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20. Incredulous
They tell me not to read mythology and
believe aimlessly what is forever told.
Of the formation of this universe, the
chaos that metamorphed into the sun,
the stars, the planets, you and me. The
violent rage and act of defiance by
Amnon and his death acting as a deterra
-nce, probably the first where the crime
did someone free. Did you know of all the
Greek tragedy, my favorite is the one told
bySophocles? It talks of love, honor, the
duty, oppression and tyranny as it unfolds.
They tell me not to read mythology and
believe aimlessly what is forever told.
I recall now that I once read, of woman so
strong, warriors she fed. Madhavi was her
name and she bore it with pride, she was
used as a fortune by them. Alas, it was
written by men. Forever, I did try to find the
genesis of his highness Macbeth or of
Sisyphus, who twice cheated death. If you
close your eyes, you can hear poor Orpheus’
lore.
They tell me not to read mythology and
believe aimlessly what is forever told.
When they ask me to believe, I do often
gather, the four horsemen making their way
to end the world, but I’d take hurricanes and
tsunamis rather. Fearless as they are, it’s the
women who call me from the narrative they
are written in, always longing to be at par.
The mightiness of the men, their heroism is
at what the story is often sold.
They tell me not to read mythology and
believe aimlessly what is forever told.
The First Word
i am the me between Demeter and deter,
the spine in supine absent you,
i am the gap in Agape,
the age in language after you.
i am the war in swarm,
the arm in swarm,
the vows inherent in vowels,
the asp writhed from grasp,
the tor at the top of the storm.
i am the i between deify and defy,
this axis aching inside
the migration of starlings,
the i between vapor and viper,
between mire and more,
i am the sword interred
between expire and explore,
i am that Eve—
she who broke
a fever to forever.
-Kalliope Amorphous
your absence— severed hands decaying in the hollow of a skinned drum.
You said you wanted all of me
So here I am
Darkness
Melancholy
Rage
Why are you walking away?
༄
You know what you’ve done
But to say it out loud
Is too brutal a reality
It would be suicide by honesty
And you are such a coward
༄
When I look back at my life
I only recognize it for a moment
And then it’s gone
༄
Was this earth not created through chaos?
Our universe makes love with the clash
Creation is the child of collision
A galaxy of grief
Atom + Eve
Here because God simply said
BE
༄
My whims are nothing more
Than passing fancies
My thoughts no more than a sprout
…
My dreams are nothing more
Than strange realities
My melancholy no more than an out.
-s.r.f (if we were poets)
The mountains fallen with sleepy purple
And over the garden wall.
A giant’s castle in the clouds,
The blackberry scent of fall.
Softly bleed, and close your eyes,
Night tapping on the panes.
The glowy aura of the moon,
And the homely sound of rain.
-s.r.f
I can hear the wind howl in my ear, the crackling of the fire, the sound of my breathing, and my heart beating.
I stand still, the rain falling on my face, my blood running cold.
A speck of my past lightens my heart, a memory of a smile.
I remember his laugh and the way his body moved; The taste of his lips, the feeling of his skin.
In my head, he’s in the rain, a ghost, a memory of his hands in my hair.
He was so warm and heavy.
I lift my face, frozen, burning, and numb.
Staring into the sky and the clouds overhead, I cry.
You don’t know me anymore,
but I’m still here
in the corner of your mind,
a lamp you turn off and on
whenever you please.
You left me in silence, with thin, thin skin
and cracked lips that tasted like iron
and salt.
The sound of my car
escaping your street like a long-ago train,
still rings in my ears.
You say you regret what you’ve done to me,
but I’ve been broken in places you’ve never seen.
If I was already cracked, already estranged-
What is left of me?
The sun rises
at the same time,
but the shadows are all new.
I remember your fingers,
frozen in time, from the last moment I saw you.
I can still feel them on my skin,
cold, so cold, and that’s all they are now.
They’re not the same,
and you can’t warm me up from the inside out
again.
The night falls,
and the world is nothing but a room.
Light strays into the darkness
and gets lost.
I know what it’s like to go missing, too.
I could love you from the bone-deep
familiarity of childhood, from the startled
adventure of adolescence, I could love you
with all the joy and grief of womanhood.
Without turning away, without losing my place.
I could love you.
I’ve been loved
by men who’ve shown me how a heart can break
and still be lucky.
I’m lucky to have had the time
to be silent with you,
to feel your heart beating with mine.
Lucky to have you disappear,
to learn how I will go on,
and find myself still intact.
Lucky to have answered your silence,
your absence,
with my own.
The moonlight pours through the blinds and penetrates the air like a sharpened blade.
My frosty fingers gently reach for the window, sliding the glass to reveal a winter breeze.
The luminescent moon touches my face and caresses my cheeks like a lost lover.
I take a deep breath, and my cold hands stroke the beds’ woolen blankets.
I am pulled back into the safety and comfort of slumber, and I remind myself I will be okay.
You taste like a lover I haven’t forgotten.
Your kiss sweet, yet not at all cloying.
The lingering traces of your lips left the faintest of scents,
only a whisper that fills my nose for a moment
before evaporating into nothing.
You’re taller than me, and my head rests in the crook of your neck
like a flower in a book,
and butterflies make my stomach their home.
I’m weightless for a moment, my feet supported by nothing at all.
I want to bury every moment with you in a diary,
but my fingers fumble as they try to keep up, and I’m left staring at an empty page.
I want to hold onto you and never let you go, but you’ve already flown far away.
You were once so close to me, and now, like so much else, you’re forever out of reach.
I can’t taste the salt of my tears,
but I acknowledge them as my own.
Like I don’t need to see the moon
to know it’s full,
or to know that there’s a spoonful of light
sifting through the clouds over the bay.
I can tell from the heaviness of my eyes
that it’s time for bed.
I look out the window in my bedroom and stare above.
I try to imagine what it must be like to be a cloud,
dense as wool and shaped like cotton candy,
slipping between the stars.
What I wouldn’t give to be just another patch of darkness,
to fade into the sky.
But I can feel my body impounding me,
dragging me back to bed,
where I’ll sleep alone and wake up alone, too.
Y ella…
Sentada frente el umbral de su moral, sintiendo especial devoción por la pasión, espera pacientemente a que el romance le llegue y la resguarde de una futura maldición.
