Regression

Let us return, in times of need…
In grief, in pain, in pity.
Let us return not to words but to feeling:
To a paper scraping pulp
Like a finger on a temple.

Grief, as I see, is a honey wrapped stake—
Dearest, take off the sullen drape,
And soak in the lavender and salt.
Lavender, to remind you of days past,
Laughing in fields, living, light against your back.
Salt, for the wound, for it to caress.
The pain siphons out the infection,
eventually.

Let us return,
To grief.
For grief is nothing more than a thing,
Or a place. Or lack thereof.
The emptiness you carry deep like a
Pit without a seed.
Regress, regress. For the only way to heal,
Is to face what sticks.
To remember what was lost.

So I regress to the flower field,
Rolling leaves into books,
Caress, caress, until the pulp
Becomes memory.
Licked in a salty envelope.
Tossed to the sniveling sea.

By Mai Ly Hagan

Biography:

Mai Ly Hagan is a high school junior from Hanoi, Vietnam. Growing up, she had a love for fantasy novels, which developed into an interest in creative writing. Mai Ly hopes to study English literature in university.