#simone wolff

all the ice in the world turns to jelly

the river turns to ice which then turns to jelly

we slide over the river’s new skin bellies-down giggling some pills up and gloms onto my navel ring

i’m having so much fun worrying that someone will slip through and become trapped and their lungs will burst will jelly we couldn’t save her we’d just have to wave goodbye through a soft prism

next every crystal turns to jelly engagement diamonds wobble and flop out of their settings like eyeballs

everything that’s already jelly remains jelly

my tongue turns to strawberry jelly i concentrate hard to keep from swallowing it and even harder when i spit it into a jar to give to my crush

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Simone Wolff is a 2nd year MFA in poetry and teacher at Vanderbilt. Their work can be found in Split Lip Magazine, Finery, Inpatient Press, WE’RE HERE WE’RE QUEER AND WE PROBABLY LOVE TOO HARD zine. Follow her on Tumblr.

our toes popped out the weave of jelly shoes and rolls of puffy stickers got spent on old notebooks                    butterfly clips and scrunchies busted and tore up our long tight-braided hair nylon barbie backpack lightup velcro sneakers all our fashions and our juvenilia have become our trash                                          we were holes the world was falling through       fast