Why do I break open before you,
spill salt into your palms,
when I know you will not hold me?
Perhaps for a fleeting moment—
but soon your hands drown,
and I am forced to vanish,
slipping into the dark,
into a dream that gnaws at my ribs,
into a memory so violent in its beauty
that it never truly existed.
Nubisha Rabya Topote, an XI-grade student at Holy Cross College, is a poet and writer who finds inspiration in the world around her.