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Labouring

Ella Silverman

Write with a dry pen when I want to work

for it, and smooth when I’m exhausted,

a concept I feel in my soul; scroll, plume, ink,

fiberglass, black mould, water holder, lead leaking, when

I want to start to reach for it, but I’m afraid of always

being in this other place, of feeling dated

within the contemporary—maybe the canon can be

dilated; 1 centimetre, 6 centimetres, 10 centimetres,

12, birth canal, crawling back through the vinyl tunnel,

breathing tube, play with time, waiting for my brother

to come to life, when we’re born from orgasm, The End

on either side; I’m trying to pull from a well that’s

been dry all this time, a womb that couldn’t

drip, let alone hold a child.

Ella Silverman is an English undergraduate student at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her work explores writing, literature, friendships, the city, young adulthood, existentialism, and inexplicable feelings. She likes to write by hand, the words materializing in colourful notebooks or on scrap papers, at the mercy of a drying pen.

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