trying to track you down is like dipping

a hand into frogspawn at the lotus pool

on the Prado, museums lit for Christmas

fists swimming with tadpoles. all the books

i’ve read this year cannot make me better

and the things i am not

yet

better at remind me of Rebecca.

have i come far enough from last year

for the tadpoles 

and the lit-up buildings

for the little addictions and big pills

swallowing me, is it enough that i’m me, 

followed by my own ghost while 

i tolerate it.

swallow the tadpoles and swear only

to croak riddles at bridges and wait 

to be kissed, i can do two jobs

i am a goddess and a modern woman.

and i am neither of those things. 

i am unveiling the profundity 

of performed womanhood 

under Ophelia’s mantle;

hands in frogspawn on the lilypads 

begging for the transformation

in the rushes, the lilies, the lotus-leaved jewels.

Jess Roses (she/they) is a disabled, neurodivergent, emerging writer. Her focus is the transformation of relationships and experiences with pain and the taboo. She explores how these communal experiences form and relate to societal and personal narratives within and without the psyche. She has been published in Bloom Magazine, Coffin Bell Journal, Raven Review, Grub Street Literary Magazine, and more. You can find her work on Instagram at @jessroseswriting.