Poetry By Chrysania Goldy

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Spring Cleaning
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I’m cutting the heads off the flowers you gave me. 
Every glance at their cloud-white petals
And green leaves curling into the warm April light
In the above-the-sink window
Is enough to send me 
To the ground choking your name out 
Like it’s the citrus-scented cleaner
Permeating the air in the bright kitchen.

I don’t think I can know 
A rose by any other pain,
Not after those perfect months
And your perfect escape in the night:
You emptied our space of your dirt and mess
(And expected me to scrub you away),
Leaving me to wonder:
What am I going to do without you?
What am I going to do with these stupid flowers
When they’re all that’s left of you?

I’m cutting the heads off your roses
Because their saccharine scent overwhelms me now
And no amount of scrubbing 
Could wash away my memory of you
And that first whiff of rose-scent and the twinkle in your eyes.
Their snow-white petals look like death now,
Too pale and ghostly and cold
And those fucking roses are stealing my heartbeat 
Until there’s nothing left of me
Just like there’s nothing left of you.

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Chrysania Goldy is a senior creative writing major with a minor in philosophy at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. She has previously been honored as the 2023 ONU Presidential Inauguration poet, and is the author of a currently-not-published poetry chapbook, Snow Globes. Upon graduation, she hopes to pursue a graduate degree and continue growing an impressive pile of rejection letters.