I’m sorry but I will never be sorry.
I am a crow among doves,
Flying contrary to the path you mapped out.
Sometimes it rains inside your house,
within old atlases,
curling the yellowed pages,
tinting the windows with the dust of storms.
You never leave, now,
enslaved by your own stories.
By the map you once designed.
And the words still rattle around inside their cage,
and today I let them fly,
but forever I would stitch my own jaws shut
to silence them,
swallowing bile and rage.
Who could do this, or be this?
Not your daughter. Not someone’s future wife.
Not the girl, in old home videos, with her blush-pink dress,
looking through a book of Renaissance paintings, inquisitive:
Well, the dog's ribs are showing; he must be sad.
About the Creator
Carly Bush
I'm a writer with a passion for highly visual and quietly subversive literature. I contribute to Collective World and you can find my short stories and poetry here.
Connect with me on Instagram and TikTok: @carlyaugustabush
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Comments (4)
great read
A crow among doves! This is brilliant. I could feel the cognitive dissonance of not meeting parental expectations, and not wanting to, but wanting to be viewed as lovingly as your child self in a blush dress. That push and pull of refusing to apologize, but also keeping your mouth shut about how much it hurts that you’d be expected to. You conveyed personal memories in a universal way, and I felt it deeply.
It is quite impossible to discern your meaning with just one read of your work. That is quite a compliment, as I agree with your fans that rereads are nec. Your style is unique and really wonderful. Memories give us character.
Damn, Carly. This is fantastic. The "you" seems to be some kind of male figure, perhaps a metaphor for culture ("the path you mapped out"). They way you framed it here, through and enslavement by one's own stories, is very striking, like there's more than just the speaker as a victim, that the "culture" force is damaging to everyone ("who could do this or be this?"). The last line seems to somewhat pivot this interpretation, I think. Is it more about being seen as genuine, real, someone acknowledging another's existence and looking deeper (the speaker wanting that)? Is seeing the wrong thing in the dog's ribs a sign of failing to fall into the culture's norms? Contrary to the expectations and feeling the brunt of its judgement by their enslaved minds, also victims? Sadness seems to be a crucial note to end on. Perhaps it's a sign that the speaker is contrary because she sees what lies beneath the surface-level understandings, and craves others to see what lies beneath her surface too. Very thought-provoking piece. I read it like 6 times, maybe more!