I met you on a Tuesday
Lost in the woods
And your dandelion-seed touch
Set my worried mind free
While my body turned to dead weight
In a broken lawn chair
Ever since that night
I’ve been reaching for you
Every time I’ve had enough
Of twisting and bending
And wrenching myself into knots
When the tension starts to feel
Like snapping bones
I reach for you
And when we kiss
My muscles unclench
So I keep coming back
To your foggy embrace
Even though I’ve been told
You’ll ruin me in the long run
I don’t care about the long run
When I can’t even walk
Here and now
I’m falling
Deeper and deeper
But you drag me out of the fire
And I know this crutch
Is crippling me
But I keep reaching
For a taste of the ecstasy
You gave me
A moment of leaden-limbed bliss
That I’ve been gasping for
Ever since
Laura Gillis is a third-year journalism student at Carleton University. Her poem “Seasonal Obsession” won Sumac’s summer postcard contest. She is a writer and storyteller born and raised on Treaty 4 territory.
