I wrote a line that didn't fit in with the rest

By Nicole Entin

Photo credit: Cian Attems

And I thought of what I could do to change it.

I folded it into a paper crane, but my hands

Were trembling, my creases were uneven,

So I took it apart and started from the beginning.

I read it again, and I thought I had written

About eyes that floated down from the sky.

Then I could see it clearly for a moment,

A scattering of irises that blinked slowly

In their descent, all amber, hazel, cornflower blue.

But then I looked at my line once more and realized 

It was about snow, ice that fell from the heavens.

I asked this line to look at itself in the mirror

And tell me what it saw there. All I heard

Was a muffled laugh, so I looked at myself.

In the place of my reflection stood

An angel with white wings drenched in

Viscous black liquid. I tasted it, 

It tasted like ink, or blood, or somewhere

Between the two. This angel in the mirror

Blew me a kiss and dissolved into

Feathers, amid which was planted a sign:

here lies the death of her imagination,

may it never be disturbed

So then I took this new line, and I began to tell it

A story about the place where bad lines are sent

When an author uncovers them for what they are.

They are made to climb into the severed ears

That they have offended, while a firing squad

Prepares their quivers of rubber-tipped arrows.

Or they are fettered in plated armour to be feasted 

Upon by green and silver rats with spindly limbs,

And die while holding their holy grails of

Awkward phrasing.

But this story turned out to be a lullaby that sent

The line to sleep. It cocooned itself in silk, and so

I thought I succeeded in my forced metamorphosis.

Next morning it would crawl from its gentle crucible,

Reborn and beautiful. I waited for days, then years,

Before realizing

I wrote a line that I couldn’t change.

So I erased it from the page.