The Outlier of Identity
Enjoy Krystal Carmine's 2025 first place poem from the Boar's Tusk 2024/2025 Journal. For more information about Boar's Tusk, click here.
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when the flowers ripen, I’ll change
there is obsession in reinvention, a sordid affair that I know Insensibly,
an experimentation in love facades, bitter irony, and bleach.
I get entitled with this living thing.
I miss naivety, my old friend will I look back and see you in fine lines?
when the flowers ripen, I’ll change
give chase to the way of time’s Incorrigibility,
the glitter that shines, a trick of the light,
a false Idolization of the person I wish to be.
when the flowers ripen, I’ll change
the Illegitimate of a curated Identity
in the books I read, the way I speak, the people I see,
a reflection of what you think I should be.
I have yet to find those who stay through my seasons of Introspection.
when a looking glass falls on its own, is it accident or act of self-destruction?
wilted flowers don’t fit in a shattered vase, and yet, and yet, you try.
sculpting as fingers bleed, it’s a much more violent thing.
erasing oneself through the narrative of blue
well, tell me what is true— the defining trait in you,
you tell me that flowers do not ripen, they bloom,
I refuse.
