These two poems by Grace La Pace explore how emotionally-fuelled memories, in the wake of tumultuous life events, can lead to a transformed outlook of the past, present, and future…
by: Grace La Pace
Baptism of Fire
This Pisces doesn’t find solace in the stars
But the water is cleansing, and that I believe
Comfort can be found in the warmth of a liquid hug
But like in the cosmos, it can still suffocate your heart
And so I endeavor another hiccup in the shower
A repeated occurrence where I lose the tranquil
I step out of the steam, and stare into the mirror
And all I see is the washed up aftermath of my terror
There is a different nakedness I feel under the water
My memories somehow drown me in that time
Without my clothes, I lose the barrier
That protects me from a frenzied flashback fever
One by one, it occurs, without an end
As the drops drip, the vertical waves crash into me again
I try to drown the sound, but it never relents
My tears and the stream work together to blend
So when I step into the hallway, comes with me a cloud of flames
If they suspect a break, I blame the red from the heat
But there is fire inside me that the fog is not the blame
It ignites me for a second, until I restart the cycle again.
Ghost Girl World: 5
It’s been five months
And he still burrows
Into my mind
Like a parasite
What does it take for
A memory to die?
What does it take
To move on and survive?
How much vitriol can I
Spit on a page to
Make me release
The psychological pain?
How many syllables do I
Have to rhyme
How many sentences
Do I need to write?
It’s digging and digging as if
It happened last night
I can’t get to sleep
I can’t rest my mind
Demon boy, demon boy
Haunts me all the time
Ripped out my heart
And left it out to dry
Stake this vampire before
He eats me whole
Feed him anthrax before
He swallows my soul
And he doesn’t even know
His conscience is so low
As deep as below
But I’m just a ghost,
Just a ghost.
Grace La Pace is from south-west Sydney. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2021 with a degree in speech-language pathologist, and currently works as a speech-language pathologist in NSW.
