double exposure
slick rot. past selves shedding, congealing—discarded, soul heavy. i feel ill; past mistakes. unbrushed teeth. my face feels as if it is detaching itself from my skull / i saw someone today i once loved. something is splitting. i am peeling the past from my heart, revealing the core; a wound. refraction of selves / fracturing / sometimes i glimpse men who double for the one i desire. pale skins stretched over faces. adrenaline kiss. momentary panic. disappointment / clouds muscular with rain. the wind burns across my face. disorientating. past selves ghost the shore. i outgrew them. discarded skins coil—decompose, sharpen into scarred flesh. bitten nails, bitter taste / dreams about teeth, red mouths & dark-haired men. symbolism cannibalises, flipped images reverse / in the water, a pelican is held in stasis. surface tension. i watch as the body is mouthed by the tide, dead.
Ellie Fisher (she/her) is a poet. Her creative work has appeared in Westerly Magazine, Gems zine, and Pulch Magazine, among others. Ellie is studying Honours in English at the University of Western Australia, researching a creative writing dissertation on the potentiality of prose poetics, bodies, gender, and place. She lives on unceded Menang Noongar land.
swim meet lit mag 