planting poetry

when i was younger, i believed the world

arrived through small, violent openings—

through air vents where penless writers and

headless scribes drift overhead.

and we’d let humanity’s grime-crusted fingernails

burrow into us regardless of our sin.

we’d let the heat of it run down our hair,

let it smear across the hollow places,

and we’d do whatever it takes to hold on.

i remember how the clock’s head dipped over us then—

its hands jagged knives, slicing hours into pulp,

watching while pretending patience

as our faces swelled like overripe fruit in mirrors.

our fingers seeked the dark that tasted of smoke and honey.

we clawed for air they stole, for breaths we could barely hold,

each one sticky with the residue of fear and desire and sweat.

because this is life—

a carrot adrift on cloud nine,

sweet and bitter, juice dripping down our tongues,

softening in the sun because

it smells faintly of rot and violet petals.

eventually, we pick our skin raw

like bruised peaches bent from the trees,

tender and yielding,

claiming what we beg for on crooked, viridescent knees,

letting it coat our hands,

slathering it on our lips, our skin, our eyes, and knowing it is ours:

messy, sticky, sweet, and maddeningly unforgiving.

Author bio

Soeun’s writing has won prizes from the John Locke Essay Competition, the Harvard International Review, the JFK Essay Competition, the NCTE Awards, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and The New York Times, among others. In addition to her published and recognized work, she also holds editorial roles at seven publications and serves as an ambassador for a publishing house. Soeun loves petrichor and harbors a fondness for mellifluous, sesquipedalian words.