Splash

• Tazmeen Khan, Grade 8, Wellington Secondary College -
• Poetry
• 2022

Excellence Award in the 'Unleashed 2022' competition

In these hurtful times I haven't been counting them down
I'm alive like a nocturnal animal, teetering on the fences
Like the string of yarn between love and fear,
Acquisciently trailing to the future in the heavy, odd light of morning

When the hours are no longer universal, timezones
Jagged and disarrayed, the most beautiful things grow
Like electric butterflies in weathered and hungry bellies

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
And I find
Staring the things you’re scared of most in the eye
Is the most effective method to bloom like unfurling pages
And conquer the unfound lands deep under the ocean
To become a mythical legend isn’t as tricky as it seems
The hardest part is hard but there’s no way to loophole around it,
No amount of spin on a ball can cross over the seas without skidding in the water,
Fast as fight and buoyant as joy.