Linda Lapiņa

A small poem for Limhavn Kridtbrud and Petra, November 3 rd , 2022

Brud. Like something/someone broken.
A pristine wound, your beauty shocks me, makes me uncomfortable.
Your beauty is inappropriate, offensive.
The time spent walking, each step taken, the landing of my feet onto asphalt, onto stone, onto shards of glass.
The time spent walking, never time enough to arrive.
Time out of joint, time of disruption, time of extraction.

Brud. Like something/someone open, vulnerable.
I am dizzy as I lay on the ground, supported by you
Under the gaze of new condominiums on your shores
The shores of a ghost lake—
The sourness of squishy sea buckthorn berries, pale orange, covered in brown dots like rust.
It is as if I spill out of my body, spill out and leak into you.
Do you want me here?

Brud. Like something/someone ongoing, a wound that continues to happen.
I lick limestone paint off my finger.
I breathe you in.
I refuse to let go, and as I recognize it, the holding onto ceases.
You let me in.
Nothing to be contained. I am just as porous, just as much an ongoing wound.
You expand me.
And even so, I am so small when I am with you.