Rue me, Scotland, hold me tight.
Everyone from childhood has carved out a life for themselves— and the lines I carved into myself are still here. Faded to silver, here. The sum of all other things remains unchanged. I stopped counting my age post-pandemic.
One day, one day, one day, I told myself, and then one day arrived and my cosmos was stagnant. Blue-green algae sickened lungs, eyes so sad. I thought travelling would spark more zest, make me happy where I am, instead of unhappy about where I haven't been. Naivety is costly during a recession, fragmentative.
I lie scattered all over your house— scribbles in the margins, bits of moss you tucked away during your hike and forgot about. I live in your coat pocket now, caught in the fibres. Find me in dog-eared pages, in your favourite moth-eaten jumper, in the jiggly egg whites that gave me the ick. Find me in castles and thistles and mythology and in the playlist I made to memorise finality. Find me in the absent sincerity of your own smiling mouth.
And mark these words, when I fall asleep, I will grin ear to ear, because next time I take breath, I'll be reborn in a world that loves me. Until then, Scotland, keep my ashes. Swallow the rest.
YOU ARE READING
Blood Orange Periphery
PoetryMy suicide had been two years in the making when I decided not to follow through at the last minute. Over the past decade, I've written poems, books, short stories, fanfiction and hundreds of thousands of words, but nothing felt complete. This coll...
