By Jaxon
Billingsley
you carved a canyon
through me. the call and return of your river echoes throughout
these barren walls.
did you realize that
what you fed into that
river, syllables of disdain
and disappointment, would erode even the strongest material? did you know that every criticism and every insult would run and run and run, slicing against
stone like it were
nothing? until it was nothing.
canyons will scar their surfaces. no matter
how hard you try
to heal you will
still know the route
the water took.
there is no replacing the soil, no
developing new rocks
or granite.
but there is growth.
i formed an ecosystem
in the scar you carved,
and it's brimming
singing
screaming
with life.
Jaxon
Billingsley is a freshman at ICC. They are a poet, essayist, dog parent, a
Dungeons and Dragons enthusiast, nonbinary, mentally ill, a feminist, and a
socialist. Their highest achievement thus far is they submitted to and then was
formally rejected from by The New Yorker.