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You are here: Home / Poetry / Micro-grief in non-linear stages
Micro-grief in non-linear stages

Poetry

Micro-grief in non-linear stages

In an alternate universe
this would be it for me. 
Poof, that fork in the road,
that wholly unknowable life. 
Tough stuff. I live fantasy lives,
star in unwritten screenplays:
me as struggling actor,
me as barista hottie, 
me as media sensation 
turned dynamic media sensation
now with a rap career. 
A different kind of victim
of the girlhood- 
to-hysteria pipeline. 
But there are always those 
real choices,
those stone setters—
the ones that change you 
and not the daydream. 
An oxygen mask
that drops down,
which the so-called 
kind gentlemen in this world 
will put on you 
once they’ve put on their own
by which I mean 
choices so important
someone will make them for you. 
And someone will say, 
I am one of the lucky ones
but there are different struggles for me. 

Ultimately, I will be carried forward,
even if by only one set of footsteps
and not mine.
No, I do not know why.

Selena Cotte is a poet and technology scholar living in Chicago and online. Her work has been published in journals such as Hobart, Sad Girl Review, Juked Online, and others. She’s @selenacotte wherever you think that may work.

Featured Artwork:

Flower Bath

Jane Turner Goldsmith is a writer and amateur photographer from South Australia. She has published a novel, Poinciana, set in New Caledonia and short-listed for a Commonwealth Prize, and short stories in various literary magazines including Overland, The Saltbush Review, and Echapbooks. She is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, her subjects being The Essential Worker, Psychological First Aid, and the Composite Novel.

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