Olive green is all I see
But, then, maybe yellow too
Locked in my secret red pillbox
There they were:
encapsulated
Happiness
I could almost taste them
Salty as the sea
Reaching for them with
trembling fingers
In my head it lies a pendulum
It bounces unadvised
Infuriatingly waking everyone who dares to stand on its way
Sometimes, in the middle of the quiet evening,
I can hear it coming
And so I drag myself under the covers
As if they would
save me
save me
They wouldn’t
They couldn’t
But neither could I
And so I stand still
Stupidly hoping it would go away
Within my eyes it lies an ocean
I have been seeing it more frequently now
Unlike the pendulum, it is not
Infuriating
It is calm
bitter
I lie in bed when it comes
hold a pillow as if it were a small animal
the ocean brings me
nothingness,
melatonin,
blue.
All I ever see is blue.
I’m Lavínia, 25, poet, translator and teacher. I graduated in English/Portuguese, having studied and researched poetry written by women through all my years of university, which later allowed me to get a scholarship in comparative literature. Falling in love with reading was perhaps a way out of the limiting surroundings that confined me, writing, on the other hand, only came much later, as an urge that I wasn’t aware was as latent as it is.
Painting by. Douglas Harvey