passing
through you like wind
through a wind chime. Here’s a desk
with the gimp leg & a brick
to make it last. Yes, here’s a room
so warm & blood-close,
I swear, you will wake—
& mistake these walls
for skin.
Jul 1, 2024
Top Recs from @salmune
🌊
something abt zoning out while staring at a lake just hits different
Apr 27, 2024
no idea what sparked this but i just had a random meltdown over baseball. the next note after this one was also abt baseball so i think i was just going thru something
Apr 18, 2024
☀️
in: reading by the lake / nature walks / bird watching like a grandpa / hanging out with my mom more because shes awesome / gardening / blasting chappell roan / running / napping / photosynthesizing / pointing my fan directly at my face while i sleep / reading before bed
out: stressing over my future / sweating / people asking why i'm wearing jeans and sweaters in the summer / sticky fingers / tequila shots
Apr 16, 2024