The ESA proud­ly presents “morn­ing” by Zoë Nil­son as the win­ning poem of the ESA’s Fall 2021 Poet­ry Con­test. 

morn­ing

not always, but some days
I wake up feel­ing new.
nes­tled in these sheets, I rise
care­less, but not clum­sy.
no one awake in this tight, tight house
only me, robed in fresh light
daybreak’s armistice

my mind rolls out like fog over hills until

a door slams, lovers howl
a bru­tal reminder of this suf­fo­cat­ing com­pa­ny
cacoph­o­nous in its casu­al­ties, my heart tight­ens rude­ly
wax­ing and wan­ing for some kind of empti­ness

so I slip out the door, before the prick­les and horns
sprout from my back, skull-tear­ing acri­mo­ny
for words that only serve to fill the emp­ty space
that hangs there, per­fect­ly vacant.

the house burns behind me
implod­ing ener­gy, eclec­ti­cism, eat­ing them­selves
but not me,
mold­ing into des­tined des­o­la­tion

not always, but most days.

This post was pub­lished on the orig­i­nal UVic ESA web­site.