This lesson I learned and
relearned, reciting
it like a spell, word after word
to call back my power,
to soften the ache,
to sort out fact
from fiction,
smother the ashes,
close the gate after me,
go home—
leave the garden behind,
all its wine and ghosts,
flashes of memory
and myth, hope held too tightly,
until the spell turned curse,
and secrets scattered
like a firestorm,
witch-wild and unruly, until I had made
every offering I could, lit every
candle and let it burn down to revelation,
wax unspooling into new constellations,
and then—
something in my heart
started burning again, an admission
of missing, a feral kind of longing,
beautiful on sight, but bone-deep
it was gnarled at the root,
and still, I ate it, took a bite
of my own heart, because starving people
do terrible things, and I was all bones
and insatiable hands—
I should apologize,
but I won’t.
Ali Trotta is a poet, writer, editor, word-nerd, and unapologetic coffee addict. Her poetry has been published in Uncanny, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Small Wonders, The Deadlands, Fireside, Strange Horizons, Cicada, Nightmare, Mermaids Monthly, and several of the Rhysling anthology compilations. You can follow her on Bluesky (@alwayscoffee) or Instagram (@alwayscoffee7).
