Folding Ennui
I saw a man do it once.
I was standing on the cobblestones,
The smell of rain still in the air.
His long fingers scored the paper
Like knives.
He made the hours
Into a little swan,
And watched it flutter away.
I made mine into a clock,
And set it stolidly on the shelf,
So that it could remind me
Of lost time.
Spinning
My thoughts are scattered in the breeze,
As I walk from my house down to the shore,
Never looking back, my eyes on the waves.
My thoughts are free, and my body is no longer my own-
Since the fateful chrysalids of childhood,
The only familiar things are the tears-
Nobody told me it would be this hard.
Oh, to be a part of the ocean, so immense, so deafeningly silent.
Oh, great ocean, hold me in your rocking arms,
Your gently daunting arms,
And tell me I’ll wash back up once more,
And perhaps be whole again.
Penny Beretta moved to Cornwall aged eight, and fell in love with the English language. She’s currently studying at Exeter Uni, where she continues to write poems and stories in her free time.