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The Depths of Honey I’m In

KELLY  PETERSON | CONTRIBUTOR

bees

From the bee to the hive to the home.

Honey starts as flower nectar collected by bees.

Gets broken down and stored inside the honeycomb.

Constant fanning of the insects’ wings causes evaporation,

creating sweet liquid honey.

Beekeepers harvest, scrape, strain, extract, centrifuge, heat, and bottle it for our satisfaction.

Quite the  transformation, who would’ve thought that a sophomore from Vista Peak Preparatory could find a way to see a deeper depth in such

a complex process. In this A Story exclusive we are proud to introduce you to Kelly Peterson.

The Prologue

My name is Kelly Peterson, I like to think I am very determined and strong. I have grown into this person through many life events that I have endured. Just the challenges I’ve been thrown into and the amount of ways I’ve been able to remain the same me, is honestly surprising. My whole life I’ve grown up in 2 homes and though it can still be hard sometimes it’s been one of the major headaches of my childhood.

“The Depths Of Honey I’m In” was written at a very dark and low place in time in my life where everything felt as if it was going wrong and writing was really my only place to let my demons out. I sort of just fell into writing and poetry, I have always loved reading and writing but never really thought about it until middle school. Middle school was hard. I didn’t have a very positive outlook on life and so in turn my middle school years and 2019 were not the best in the slightest. Becoming a poet at first was very nerve wracking and intimidating, just due to the fact that you are writing about things that have impacted you and sharing that with more people but also there is that not knowing what the reaction would be because it’s so personal.

“The Depths Of Honey I’m In” flowed out of me right when I had reached my breaking point. It was a combination of all the feelings I had suppressed over those middle school into high school years. Just a build up of hurt and betrayal of friends and family. Coming into the person I felt like I wanted and needed to be.

Overall, just the unknowingness of the future because when I was in a bad spot that’s all I could see was the hill and never the other side. I used honey as a symbol because after the process it goes through its sweet and tasteful and something you want. But, the process to get to that point is hard and sometimes painful, and no one takes the time to think about the process and only praises the end result. The poem is a representation of the process honey has to go through in order to, by the ending, become better and sweet. I wrote the poem so that the end has no real resolution because the journey in my life isn’t over and there will always be some bitterness in life which is why I choose to forget the honey because I don’t wanna put false hope into the future. But, at the same time I recognize the honey for the realization that it will come someday.

As of now, I am focused on bettering myself. I am a swimmer because I’ve always struggled with self esteem and my weight, but now that I’m swimming I’m dropping weight and I’m feeling better about myself. I am also working on a few new projects in the field of writing, I just recently became a published author in the fall of 2019, and ever since then my writing has become one of the main focuses in my life. I hope to become a well known author and poet one day alongside my dreams of working in the medical field and being a photographer part time. I’ve come a good amount from the person who wrote “The Depths Of Honey I’m In” and I’m hopeful for what the future holds.

The Poem

The Depths of honey I’m in
By Kelly Peterson

Never has my heart had the pleasure to have hands as soft as clouds hold them.
Not once has this heart not been ripped from my ribcage and felt every splintering bone.
I can’t remember a time where the little thrumming of my heartbeats felt like butterfly wings and not those of a bat.
My memories aren’t able to conceive a time where my heart has not been in the pit of my stomach.
There is an error when I try to think of a time when honey had covered my heart and the sweetness had made my mouth water blissfully.
My tastebuds unable to have a thought about what that sweetness would taste like.
Because I was so used to having my tongue bitten and tasting blood like vodka when I allowed the rattlesnake to bite me.
I was surrounded by a sea of poison, never realizing the dangers I was engulfing myself in.
I became numb to the pain I had become used to.
When my mom called me a daredevil, I never thought my happiness would be becoming a bet.
I don’t recall an hour of not having bloodshot eyes from waterfalls pouring from my eyelids, creating oceans on my pillows.
My body quivering from the shaky breaths I’m holding in to not suffer out loud.
I’ve never been able to sew up all the scars that puncture my heart those not on my heart get imprinted on my skin like stitches on a bed sheet.
Carefully intertwining with my veins.
Those sleepless nights when all I could hear are the demons consuming the crevices in my mind.
It is the feeling of drowning without absolutely no water at all.
And people do not take the time to look deep in your eyes and see how your breaking on the inside. They say not to shatter a mirror it’s bad luck, but you can’t break glass that’s already in shards and the bad luck has been spilling out over your intoxicating cup.
They have had more than their fill.
The bad luck does not go into only one part of their life.
Because when it rains it pours,
And when it pours it floods.
And the floods destroy anything in its ability to reach.
It makes you wonder…
If 65% of the human body is water;
How much of that water are the tears, that I don’t let spill on those restless evenings
Or those when I have to bite my own tongue and hold back the fire that is just ready to spit.
My mouth is a loaded gun and they wonder why they get shot
when they are the ones feeding me the bullets.
And me trying so hard to swallow those metal capsules and fighting to not let them blast out of the cage I’ve made from my teeth.
But, there is an occasional slip through my cage and when it catapults back the way it came with my forced vomit I am deemed sick.
The psychiatrist gives me a “solution”
This solution is more addicting than my shadows ever were.
These powdered tubes were once strangers to me and now they are my only comfort.
So, you ask me what my strange addiction is.?
My strange addiction is this pill,
This pill,
That allows me to forget
The Depths Of Honey I’m In.

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