Emily Winters

“The Swing at the End of the World”

Sounds like a Shel Silverstein poem.

I often wonder how I've gotten this far,

But more often I'm thinking what's next what's

Next? Basically: "When does my life begin?"

Fear, my constant companion, holding

My hand, sweaty palm to sweaty palm but

I want the tips of my chucks to kiss

The clouds, I want to feel the tension

In the air before a storm stretched like

Cotton-candy, like the space in between two people

Who would kill to kiss one another and

Undoubtedly will, kiss that is.

Would you kill to kiss me, I wonder?

I'd kill to stand on the edge of the world

And scream

You can’t beat me

I stand on many edges a thousand shattered

Mirrors, a thousand pathways balancing

Off of Frost's fingertips, a life a life or

A death on each corner of my cap and

Even as I stick a feather in my a

Flower in my hair with my fingers

Shaking clenching the rope handles, swinging

Untethered

Above the edge of the world

I know that I'm sitting in a field of flowers,

And there are a million more.