#prose poetry
You’ve been with yourself from the very start, so if ever you’ll wander away, you can always come back.
I’m a little lost // ma.c.a
Hysteranthous
One flower left amid the green of newgrown leaves. It almost seems out of place, this pristine star, showpiece of the magnolia. I bought it when I was in love, or maybe because — I was smitten, that’s for sure — and now, years later there’s a lesson to be taught:
The beatitude of the flowers in bloom I so easily mistook as the prime of this life, proves to be merely its prelude. The green, I now see, in these humbly unfolding leaves; destined to breathe, has nothing to do with eyes being caught, star-struck. Nor with the initial excitement of allurement; the many thrills of buttoning seduction. It has nothing to do with the awe of interstellar travel, imagined, and experienced by simple virtue of perceiving.
These humbly green leaves depict the days of roots deepening; of growth, development, and branches strengthening; of proof and reassurance, that it is here that life thrives, and is nurtured. These are days depicting all that makes sure this life remains.
I think about a love that stays.
We bloom too, and so, spectacularly, before the emergence of the humbly green leaves. It seems, we favour flowers over roots, and all too ignorantly. So often already blowing with the wind without giving a chance to the following spring. The flowers must last forever. A preposterous concept. I look at the one flower left; the flower I do cherish, as it withers. Then, I shiver.
Plastic. What a gruelling ideal.
—
25-4-2022, M.A. Tempels ©
I warned them that there is a downpour inside of me…
They told me they like the rain
I said “the lights go out all the time, the storm is too strong”
They told me they have a torch to carry until the wires are repaired
“The heat goes out, the basement floods, the walls are covered in mold!” It’s like i’m trying to push them away
But they will not go
I can build a fire, they tell me. The walls can be fixed. They can scoop the water out of the basement with a bucket like a sailor trying to save a sinking ship
“… is this what you want? A home that constantly requires maintenance?”
They tell me that this is the home they want, and they will do whatever they have to so that it stays upright
Preview of my piece for Twilight Sword: A Dainsleif Zine!
I wrote a prose poem from the point of view of Dain as he parts from Aether for the last time on the day before the cataclysm.
Preorders are open now!
SIGNED, SEALED, BURNED
poem transcript under the cut.
[transcript: “Something I wished to tell you but
could never bring myself to say:
I kissed your hair that night when you fell asleep
in my arms.
I don’t think you felt it but I wish you had.
I can never put my love into words.
Let this be enough:
Two arms around your torso and
my lips on your forehead
and the orange we shared,
how the slices made our fingers sticky
and the juice dripped onto the bed.
When you nearly fell and instinctively
reached for my hand
and you didn’t let go,
even when you regained balance
and I wished we could stay like that forever,
fingers interlocked and palms pressed together.
But eventually you let go
and my hand is still cold
because it remembers your warmth.
Here’s the letter I will never send to you,
the one I will throw into the fire once I have confessed my sins:
You almost kissed me at the lake
and I don’t know what stopped you.
Were you scared?
I wouldn’t have pushed you away.
I would’ve reciprocated without a moment’s hesitation.
Worst of all:
I wish I could omit the almost from my memory
(you kissed me at the lake).
That is the tale I will tell myself.
You were mine, once. (Almost. Almost.)” [/end transcript]
“the way the sunshine plays in the folds of the curtains on lazy afternoons the burst of blackberry on your tongue in the summer heat the fire in your chest with that first sip of cider in the cold winter months the laugh of a stranger caught by the wind on the dappled path the graceful droop of an orchid regal melancholy in the curves of the petals these are the moments when the dreams of the world can be glimped these are the memory of pandora’s hope that serve as my suicide note”— i am tired
“can you feel the earth the rumble in your chest behind your heart but deeper so much deeper. can you hear the breathe of the sky the cold whisper of wind in the clouds in your lungs feel the heartbeat of the mountains of the olde in the back of your mind the pulse of the forests in your blood, the call of green of sky and sea and land you are the child of the earth of the sun through the trees and the sweet summer breezes the flow of the creek the chatter of the world beyond”— originalgoddess
