Liberty Beck
I WILL FIND A NEW RECIPE FOR CUSTARD ROLLS
I am trying to befriend the space outside of space.
I am welcoming serenity from the door & boiling a pot of tangerine peel tea.
It is important to touch base with a good friend even if you always see them around.
Sometimes routine familiarity makes you forget that
I am now eighteen & the irony is that I keep looking
backwards. When you’re eighteen it’s a juggle. There is enough longing
to say things like just one more time. There is enough room
to daydream about living with mudskippers in the ancestral village
endless picnics on the beach & having a cat called ‘Engine’
There is enough space because
time made me a face shaped by everything that never happened
Think of the stranger becoming stranger / Think of phosphenes replacing shadow bodies
Remember the promises she kissed you goodnight with
Remember the history in the strokes of your name
Looking through the telescope lunges us to look into the past
(into the present) dreaming about who and what we will see in 20 years time.
Maybe (in time) we will remember to thank the sky for showing us
we are never alone
We are all trying
we will pause writing […]
to watch the lavenders dry
watch the little brother find his own
language
feed porridge to toddlers in family picnics
invite our grandparents to the movies
sacrifice acorns to the cat who lives in the oak tree
& we will remember all of this
in the space of love which remembers
the memory
Maybe then I will remember / you will remember
Maybe then I will reach you / you will reach me
Maybe then this space outside of space will befriend me
* * *
I am desperately trying to remedy my terrible baking skills
because I love custard rolls
you too
Liberty Beck (she/her) is from Tāmaki Makaurau, currently studying in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her writing can be found in loose coat pockets, Starling, and the 2023 National Schools Poetry Award website. She really wants a cat.