Magnolia Jitter

I spent the summer

eating in furious mouthfuls

and running for

hours in place.

For three months I jumped over my shadow

and listened to the echo of

the same song till the words sounded

foreign and damaging.

I spent all summer on my red-stained

porch that glowed like heaven in the sun. I

spent all summer with my neighbor’s

dog buried in my lap. I thought

I ought to buy him a brush

and set him a warm bath. I

spent all of summer in the sticky Georgia air.

All summer I slept, curled into myself,

believing in the power of magnolias. Believing

they could heal the jittering in my bones

so, I planted my chair in their shadows

and pressed my nose into their shape,

asking: is there an answer?

Bethlehem Zerihun is a really cool person who does really cool things like study English (CTWR) at USC and write poems about magnolias. She is currently in her third year and serves as the Vice President of Professional Programming of Literary Society. For whatever reason, she still doesn’t have a writing blog so you can find her and more of her writing on her regular Instagram.