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September 15th, 2026
Arbutus (Under 25) Contest #13 – First Place
by Esme Coulter
it was paradise, He liked to say. garden of eden, freedom. leave him. but it was easy to call it paradise. He never lived there with adam. adam who found pleasure in perambulating the paths, naming his naked surroundings, lion, lily, light. sparrow, stone, sky. he used to name me too as if i were unfinished until spoken by him. eve, evil, evening funny how he associated me with decline. i think he meant well, i suppose i can’t blame him for the walls he mistook for horizons. he thought fulfilment was a stillness that never stirred. he thought love was a shadow i should reside in, he thought our garden was enough. but he saw my silence as consent, and for that i must fault him. he didn’t expect eve, mother of all to be eve, the fall. so i divined my own way out. pay attention now, this is the part they never write down. i didn’t need temptation, seduction, persuasion, to leave the place He christened paradise. the apple was my exit strategy. so i sunk in my teeth hard, and the skin snapped as if i’d broken the sky, but all i’d done was finally break the God-awful silence. the wet flesh of the fruit gave way on my tongue, juice dripping from my chin. and the taste of a sweet sharpness reverberated from within. why they credit the serpent is beyond me. it lay in the grass, its whispers brushing my ankle, as it praised me for my sins. but i took the bite. i made the choice. i bit for freedom i bit for truth. adam gasped and choked at me, his pink throat a void, bare of any words. his eyes watered - but not for me. no, his eyes glistened with the realisation that control was only ever a myth he entertained himself with. exile? call it emancipation. i would’ve eaten a thousand apples before i shrunk myself back into eden, into a rib. and so i marched out of that garden with my head held high with a mouthful of liberation staining my tongue. original sin? i win.
About the Poet
Esme Coulter resides in Bath, Somerset, England, United Kingdom.
Read the poet's biography and Wax Poetry and Art publications
on Esme Coulter's Artist Page.
Next in Wax Mag #11:
Of This Place
Poem by Marianne Neill
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