longer.blue

Holding pattern Tess Tanenbaum, Dec '25 I usually hold my mind's children too close for too long, their beauty mine alone to display to unwitting victims who stumble into my studio But now I want them to fly the nest to launch into wilds beyond my grasp. To make new friends To spread the pieces of my heart that I hid within them far and wide So I have called favorable winds to loft then higher than my breath alone can carry them I have summoned eyes and hands to trace their shapes on the canvases of other's minds , invoked ancient daunting guardians of the gates and supplicated myself before them The work of gestation complete, now I labor to birth them into a world where midwives are scarce and most desires go unfulfilled unborn children forever poised at the edge of the nest claws digging into the cup of my skull, waiting for that yearned for updraft