Rachel Storm
Issue No. 21 • Spring 2020
I believe in transformation,
pupa-to-winged emergence.
I believe in the power of the
pulsating chrysalis
the eating of lessons and
the uncurling of fetal winters.
I believe in the stillness of
calm after storm
the redressing of old wounds
and the snakeskin-shed of bandages.
I believe anger is grief in new clothes,
I believe violence her stillborn child.
Wrapped in cloth and carried
over our jagged terrain, cradled
in the skeletal arms of the dead.
I believe in the fading of scars,
the catching of tears in the old jelly jar,
and drinking in their medicine.
I believe in transformation.
And the movement beyond.
Rachel Lauren Storm is a poet and artist from Urbana, Illinois, where she works in arts and cultural development. Her writing has appeared in Montage Literary Arts Journal, Rust and Moth, and Buzz Magazine. She's taught creative writing in workshops and university classrooms, in the community, and to incarcerated writers.