"Self-Portrait as an Orange" by Emma Paris

Self-Portrait as an Orange

Lip pulled tight over my tongue,
scent flying like sparks in the air,
I watch the juice slip down over the curved moon
of his finger.

Sitting in the cluttered hall of his home, silent worksheets
and hanging configurations of space
drift in and out of my sight like ghosts.

I watch the paper planets spin slowly above me,
I am in the center of their rotation.
At the heart of a cosmic glitch.

He is undressing my heart
like the tender fruit; twirled like a baton
in the hands of someone hungry.

Golden hour slips in through the slant of the window
and sends a spotlight to my lap — empty plate,
sickle harvested, trained to obedience like the tide
to the heavy moon.

I am both the goddess and the meal;
the prayed to,
and preyed on.

I catch sight of one of the peels
as it sheds the light and spins
to its awakened dust on the floor.
Spectacle of starvation, birds hitting the window,

a spirit wafting like orange particles, a boy who can’t see me
telling me it’s in my bones —
to always be
hungry.

Emma Paris

Emma Paris (she/her) is a first-year student at Bennington College, where she’s studying poetry and ecology. Her poetry has appeared in VTDigger, (m)othertongue, Zaum Magazine, Voices and Visions Journal, Snaggletooth Magazine, The Northern New England Review, Harpur Palate, and more. She interned at Green Writers Press during the winter of 2025, helping edit and proof upcoming poetry titles. Emma was the runner-up for Vermont Youth Poet Laureate in 2024. Keep up with her on Instagram @wellerbootpoetry.

Headshot: Emma Paris

Photo Credit : Staff