when storms reach the edge of the world

by Adelaide Juelfs

The rain blurred the edges of the 

world, a gutted fish lay 

split on the sand, 

salt-soaked and bleeding. A dead 

man’s life spit up on the 

tongue of the ocean, a storm of fury. 

My dragonfly, my pride. Here — a new 

day is brought  to the edge, 

we’ve been here for too long. The clouds that once 

muddied the horizon turned it whole, 

my hair grew untamed in the early 

morning — a thousand little hands 

reaching toward the sky. While waiting for 

something, I suddenly remember yesterday 

when I pinned myself to the sidelines 

and a sure-fire cry brought me back. 

I notice an abalone shell sitting on the 

counter, a turquoise green light drifts in 

through the open window 

and eats the walls whole. 

My honeyed eye, my want. 

A dream catcher flies sideways in the wind, 

and I feel a part of me pulled with it, out past the waves. 

I feel a part of me surrender. Maybe I’m just tired. 

Maybe it’s the circadian rhythm. A part of me hopes. 

Here is the dark drifting away. 

Here, I sew myself back up with the storm and 

try to be alive again.

Adelaide is a high school student from Southern California. She writes in an attempt to better understand both herself and the world, and through language, she is both tethered to her life and transported somewhere mystical. She enjoys physics, daydreaming, and water polo.