Red Ant & Oak (excerpt)

by Annabella Dlugi

We alchemize the green into red
It all changes, slowly, in seasons of hate
And hurting
I have said “you’re stupid” in flashes of heat and
Morphed into the chemical of anger, an unknown square
On the periodic table I studied in school. I was never
A scientist in the way some people are but I knew how to
Mix the ingredients to get the desired reaction.
I have manipulated you, trying to make you guilty
“You don’t” and “You can’t” I don’t even remember it all
Though I have dreamed about leaving you and fantasized
About the parents I’d have if you died.

In high school my teacher’s sister visited our political science class
To talk about her job as a lawyer
She had straight blonde hair like me and spoke in beautiful sentences
And was dressed all in black. It was clear to me then that she
Had money and didn’t leave her floss lying around the house
In an effort to reuse it, or toss her sweaty clothes onto the bathroom floor
To be left there for the next three hours.

More than once I had a day dream of getting whisked away into a rich family with
Graduate degrees and 401(k)s, Manhattan connections and designer clothing
That I don’t even care about. Talking about avant-garde plays and depressed writers and films
Without want. Or reliving over a home cooked dinner of lemony salmon
The time they eloped in Edinburgh, not even noticing that the way they say
“Edinburgh” is right when nobody else I knew knew how to pronounce it.

Walking in the green I stop to hug a tree like you and feel embarrassed.
Near my face there’s a tiny red ant you can barely see, crawling
Through the bark and up and up, higher. It’s just a red ant in an oak tree but
All this time in the woods has taught me that no matter how innocent, red is the color of poison in
This potion of blueness and green.

Annabella Dlugi is a senior at Lawrence University studying English Literature. She loves all things art, especially theatre and music, and is fueled by obscene amounts of coffee, friends, and water walks.