ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Wanda Deglane is a night-blooming desert flower from Arizona. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and attends Arizona State University, pursuing a bachelor's degree in psychology and family & human development. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from Rust + Moth, The Wire's Dream Magazine, L'Ephemere Review, and Former Cactus, among other lovely places. Wanda self published her first poetry book, Rainlily, in 2018.
This Ending I Learn to Love
hope feels again like a sister to me.
today goes a little smoother down my throat.
tomorrow may burn and shriek and stick
like spines. i’ll cough the blood up and wait
for the day after. the days sometimes melt
together but i eat them whole anyway.
march comes knocking at my door, but
i tell him we have nothing left to talk about.
i rub the scratches on my arms. the deep
indigo around my eyes. i draw a bath.
hold my head underwater. come up when
my lungs flail their fists. i drink in the air
like holy wine, like my last salvation.
tomorrow may burn. but i’ll be ready for it.
~
i go to the ocean and ask her why.
a whale carcass washes up next to me,
reeking of plastic and desperation and
organs too big to be saved.
so i march right in there, and tell her to take it
back. i say, i’m a force to be reckoned with.
the ocean cradles me in her mighty arms.
she tells me, i’m so glad you’re here.
she says, you have so much left to learn.
This poem is actually something of a sequel to another piece, or like the continuation of a thought. In that first poem, I rewrote "better" endings for myself and the people closest to me, erasing all the unfair twists that took place in our lives and reimagining how drastically we'd change as people had those things never happened. This poem is me coming to terms with the ending I got stuck with instead. I have good days, followed by plenty of bad ones. I defeat my demons, only to watch new ones respawn in their place. This is me coming to the realization that healing is linear, that these baby steps can take years, but when I look behind me I can see that I'm in a much better place. I thought of what it'd be like to return to the ocean, the womb of all life, and I'd be just brimming over with anger and questions and indignation only to finally be humbled by the fact that those endings I wanted so badly to change, all those moments of pain and fear "how could this possibly be happening," are so much bigger than me and the tiny world I've built around myself.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
