Frolicking

By Ashlynn Doljac

You can take the girl out of her element,

but you can’t ever take the elements out of the girl

The vacant vastness still whispers her name in the dead of night

Underneath the coconut waxing gibbous

Long stalks of harvest rustle a loose hymn as she saunters through the space

A wide stretch of sky kissing earth

~messy hair don’t care~

[fourth grade slumber party and I don’t want to wear pink or purple]

I want verdant juniper green/sapphire blue/sepia brown

Earthy-they call her

Elongated wisps of hazelnut drift off her scalp as the wind blows through the

minutes/weeks/years

Summer slips by in a cicada’s chorus as the sun speaks in robust refractions

A time I felt safety dance on my shoulders/could taste the calm like lavender

to the lips

A time I could braid dandelion crowns for my friends because ‘flower power’

Before I knew words like ‘addiction’ or ‘disorder’

Before I learned how to shrink or step off of sidewalks

An untethered existence/bathed in meadows of music

This-was my youth/my birth contract

Before I became a walking contradiction

hellbent hypocrite

This was the cornerstone of freedom

and the girl who finds herself frolicking in the fields

Ashlynn is a multi-disciplinary artist, who ventures into the boundless realms of colour and imagination. As a poet, sculptor, and dreamer, she delves into the lost landscapes of intergenerational wounds, memory, and navigating the human experience; translating them into  expressions of healing, in mind, body & soul.

Website: Ashlynndoljac.format.com 

Instagram: @artistic_allegories