Orchard
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You know when your feelings grow mold & there’s no chopping them up & putting them into words that you can swallow or feed to others or bake into a pie? & the smell of them is overwhelming, the spots of green & white concave with fur, & if you let them sit too long they will become eyelashes or an animal, & they’re probably going to maul you to death but worse they’re going to LOOK at you, look at you from the inside where you can’t hide the blood?
& you’ve tried compost but the worms aren’t eating lately, just tying themselves in knots pretending to be hooks or fish, so you’ve got this lake of drowned invertebrate & your chest tastes like rot. & you realize there are bad things about you, really and truly awful things, but to get them out you’ll have to look at them, & eat the fruit, & gut every fish in that lake. It would be so much easier to dress like a farmer & let your grave bury the seeds.
Aimee Lowenstern is a twenty two year old poet living in Nevada. She has cerebral palsy and is a big fan of glitter. Her work can be found in several journals, including The Gateway Review and Synaesthesia Magazine.
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