Tree branch splinters mirror my frayed fingers

Caitlin Striff-Cave
2 minute read
skin peeling from the nail bed. I wonder when exactly it became so hard to shift my eyes away from this point on the ground. I used to feel the blood whisking through my veins, laced around and under and through my flesh. It’s stagnant now, though, and stale. The wind is sharp, and I lower myself down to the moss because it's quieter down there. I listen to the pulse of the earth. I’ll rest here for while, close my eyes and let the tears fall silently as the the ground absorbs what cannot be explained in words. There will be a day when I’m not quite so lost, when I am more and I am ready. I am not her yet, but she is waiting for me.
Caitlin Striff-Cave is a high school senior from West Hartford, Connecticut and won the Connecticut Student Gold Award for her poetry. This is her first published poem. She hosts a storytelling podcast called “The Staircase: One Story at a Time.”