Winter 2021 | Occasus | Issue 11.1

an anchor in the earth

the girl sat on top the hill/ the girl looked out with eyes black as bone rotten and caked with of that she wore/she bore/ in a pink shirt satin and smooth like her cheeks flushed and freckled like plains the longing valleys hidden by her skirt oh what a shame they sighed lust and smoke seducing the air/ they sighed/ at the magician concealing the truth to her tricks/ acting like big men don’t run away from the truth like scared little boys their eyes gleam in the                   
 
shadows
                of    
                      ignorance
 
the girl sat on top the hill/ on top of the dirt she wore/ she bore/ it is in her hair it is under her nails/ she does not mind because the image is now shattered the glass is on the kitchen floor/ shards muddy and sharp like the memories/ the dirt will not dirty their boots they are not dirty/ they can’t be/ they are established/ big words swirl their minds ties like nooses that will never hang hung from guilty necks hung from loose ends and loose fingers/ but dirt clings// and
                  
they
        know
                   better
 
the girl relishes in the dirt alone she relishes as the dirt runs through her hair settles under her nails she relishes/ for the noise has ceased silence licking her wounds// the girl rests under the hill// under a foot of dirt from her mother/ two from the church/ two more from the ashes of cigars/ the final foot from those who lie next to her the told-you-so’s-warnings-disgraces the    
                                                                
poor
         little
                   Things

Prayed or Prayed

in my dreams I escape to the garden of Eden/ where i run through the trees naked and
new/untainted/ undamaged/ the leaves brush against my bare skin and perhaps i scream until my
voice cracks and splinters at the edges or perhaps i stay silent no one knows/ for i am there the
only one here /undisturbed/ undetected/ i am not Eve nor Adam for i am just me in a time where
there was no one/ i eat the fruit off the trees and lick the sweet taste of /sin// off my fingers/ for
there is no man to chastise me no god to hunch over me/ leaving me in the shadows i can only
recognize as shame but here in the garden of Eden in my dreams there are no shadows for/ there
is no sun/ like there is no god/ and as i awake to the real world i leave behind my fantasies of
faith of freedom i leave behind the dream of a heaven i believe not in/ but one can dream/ and
so i do every night as i close my eyes and escape to myself

Katherine Barbour is in her first year at Western University in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities with plans to go into an Honors Specialization in English and Creative Writing.