Twisted, Other Girls

EMARCEA G FOREST

MAY 28, 2025

We used to eat honey stick until our stomachs got sick 
	and twisted, other girls would fly twigs at us 
but they only ever combed through our hair. 

I remember all those summers we spent tying ropes and jumping 
		costume from costume 
	and all the eggs we cracked atop the sizzling pavement; 
though we were always far from reach 

in our own little world, you said. 

And when we got older; when we couldn’t play any longer 
	when all the tides turned and shadows grew stronger, 
we both kept private our secret hope; that we might see the fairies again. 

Even when you bid your farewells, in a way that only I could understand 
	that you had tossed your hope aside and turned to swallow pills 
to sink into a darkened bathtub, to leave me behind; 

I still kept my hope that we might return one day 
	that maybe your ghost would follow me 
into that realm where only poets can survive. 

Then again, we were never the same, were we?