“cracks in the chrysallis”
by olive uzoma
Late spring,
and the shade bears a peculiar sweetness.
It was once new and papery
All pink primrosey yellow and daffodils
Falling pollen drifting in the air
Makes it thick.
Will the fruit give way to a tree?
Will it not rot in the airless soil?
Rent and despoiled by seething insects?
Putrid jasmine’s death-stink
White petals turned brown, crushed
Spent and fecal
There is so much death in the turning of summer.
this piece was written after months of confronting and re-confronting uncomfortable truths about myself and about my relationships. attempts at healing seemed only to open wounds further. over and over i've had to choose between fear and bravery, repeating the past and forging something new. it's been painful, as fresh skin burns so easily in the sunlight. but unmoving bones grow stiff and painful too.
in this poem, i express the doubts that haunted me this past spring. will my investments prove to have been for naught? have i poured myself into bottomless vessels? were the things that i believed in in the winter merely vapors? fear, grief, and uncertainty gripped me so tightly this season. the fear of the unknown, the grief of past selves, the uncertainty of whether any of it has been worth it all.
as spring turns to summer, i too, am leaving the innocent spring of my life to enter a fruitful summer of my own making. as do my most cherished relationships. death and its waste give way to new life, and i try to remind myself of this while breathing in its stench.