‘MY WORDS’, ‘THRESHOLD’ & ‘GHOST FINGERS’
Erin Brown was born first thing on a Monday morning in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1995. She has grown up to be a poet, writer, and filmmaker. Her writing has been published in Blank Spaces, Anodyne, and more. Her most recent short film, PERIPHERALS, premiered at the 2022 Atlantic International Film Festival. Erin is lucky to have a job where she gets to make art with friends.
MY WORDS
I am a paper plane
soaring through the mainland
past houses and people on bikes
I wish I had met once or twice.
Watching through windows,
was I made to be hollow?
All I leave of me are fingerprints.
I am soaking in sin.
You remind me of my worth
as a delicate fruit.
I stumble upon
My lonely Muse.
I don’t want my time
eaten alive.
My lips are rusted over.
My Kingdom falls with each word
That echoes, reverberating against your cavernous walls only
to fall lower, ever lower.
I, desperate to be loved, am cursed.
THRESHOLD
Waves crashing over
white knuckles
blue, holding onto seaweed
as if it could save me
I’ve been slipping
Do you know what you did?
We stop by the fence, the wide divide
underworld clunking, churning
embers alighting red expressions
demons conversing and convulsing
in laughter
I used to be the keeper of my keys,
but you ripped away my throat
and took out my ribs
now I can’t speak or think
I am a canary that can’t sing
Is everything I have enough? You take
until I am nothing, you pour your thoughts
into my brain like filling up your golden chalice
but I am not to be drunk,
I am mortal
You on your throne of souls
Molding me into a faceless mirror
Surveying me with your face of faces
If I had regained my voice, if I had been stronger
Would you have lifted the haze?
When it is all over
Would you dance on my grave?
Land simmers above
like cracked crème brulee.
GHOST FINGERS
Ghost fingers
around my neck
lifting up to caress
my ears, so all I hear
are your fingerprints
and your breath
Ghost fingers feel different,
splicing through my skin
like ice – a promise
Ghost fingers don’t melt, don’t
have me hoping
for something else
My temperature rises
ribcage shudders
voice caught on your words
like a leach, desperate
to taste, or to feel
your Ghost fingers seek flavor
you say other girls don’t have –
what you found in me –
making me deadly.
Zoe Mae Huot-Link was born and raised in Maplewood, Minnesota. She is a winner of the Manitou Creative Writing Fellowship. Her work has been published by For Women Who Roar, The Antonym, Awakenings, among others. Find her work at: https://zoemae.art and @zoemae.art on instagram.
