Ruby Appleby
lavender heads
I like to think that I am
breaking away from the person I was at fifteen,
bit by bit, inch by inch,
an ice floe drifting out to sea
without any concern for how fast,
or how cleverly, or how beautifully it’s floating.
often there’s still a dull throbbing beneath my skin,
a beating in my chest
like a second heart, one I’d like to neglect
so it ruptures or collapses or whatever it is
that unwanted hearts do one day.
but other times, the clouds stick in the sky —
lavender heads suspended like puppets
in a secret show the universe has let me in on.
and as I perch on the concrete edge of the skate bowl
while golden light seeps onto my journal,
and as the breeze strokes my cheeks
like a mother soothing her child after a nightmare,
it seems my breakaway has already begun.
there is still beauty left in this world,
and on occasion I am privy to it for an evening.
a man circles the sports field with his wife,
sporadically belting out an opera number,
and I am free enough to remember how to smile.
back home, my family starts to draw the curtains,
enraptured by the same sunset that follows me down the street,
and I have faith enough to trust that they await my return.
I dawdle down Mokoia Road at eight o’clock at night
with a paper bag swinging from one hand,
thinking of oranges and Mary Oliver,
and drilling into myself gentle kindnesses
the way you drill a nail into the wall
to hang a photo of something you love:
like it’s there to stay.
Ruby Appleby is an Auckland high school student, Donna Tartt enthusiast and steadfast lover of words. She was recently published in the Moana issue of Flash Frontier.