Herbal First Aid: Cure for Lost Friendship

original poem published in Longing & Dreamscapes by Pen&Quill

Serves: 1

misery may love company but is best cured alone

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 jars of dandelion roots

• one cup of diced ginger

• 7 ampoules calendula extract

• lemon balm leaves

• raspberry leaves

• isolated witch hazel plant; nipped at the stem

• essential oils: lavender

• 4 vials of wood betony fumes

• 21 arnica flowers

Instructions:

1. In a cauldron: pour two drops of your tears, water from the well in your mother’s backyard, torn lemon balm leaves, crushed raspberry leaves and lavender essential oil.

2. Think about when your friend rubbed dandelion root over your nettle stings as you chop them before adding it to the potion.

3. Pour dollops of calendula extract into the mixture and let it simmer. Side effects: dreams may continue resting on your eyelids even after dawn.

4. Think of your friend’s teeth. Her canine’s slight crook. Its glint under the light like the gleam of a snake's scales.

5. With this image rife, employ a scalpel. Gently peel apart the petals of an arnica flower. Mix the isolated petals in the brew.

6. Capture wood betony fumes in a glass jar. Inhale before each sleep to reduce the ringing of your friend’s laughter in your ears.

7. Strain and collect witch hazel extract using a cloth. Drop this disinfectant over the scar on your knee from the summer of 2013. Note: Do not rub, old wounds may reopen.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. If this little recipe poem made you feel anything, I’d love to know in the comments. Massive thanks to the publishers at Pen&Quill for giving this a home.