Quivering at Adolescence

Photograph of two blonde girls, sisters from the way they stand so close, patent mary janes toe-to-toeing and bold cheeks pressed together. Tulip-bulb smears like rosacea bloom beneath the smoosh of flesh, lengths of eyelashes mid-swipe where one has looked up at the flash. Blue inferred from the genes, unintentional Aryan breeding captured half-blinking.

Stagnant children in technicolor - a separation of self - are a permanent source of irreparable envy but torn photographs are too easily romanticised. We are over the edge, too slow to forget, losing delicately minute miracles in search of palpable re-memorising.

Palm spread butterflies,
plastic Chinese finger-traps
and my childhood.
Knife edged between ecstasy
and that lasting fear of age.