we plant seeds like the deeds we forget
to tend like the weeds we need to understand
beauty. weeds are beautiful in the same way
destruction is beautiful. like bleeding
from the prick of a needle. like warnings
we forget to heed. like excavators
of greed. that’s us. we should listen
to our own creed. but we never believe
our promises to achieve. when i was thirteen
we planted trees. i was in desperate need
of a friend. not someone who wanted me to like
pop songs and shopping sprees and to always agree.
having travelled the seas and run out of pleas
i didn’t know then what i would one day see.
now i’ve sown my seeds and i am
rooted among a forest of others like me.
After years of relocation, Svetlana Sterlin was raised by her Russian parents in Brisbane, Australia, where she completed a BFA and contributes to Our Culture Magazine and ScreenRant. Her work appears in several publications, including Entropy Magazine, Santa Fe Writers Project, and AndAlso Books’ anthology, ‘Within/Without These Walls’, published in association with the 2018 Brisbane Open House. [ https://linktr.ee/