elsewhere

Poem by Amanda Wan

 

summer has a way of making

me feel small and hard. everything

that hurts does so more slowly.

somehow i become my migraine,

 

floating ghost split into a thousand

glass marbles scattered across the floor,

the scent of water gripping my stomach,

sun-twisted knots tightening

across my eyes.

 

when i drift out of my skin and

it is difficult to breathe,

i remember that birds

have hollow bones. i imagine

being held together by air,

some bizarre graft that keeps me

from dissolving into wind.

 

only in my end notes

could i unravel under

an open sky, limbs reaching

upwards as the tree branches,

tracing songs of circles on an

endless blue ceiling.

 

i shout my questions into a distant

kaleidoscope, a sharp-edged nausea:

if i sleep towards an end, slip into

the green, would the green have me back?

the colours of movement are

so much brighter than i

remember