In another life, I won’t relate to Plath.
I’ll pass by her name like a stranger in a hallway,
no mirror pulling me into her sorrow.
I won’t write poetry.
Ink won’t ache to translate what the heart can’t hold.
I’ll live in colors that don’t need metaphors—
where joy isn’t proof of having survived something.
In another life,
I’ll choose the sky instead of studying its metaphors,
I’ll chase what I wanted without fearing the fall,
and maybe, just maybe,
I won’t need to turn grief into language.
Because poetry—
it blooms from the wound of not touching
the most beloved thing.
And in that life,
I will have touched it.
Ariana Afrin Emu is a 22-year-old poet currently working on her debut collection, Doesn’t Make Any Sense. Her work has been featured in multiple online journals, including Poetry Potion, Cold Moon Journal, Screaming Cicadas, Mawbiz , Smallworldcity and others. Ariana’s writing explores love, loss, identity, and longing through emotionally raw, lyrical storytelling that blurs the line between memory and imagination.