Writing by Esther Lee // Photograph by Julie Young
Writing by Esther Lee // Photograph by Julie Young
Success is sweeter on the tongue when you’re only a mile away.
It’s a saccharine butterscotch melting into the back of your mouth,
the kind you take from the doctor’s office, the kind that you force yourself to believe tastes good.
Desire is like that,
You don’t know it until you’ve suckled from her strawberry-stained lips but by then
you’ve already overstepped your welcome.
When you want something you subconsciously reach for your boy-scout pocket knife,
creating an inscription into the groove of you cerebellum so that the shape of your desire becomes a way of living.
But freedom is the pink gum-ball at the toy store, the one that never seems to tumble into your palm.
Lately, you’ve been plotting
Stealing quarters from your mother’s purse and picking up pennies from cracked suburban sidewalks, the want inside you is seething, growing,
Manifesting into a bruise-coloured anger.
You don’t know it until you’re on the highway and three hours away from home and watching cities blur by
but damn do you want
to get the hell out of here.
