I keep my regrets in bottles.

I store them in glass

with tiny cork stoppers

and shelve them,

and keep them

for the days

when I prefer to admire

my mistakes

rather than bury them.

 

I admire them for the stories

they’ve written and the houses

they’ve built; for the ashes

from which they’ve risen

in abandoned charnel houses

into a phoenix of terrible might.

 

I keep my regrets in bottles

and I label them afresh

as lessons and beginnings

to the sound of applause

because failure takes the bravery

I never thought I’d have.

 

---

 

Poem & photograph: © Kristiana Reed 2020

Between the Trees UK

Between the Trees US

Signed copies on Etsy