Olive Wreaths
Inspired by KateHardy’s guess “hearts framed in olive wreaths”
Did you know that olive wreaths were given to the winner of the Olympics back before Olympia was Archia? We use olive branches as a symbol of peace, but they used to be a symbol of war. A symbol that some people won, and others died trying. I spin olive wreaths out of poetry, like a bad metaphor for convincing yourself that you're winning---that one person out of eight billion is essential somehow. And did you know that olives are bitter right off the tree and need to be brined to be edible? I wish I could dip my poetry into the brine; maybe it would be palpable. And then, it could be spun into an olive wreath that sticks together instead of unfolding into a half-crumpled mess. And did you know that olives change colors during the brining process? I wish I could change my poetry like it was chameleon skin so it was always beautiful to someone. But poetry isn't olives, it's just words someone thought were once meaningful one a page in a way that creates the illusion of beauty out of the absurd, the cliche, the tragic. But we still spin meaning into it like the Greeks strangling olive branches into wreaths.
Pathetic attempt,
this earnest, desperate reaching,
to fend off average.
Spoiler! :
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