The alchemy (Larissa’s version)

The alchemy is not the smell of matches but the underwater cables.

Hello swifties and haters alike (I’m the latter). Look at what [Kelly] made me do, write T.S. Inspired poetry! This past weekend we hosted a Tortured Poets department event in Amsterdam in collaboration with Unwanted Words. It was a night of friendship bracelets and new voices and poetic kinship. I have particular thoughts about multimillionaires victimizing themselves through the “tortured” label (especially as we exist in a world where very real real torture is bookending the lyric videos on our social feeds), but that’s an essay for another time. I couldn’t be there but I alchemied myself via poem, which I will now share for all who were also not able to be there in person

---

The alchemy (Larissa’s version)

The alchemy Is two part polymer bond and spray paint and a poem that’s read by someone else because the wizard blessed her forehead and said “a different world is possible” not as foretelling, but as epilogue. Because the alchemy is that first poem that transforms into a FaceTime ring tone except she now knows I will pick up, every time. The alchemy is folding space, and time traveling to this bar, in Amsterdam where we are at night while daylight remains. The alchemy is when she hears Taylor sing she remembers me. The alchemy is sharing a gut that hates gluten and one brain cell that is distracted by the alchemy of crossing the threshold beyond the obvious into the same.

The alchemy is not the smell of matches but the underwater cables.

The alchemy is that I become a poem which Kelly is reading.

---

That’s the poem!

Yesterday was Kelly’s birthday so your prompt is to wish her a happy birthday in the comments <3

Knowing Kelly has been the most transformative gift I’ve I ever claimed as mine. Thank you to all of you who have watched this poetic friendship grow through this project. I hope you all know how much it means to me. Kelly saved my life and what we are building has made it a life worth keeping.

Through it all, I remember that connection and community are the only things which will save us.

I love you all (especially Kelly)