Temporality / Object Permanence
/ AUGUST /
Temporality / Object Permanence / AUGUST /
THE SECRET GARDEN JOURNAL
SUBMISSIONS RE-OPEN SEPTEMBER 2025.
August 2025: Temporality / Object Permanence
Temporal (adjective) tem·po·ral
of or relating to time as opposed to eternity.
of or relating to the temples or the sides of the skull.
Object Permanence (noun) ob·ject per·ma·nence
referring to a child’s understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.
Tell me about something that exists in perpetuity, regardless of whether or not it is tangible to see, touch or hear. Tell me about the picture frames. Tell me about the dust that gathers in the place of memory, tell me about the portrait in your wallet and how it got there (and why, for whatever reason, you haven’t let it go yet). Write a farewell letter, of an uncertain unbecoming. Tell me how time lacerates tenderness, and those two most fragile points in your skull.
Take my hand and guide me. I won’t tell.
Think: ‘Sylvia’s Death’ by Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf’s letters, eulogistic poetry. ‘Tulips’ by Sylvia Plath. Once again, your own journal.