by Shauna Friesen

no.
you don’t understand.
i want to be here.
in this honeyed light.
i begged for the pine-pitch oozing down my throat.
really.
i asked to swim in marmalade.
and soak in spidercider.
you thought it was an accident?

ha.
i chose this.
no one told me.
to close my mouth around the syrup-spigot.
to candy my own spleen.
to skin the stain-glass nectarine.
and swallow its flesh in shards.
you were there, weren’t you?
that time i peeled back the rinds of an agate.
layer by layer.
and so envied the kernel of quartz at the center.
i pestled it to glitter.

see?
i never had your restraint.
i won’t stop until i get it.
what sand in a pearl has.
the pit in a plum.
earth’s iron ball-bearing, magma-greased.
remember?
i told you i’d rather be the sunken eyeball of a cave-fish.
a marble that didn’t fight to stay afloat.
on the heavy cream.

don’t.
you can’t tell me.
you’ve never wanted to be held like that.
the way the ocean holds bones.
tight enough to dolomite them.
and don’t you envy the ingot?
midas made of his daughter?

you might like it.
being loved to solid gold.
wading to the neck in resin.
getting sealed like a lace-wing.
in a fist of orange.

Shauna Friesen (she/her) is a mountain climber, rock collector, and writer living in Los Angeles, CA. Her words have been featured in Pithead Chapel, Chestnut Review, Foglifter Journal, Fictive Dream, and Bruiser Magazine among others. Shauna is on Twitter @friesenwrites and Instagram @shaunaexplores.