FLAYED
something was taken from me once:
tufts that spread shelter over me, like down, scraped by a preternatural, razing wind.
so undressed, what more could i do but writhe inside my skin, wet with the truth spoken
against me by the air? prone, i let it
unfurl over me like a bulb flowering
serene to the morning mist, forgiving
the carapace of soil lanced by its shoots.
i forgive the thieving wind, the stubborn
rake, and die back to detritic darkness.
thrashing branches sound the drum as my flesh
escapes the bleaching sun. my body dives
down deeper, craving less lofty terrain.
“Once, I uncovered two worms when I was raking some London Plane tree leaves from a parterre. This poem is written from the perspective of one of those worms.
At first, I wanted to express my feelings of guilt for disrupting the process of decomposition. Even though what I was doing was necessary because of the leaves’ slow decay, and the ornamental purpose of the bed, I prevented their breakdown into humus. By writing from the perspective of the worm, the narrative critiques my intervention more directly. It exposes the vulnerability of ecosystems to our actions as gardeners and the consequences we often accept as collateral to reach our aesthetic human-centred aims. It acts as an exercise of inhabiting the non-human perspectives that are on the receiving end of our imposed ways of being.”
19/06/2026 - Annabell Ndiwe
Annabell is a gardener based in North West London who occasionally writes about nature