After Sylvia Plath and after Franny Choi
in an another life, maybe small
things would be different,
like the color of my hair or the way
grass smells after it’s been cut.
maybe glass bottles won’t
rust in shades of green. maybe
you don’t tell me it was never rust,
just iron oxide from the sand
it originated from. maybe i didn’t take
chemistry in this life. maybe the kid who
told me i would never make it
was someone other than my freshman
year self. maybe you tell me you love me,
and in this life, it isn’t a lie. this is an
abridged list. i could tell you about lives where
i don’t lie awake at night wondering if you’re dead,
where my last memories of you aren’t
scribbled in notebooks that once held novels.
in another life, my college essay has only one
perfect draft. maybe it’s about how
happy i am, not how i need college to be
happy. in this other life, i don’t need anything to
be happy. we meet at a different time
in this life, one where i know what i want and you
know what you don’t. in this life, i wish i could be
a brunette, and i wonder why glass turns
green with time. you call it rust. i call you mine.
Maya Walker is a 17 year old high school senior from Baltimore, Maryland. She takes part in the Fulminare Review, a youth literary magazine dedicated to the sky.
"Wine Bottles" by Bayhaus is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
