‘The Worms We Plant Within Ourselves’

Poem by Gemma Thorne

And a worm found its way into my ear

Shuffled along my mind and

Settled among my heart

With it was left a residue

And it glistened the way you did that night

I was caught off guard by this feeling because I haven’t felt it in a long time

What it feels like to be bewitched and mesmerised at the same time

When I was young my brother taught me how to convince our parents I was sick

And we gulped down air in a green 70s era bathroom until it filled a deep empty part of ourselves

And that’s what I did with this feeling

Forgot about it as it lay hidden

Dormant and waiting

I remember the first time I fell into air that warm and sweet

Her skin soft and safe

A way of existing that I didn’t know how to stay

And it hurt more than any boys rejection ever could

Because it was something so unattainable and hard to find

So hard to keep

Falling through my fingers like her hair used to

And when it hurt it tasted of bitter

So my tongue longed for that taste in so many boys mouths

The tongues and lounges my body is supposed to

And I fell into the patterns of the dance

My self worth fumbled in young boys hands

When I was five I did ballet and there’s a photo of tutus lined up in a row and me facing the wrong way

Since then I have never wanted to be caught acting out of place

I met men that taught me how to dream of being desired not to desire and I called that love

And my orgasms vibrated with that of my ego

Maybe all that air we gulped made me fall to the bottom of the lake

Full of feeling without words just colours and shapes

As I got older I learned to own a title but only ever in a way that was palatable

And here is that worm it’s cocooned and bloomed and butterflies are pouring out of my ears

And their wings they are the most beautiful colours

Blue red indigo

Every colour of the rainbow.