Tangerine & more by Wanda Deglane |
Tangerine
Listen to me. The worst thing You can possibly do right now Is loosen the steel grip of your fists and let go. I know your hands are tired and worn, but listen: Remember how the rain fell over Phoenix Like the whispers of an already-dead secret. Deep inside you, the rain still falls, But even deeper, you are still Manina, And pigtails and purple overalls. Orange and violet lights twinkle at you From the corner of your eyesight. Your roommate snores rhythmically To the sound of your stifled cries. It’s so easy to let go. It would be so easy to shed this skin And reawaken as someone brand new, With soft cheeks and green bones and no scars. So heartbreakingly simple to be a girl With healthy hair and no pill bottles Waiting for her on the bathroom counter. But the reason you’ve never broken a bone Is because they are strong as titanium. Though your skin has torn and Your mind often crumbles, with every fall Your foundation grows stronger and stronger. You are the tangerines, ripe on the trees This early November, seconds from falling. You are the ruby red of the three-year old’s Mary Janes, As she climbs through the playground And shows them off to her friends, her favorites. You are the girl’s auburn hair, Tangled and frizzy in the windy storm Whipping about in a frantic kind of beauty. You are the magenta four o’clocks that bloom At the edge of the unnoticed garden. You are everything the happy girls Wish they could be, every life lesson They wish they had learned sooner. You are power and bitter tears And nervous smiles and unending love. |
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introspective autumn
sitting in the dark. orange lights glow up above. the crickets sing their nightly hymns. you think of retribution. of how trees make of themselves something new every time their leaves fall off. how they sigh, “good riddance,” when the last yellow leaf is torn away. you wonder if it hurts, and if they welcome in the pain. your roommate tiptoes through shadows in these earliest days of fall. she explores in the pitch black, where you haven’t been before, and you hang back because you don’t need anymore dark in you. she paints happy faces on rocks to give to strangers, while you think of what it’d be like to decompose, to shed all this faulty skin and tired muscle. you think of the flowers that could grow out of you when all those flaws are gone. the living coming from the dead. the dead made new with the living. coming back to life. kicking up for air. bubbles escape from your mouth. sunlight drips like cool honey. you want to breathe. you want to hide, a butterfly that crawls back into her cocoon. you want recovery to feel less gritty and raw. keep pushing until it doesn't hurt. skin scratched over and over, wasted atoms. the rest of eternity takes only a second if you just close your eyes. Reporting a Two-Year-Old Sexual Assault
My sexual assault is now old enough To be potty trained. It is old enough to speak Basic sentences. How did I let it grow this much? How did I let it develop and fester, trapped In my mind where it has soured and rotted And destroyed everything it has touched? A thousand times my tongue wanted to unfold But fear held it still. Where is your proof? I can already hear people saying, You’re a liar. You’re insane. You want attention. You won’t have it. But the woman with shoulder-length hair And the too-prepared smile tells me she believes me. She tells me that I’m brave for coming in. She says, I want to do everything I can to make You feel safe now. Safe is such a foreign word. So unimaginable, unreachable. You can remove The bastard from the public spaces I walk and The place that I live, but you cannot remove him From inside of me. I must pry open my mind now With nervous fingers, let the kind people in charge Gently remove him from where he has grown Like a toxic weed, a maddening game of Operation. You’re doing the right thing. We’re going to make sure this is as painless as possible, One, two, five, ten people tell me. They take The two-year-old from my weary hands. I watch it leave me and feel nothing. Reasons to Live
Your teachers notice your empty desk Every day, they think to themselves That your missing face stands out among the rest. Your grandma cries herself to sleep, Aching over how she could have possibly outlived you. Your father wonders what it would have been like To walk you down the aisle someday. Your mother reads your old text messages, And wishes she asked how you were doing a little more often. Your brother finally listens to your favorite songs And watches your favorite movies. He discovers that he loves them. It's a bitter-sweet taste. Years from now, your sister starts her first day of high school, And she wonders who you were. The boy you love lies in bed and stares at the ceiling, Thinking about how cruel it is that the world is still spinning. Your puppy sleeps on the couch all day, Getting up only when she hears The garage door opening and closing, Hoping you're finally home. You're not. She goes back to sleep and starts to forget your face. |
Wanda Deglane is a freshman at Arizona State University, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Her ultimate goals are to mend families, inspire as many people as she can, and be inspired. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and lives with her huge family in Glendale, Arizona. When she isn’t writing, she paints and spends time with her dog, Princess Leia.
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