Kawtagain Shore
By Dolores Camilla Haze
Growth spurts, while necessary, tend come with unavoidable growth pains. These pains—these fragments of limbo—make our eventual transformation all the more delectable.
I fell into the whites of my eyes
Dragged down by a riptide.
Merciless gnawing waters drown
The perversion of thought.
I am caught in a death glare,
Made to feel (as air feels the flutter of wings)
Like a receding mirror— lurking
In my own reflection.
Go lower.
Anything that can go wrong has already happened.
You are your weight in sandy muck and mires.
Tapping through one sided glass but there is no echo,
Not even a laugh.
Refusal discharged in a silent explosion.
Crystal clear ringing spearhead through out
All your oceans.
Your connotations are shucked in a swift keen motion.
Surrender circles inner eyelid shores.
A blind beast with no sense of due north.
A yawn escapes its serrated jaw,
Carnage breathes out.
Hunger is languid, but never gaunt.
Slowly at first and then all at once:
Close your eyes and think about
The northern lights,
Wrapped up tight into a little ball—
A piece of citrus curved in
Your palm.
Warmth gradually reduced to this simple expression—
Close your eyes and think about
The northern lights,
Wrapped up tight into a little ball—
A piece of citrus curved in
Your palm.
Warmth gradually reduced to this simple expression—
“There are places you haven’t been where you already belong”
“There are places we haven’t been
Where we already belong.”
Process
This piece started off from our “Create your own Holiday” workshop with NBCU. For the most part, holidays are a way to celebrate community and culture. I wanted to find a way to mold this celebratory energy into something more intimate. My piece then reflects a sort of “personal” holiday akin to a coming-of-age celebration like a bar mitzvah or a quinceañera. My biggest desire was to reflect a theme of differentiation between growing up and maturing, as in no longer identifying with what happens to you and instead choosing to identify with what you make happen. The hope that inevitably blossoms from this growth spurt is worth celebrating.
Dolores Camilla Haze
Dolores Camilla Haze is the creation she always dreamt of being. A student of Literature and all its intricacies, she aspires to become a scholar who devotes her time to research and composition. A white-hot love for the arts sees her consume prose, poetry, film, music and anything that exacerbates the senses. Her own work, often— poetry, deals with themes of love, loss, devotion, and rebirth. She is a fierce advocate for self-empowerment, believing that we all have a responsibility to the greater collective but must first initiate that change within ourselves.
