National Poetry Month Spotlight: Liz Worth

We’re back with the sixth feature in our National Poetry Month Poet Spotlight series. Next up is Liz Worth !

We have been working with Liz for over a decade, and have had the pleasure of publishing three excellent poetry collections by her including No Work Finished Here, The Truth is Told Better This Way and Inside Every Dream, a Raging Sea. 

Without further ado, please enjoy “Not Like Yours” from Inside Every Dream, a Raging Sea, which is available for purchase on our online store or wherever you buy books.

Please follow along for more #NPM Poet Spotlights all month long.

Not Like Yours

Laughter has never seemed so far away until now. The surface of this world is a skin pulled tight across my head. Try to stand any taller and I’m crowded by spaces I’m no longer invited into. Th eonly way out is down, but how deep do these fissures run and what if I don’t have enough breath to make it through?

I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I last dared to look at my own face. I know I’m older now; I can tell by the tremors my hands have become. Every day I make up my eyes, my lips. I see the shadows of who I was left on my pillowcase each morning. I paint overtop, let it build, the one routine that keeps me going.

Kill the light. I don’t need it anymore; these candles are enough. Can’t you see? There’s no sense in being able to look at everything so closely now. I’ve learned all I need to through the thin lick of flame, tapered wax drips to keep time with the hours that pass. Different from the ones you know, my days are not like yours.