Polaroid by Valentine Cusin

Valentine Cusin

A student, currently based in the UK, Valentine is a French and Italian poet. Writing in her third language, she aims to take her works further out into the world in the hope that they help people the same way poetry has helped her, transcending through language and culture. 

Polaroid

The young me wears one sock 

inside-out, ink stains glow 

on the sides of her frail knuckles. 

She whimpers like a creaking door 

and I cannot help but ask her where it hurts.  

Here, she says. 

And here, and here, and here.  

She doesn’t point anywhere. 

I know exactly what she means.  

I am told this sorrow emerges 

from a young version of me, 

a whining child in the corner of my head. 

I picture her, tartan dress and white Mary Janes, 

a halo of curly hair and a snotty nose - 

she looks up at me with wet eyes 

and I cannot help but ask her where it hurts. 

Here, she starts to say, and suddenly 

I am sucked back in the hospital room, undressing numbly  

in front of a stone-faced doctor with a camera.  

He asks me what hurts and I say 

here - the pink and blue on my upper thigh. 

here - the underneath of my jaw, and 

here - my entire bottom lip swollen twice its size, and 

here - the print on my hip, three fingers and a thumb, a handhold.  

The camera clicks, four times,  

even number, regular, safe. 

I put my clothes back on, one sock  

inside-out. Regular. Safe.