26 Comments
User's avatar
E.M. Holliday's avatar

This is so haunting. There are so many moments I love and overall how you carry and vary the rewind idea throughout. Also “ant me” and “misplaced tree moves its legs backwards” 🫶🫶🫶

Holly's avatar

Yay it always makes me giddy to hear what lines you like ! Sometime I’ll have to tell you the story of the misplaced tree!

E.M. Holliday's avatar

Now I must know!

MoTy's avatar

„ant me under the magnifier” - sold with this line alone x

Holly's avatar

Thank you Moty!

Nia D's avatar
Jul 7Edited

Haunting... in the best way. The fractured structure to me mirrors a mind desperately bargaining with time, making each "time rewinds" feel less like a wish and more like a wound. I was especially struck by the progression from wanting to change moments to wanting to rewrite existence itself. Your ending... "I've made my throat / the spool" unforgettable! ... suggesting to me a voice so entangled with memory and regret that speaking itself becomes an act of unraveling. A deeply original and unsettling piece....well done!

Holly's avatar

Thank you Nia I am so grateful you have read my work and found understanding in it

Stella's avatar

I love the way this poem keeps unraveling ❤️

Carawen's avatar

Wow!!!!

Steve Baker's avatar

🌒 Oh Dear Ms. Von,

I felt the way your poem folds time like warm linen ... how the garden keeps returning, how the mint keeps choosing you. There’s a kind of Athena‑wild clarity in the way you write, a rewind that isn’t escape but revelation. The ribbon, the spool, the singing ... it reads like someone reclaiming their own origin story, thread by thread.

Your work always feels like standing in the heat of a Houston afternoon, watching memory shimmer until it tells the truth.

clarity doesn’t walk ... it prowls back to you, salt‑slick and sure of its own teeth.

Steve

Suzie's avatar

I love this Holly 🖤🖤🖤

Holly's avatar

I love that you love it <33

Himanshu's avatar

I love this! Well done, Holly :)

Holly's avatar

Thank you himanshu!

Ramona Moth's avatar

So many genius lines here . My engine thought is : woah

Holly's avatar

Haha I love your engine thought :)))

Ramona Moth's avatar

lmao I meant genuine but tbh engine is better

Holly's avatar

omg haha I legit thought you were referring to your brain as an engine and thought that was so funny.

Livio Serra's avatar

My goodness, what have you done, my child, I do not even know where to begin. Wisdom on all fours, animal. “the misplaced tree moves its legs walking backwards” WHAT HAVE YOU WRITTEN!!! I cannot even give a coherent sense to my rational thoughts. You have overwhelmed me with images so real that they become absurd, explaining time rewinding, wanting it to rewind back to the point where you felt stable, not with wisdom reduced to an animal state. The rewinding all the way back to birth, but not as something beautiful, rather as vulnerability. My child, what have you done!!! The fear of being unable to live in the present because of endlessly rewinding tapes that become a noose. A desperate plea to forgive time.

Holly's avatar

Livio thank you truly thank you for always reading with intention and in search of the meaning it is people like you that make posting publicly worth while

Livio Serra's avatar

Thank you for blessing us with the grace of your art. 🖤

Nora O’Dowd's avatar

“Ant me” ! Oh my, Holly. Love all of this!

Antonio Castellaneta's avatar

There are poems that cannot be followed step by step, only felt. Your recurring image of time rewinding carries the quiet ache of wanting to return where life offers no return. Thank you for sharing such a haunting piece.

Holly's avatar

Thank you for reading Antonio you always blow me away with your attention to detail I am so pleased whenever you read my work

Nick Viau's avatar

"smaller than I should be"

For some reason, that line just pops.

Holly's avatar

Thank you nick! It always makes me happy to hear !!