Nina Palattella
Spring Flowers Bring Only Anger This Year
I am letting go of
the expectation that I cannot or should not be angry, that
I cannot be angry and still be my parents’ daughter,
my parents’ anything—
that I should look at the clouds only with the intention
of extracting silver linings, because today through the uncovered windows
all of the clouds look like “fuck you”:
fuck your hard work and your relationships and your routine and your plans
and and and—I have grown weary of addition that brings still negative outcomes.
I am letting go of
the hope that, one day, truth will again be universal, not splintered
into factions, not some kind of choice: I resent smothering in place under the weight
of information while others continue, write “hoax” and “conspiracy” into
virtual boxes with blue post buttons, and some days (if I’m being honest)
I resent the idea of complete freedom, the expectation
that nothing should hinder us, because reality has taken all my expectations
and run them through the shredder, one big enough for God to use. Have you heard that
Easter is cancelled, too? No spring rebirth, reawakening, or renewal.
All progress delayed indefinitely—and I can’t even get a “sorry”? Fuck that, too.
I am letting go of
the belief that it is a mortal sin to be tired,
to need rest, to need love, to need.
I am shedding the expectation that I can be a machine,
that inhaling exhaust will ever be enough for me
to keep going. It seems that somewhere out there someone knew,
somehow, that all my friends say I need to slow down,
and so life intervened, and (in a way) made me.
I return the smallest glimmer of gratitude,
a blemish of brightness in the dense igneous matter of my anger.
—Submitted on 04/29/2020
Nina Palattella is a recent graduate of Kent State University. Her poetry has appeared Luna Negra and Scribendi. She served as editor in chief of Brainchild, a student-run literary and arts magazine. Palattella will be an editorial intern at Penguin Random House in the summer of 2021.
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