Kaitlyn Gaffney is a north Jersey poet and senior Writing major at Rowan University. She serves as a poetry editor for Glassworks Magazine. Her work is published in Avant Literary Magazine, The Rising Phoenix Review, and forthcoming in Gone Lawn. She has produced two original plays through Rowan.
My Final Session With My Therapist Arrived Like A Jump Scare “Sweetheart – give the world cheeks to go apple picking in. Occupy space and noise without apologizing / never let them paint you quiet. Remember you whole / remember me truth. Remember when life clawed itself through your gut like a butterfly drawn and quartered / think fondly of the times when you wrote yourself goddess instead. I will not be there when your windows bleed black and blue, when they’ve noosed your oxygen to the grave / welcome the shame like a youth home from war. Sweetheart, take time to look out onto the miles you have conquered / do not take the invitation to jump. Sit, regal, on this throne – queen of this fortress we’ve built together, sweetheart. You alone are entitled to the deed / you were born with the blueprints engraved in your bones. You were ready for this far before you knew me.” I remember those words like drowning, or like soaring – I remember those words like the time there was no difference. I remember her collarbone, her embrace, like I never let go.
