“To: C-Jay” by Emily Anderson

my love is not a new love it has evolved over millennia;

i cannot say anything new about the feeling in my gut i have no revolutionary thoughts about

the afterlife i cannot tell you how to fix a pulled thread-

 

my love is not a new love it has fermented in the rotting grapes

it has fermented in the rotting grapes.

i have fermented in the rotting grapes.

it has germinated in the redwoods and i have died and been reborn.

 

i have endured frostbite and sunburns and stretched skin and scars from hot water

i have cracked but never crumbled

so i must be stronger than mountains.

 

you must be stronger than mountains.

 

my life has waxed and waned

i have watched the dirt rain down and shield me from the horror

i have been bathed in light cast from fluorescent bulbs and kerosene lamps and i have been baptized in

the sun-

i have watched black clouds collide and carve into the earth

like children with sticks in sand.

 

we have held seashells to our ears and listened closely.

we heard war

or were those waves crashing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emily Anderson is a creative writing major who moved from bustling Miami, Florida to the small village of Bidwell in the Ohio River Valley. She is a student at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and is currently working on her first novel.