Last call before take-off

To the ones who stow their past mistakes, those half drunk

sandy blond wooden mistakes, carefully in padlocked suitcases.

To the ones who come aboard floppy, like broken reeds

gathered from the edge of that Floridian

bog. Who vomit on anyone who humours them

those things which should be kept sealed between

their therapist and their toilet bowl. Who are desperate

for a witness. Who cling to despair like a broken winged stork

hitching its final ride:

this announcement is for you.

Open the back door. Let the little key fall

from your shoelace bracelet.

Take off your muddy boots.

Fly away from it all.

Dream of tragedy

I dream of a wooden box

to deposit my years into like a paper

skinned old woman, for the spinning

of time to be dead hair

I dream of decomposition

closing the lid

burying my memory

burning my feelings

until all that’s left are scraps, loose bones

I dream of tragedy

some solid way to explain

that something died inside

I dream of permission

to throw away my empty spine

to distill my pain into the body of a great

aunt twice-removed, can my sadness please

just be for show, can it all transform

from abstract steel to renaissance-crisp canvas

that fades over time, can the metal spear that stabbed me

just be a paper straw, wrapped in paper

casing, fast to disintegrate,

some kind of unstrong thing,

easily crushable

like a worm


Rachael Sevitt is a Scottish-Israeli writer, poet, and editor. She enjoys romanticizing the mundane, reading in coffee shops, and hiking by moonlight. Rachael is pursuing an MA in Creative Writing from Bar Ilan University. Her work has been published in Write Haus and the Scottish Poetry Library. She lives in Jaffa, Israel, by the sea. IG: @rachael.sevitt