Form

Ciara Carlyle
→BROWN U ENVIROMENTAL SCIENCE, 2022

You consider this world in shapes:
figure eights carved into frozen ground,
triangles of legs on velvet throws,
strange geometries of my words that fall incomprehensible to you,
and so on.
[Round round eyes in a new Green that changed the rhythm I had grown
accustomed to.]
The problem, I must tell you, is the linear state in which you conceive our
relationship. A continuation into the infinite. Although a lovely sentiment at its
core, my inhibitions lie in the very definition of a line. From what I understand (and
I do not pretend to understand very much), a line is an endless stream of points,
never-meeting blips in the oblivion working simultaneously towards an
unattainable goal of everything. Is this what you want from me?
I do not know of a more favorable form into which we could fall. Circles are
too restrictive—squares too, well, square. Is an expansion into infinity or the
security of perimeters more preferable in our situation?
Please advise, when convenient.

Dissection

Please,
take all that’s left of me.
Strip me of all clothes and artifice
and tell me who I really am.
Consider this a final kindness,
robbing me of all presumptions of the character of my soul.
I will not run.
I will be your strange experiment in what happens when there is truly nothing left.

Melochromatic

I write everything in Orange ink and
Its blazing silhouette
Sticks to the inside of my eyelids
Like lunchtime suns
When I told you I often feel like I’m drowning in Yellow
You did not understand
I said I don’t know how to swim
You said show me
Most days I think I’m a shade of Eggshell
Which I guess isn’t the worst color

But if you could choose to be to be any color in the world
Who the hell would choose Eggshell?
Did I ever tell you about
The three years my mother dressed entirely
In White and Blue
And my dad thought she was going crazy
But I saw the way she looked at the ocean on the drive to school
And she told me she often thought about just walking in
Like that woman in The Awakening
And that really scared me
But I just said “oh.”
I am jealous of Gemma
Because she has a White Duvet
And I could never have a White Duvet because
I would get stains on it
My duvet has a lot of ink stains
Which I just discovered last week
when I put it in the wash
I’d like to take better care of my things.
Some days the world is just made of too many colors
And they mix and form new shades and
The thought of all that seeing just makes me want to cry
And I feel nauseated
And you are Too Green
You Are Too Green
And I ask you to stay away from me.