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Spring - 22

Contagion

Contagion

Sarah, Grade 11
When you exchange vows with your husband, 
in 15 years time, you will remember that

pair of jeans, and you will remember that 
nail polish, because they will replay, and

replay in your head, like a spinning disco ball
in a party room where you can’t focus on the light,

because it’s shifting, and it won’t stop moving. That’s 
because motion is a necessity of life, or that is

what the philosophers say, but you think 
that is just how people tell you to get over

your grief. Shaking you like they would a
snow globe, they’re calling out: wake up, wake up.

It looks like they’re sending snow into the air 
but it’s really just soap flakes and glycerin

and it feels like you’re the only one 
who can tell the difference. It makes

you feel like a puzzle missing a piece, 
insistently pointing out the obvious

but what is there to say when there are only 
these moments that will replay like

looping audio tracks. Like getting stuck
in a snowglobe, and banging at the glass because

you're choking on the glycerin, and you’re 
drowning in non-soluble soap flakes and you’re

thinking of what things were and what they are
and you’re realizing every memory has merged into a

single broken record, but you’re singing along 
now and wasn’t that always the point?
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We wish to acknowledge this land on which Branksome operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work and go to school on this land.*

*The Land Acknowledgement may evolve as we honour our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation in partnership with Indigenous communities.

Setting the new standard for girls' education everywhere takes collective action. From all of us.
 
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