Issue 02 Online Library

Here you can read the collection of Poetry and Short Stories from Issue 02

Indigo Sapphire Moon

She/Her

Sea of Silence

My steps are vivid when the absence of others is prominent. When I’ve brushed my
hair and put on my glasses, I watch myself sip my tea in the mirror and place it on
the table. I smile and remind myself I’m pretty.

Rain creates a soundtrack and I sit, my knees hugging my chest, on the windowsill.
I watch the magpies search for worms sunk deep in the soil and hear crows sing
their newest threat. I take another sip of my tea and feel the silence shrouding me.
However, I don’t fear it. It’s here to play.

But then, days like today, when the absence of others has championed its
longevity, I usher it away. If I could fill it with the laughter of my friends or a
conversation with a girlfriend, I’d reverse the grinding lack of aliveness.

By now, my tea is cold and I’m almost too stubborn to brew another. I glance out
the window again, observing the raindrops. To notice them feels significant. Yet,
this silence brought something else to stay. And I don’t much like its heaviness.

I look at my tea cup and rest my head against the wall. I stare at the ceiling and
notice the cracks. There’s more than I realised but the paintwork still looks
appealing. I sigh, pick up my journal and sketch the outline of the silver birch trees,
paying particular attention to the shadows.

A tear drop splashes onto the page, smudging my pencil line. I place a hand over
my chest as my cheeks become warm and wet. My eyes sting, my head aches but
this wordless affirmation, it renders release.

I take my thumb and place it over the stained teardrop, creating a grander smudge,
one that stretches along the page. I won’t abandon myself this day. I walk towards
my tea cup and brew a fresh one.

When silence lacks itself again, it’s still there, surviving beneath this layer of life.
But the heaviness lifts somewhat when joy and laughter blooms again and I
surrender to a moment that’s - full.

IG: @sapphiremoonstudiosx Web: www.sapphiremoonstudios.com

Mwelwa Chilekwa

She/Her

I am not your fetish

"Once you go black you don't go back"
"Oh I want to nibble on that piece of chocolate"
"You're so beautiful, for a black woman"
Negrophilia, it's called
The fetishisation of black people
Despite the fact
I've grown used to it
It's still racist
It's still treating me like an object
It's still dehumanising me
They offer to roleplay the slave and master
The only pretending they do
Is faking they’re only racist in the bedroom

I can feel the way they
Undress me with their eyes
Not even bothering to disguise it
Unfortunately, I'm used to being fetishised
What can I say?
I'm naturally curvy
I have big, dick sucking lips
The perfect birthing hips
But, no, we wouldn't make great babies so
Obviously, rejection comes
And then it's my fault that
They become obsessed
Staring becomes stalking
Not stopping till their satisfied
I try to report it, but who cares
It's just a harmless fetish, right?

I've lived with that side of
Being fetishised
All of my life
But then, coming out as bi
I see a whole new side of it
Because if you're not straight,
You're labelled as easy
And being bi just means
I can't make up my mind
That I'd welcome the chance to have more
Hands on my body because
Being queer means you're not clear when you say
No

They say, find the person that
Doesn't care about the colour of your skin
Or your sexuality
I say, find the person
Who understands they can
Never truly understand
The person who holds your hand despite
All the chaos and ogling and abuse
The person who knows you can fight for yourself
But chooses to fight alongside you
Who loves you for who you are
Platonically, romantically
Find them
And together
We can fight

IG: @missmwelwac

Liam Scanlon

He/Him

As a Gay Boy I Wanted to be a Writer

Dust strangled roads split the valley like knife wounds
The hot Chris>an heat weighing like a cross
Roads strangled and muddy, crooked fields choked in dust
I’m fat-throated like a bullfrog, my swollen tongue slurs my foreigner’s words
Me and my bent-up Picasso knees still walking

Oh well, I’ve prayed in that church before
It wooed me with its coolness,
but the stone dent my knees and breathed blue on the back of my neck
Shackled as I was to the future, to the Fear:
choosing a career like brands of milk
like a logo spotted in the car’s rearview

Is a howl a song?
Through my musky nights I piled words like plates all around me and begged the roomies
not to breathe
Captured words like butterflies, jeweled eyes glazing the back wall
Words like porcelain: praying for rain and only ever receiving
snowflakes of dust

But those words I swallowed were swords,
Briar prickling my insides
And now I choose my words like bullets
My steeldrum mouth full of flames:
tip it out and the fire meets the evening, gracefully
dancing into purple steam

At a certain point it becomes impossible to keep living with the sword down your throat
I’d rather be a haunted dress—a plastic bag—dancing in the sky
enchanting the stars

IG: @liamsca

Hongwei Bao

He/Him

How to Make Tea in Chinese New Year

It’s Chinese New Year.
You are at home with your parents.
Your boyfriend is in his home with his parents,
having to deal with interrogations about whether

he has a girlfriend and when he’ll get married.
But you, you’ve had enough of these
apologies, excuses, lies. You’d like to put a stop
to all the nonsense, the acting, once and for all.

Why not make your parents a nice cup of tea,
using their favourite blue and white porcelain pot
while they are comfortably seated
in front of the television watching

newlyweds in bright costumes hugging and kissing
each other, grandparents offering red packets
to grandchildren, eyes filled with happiness,
the kind your parents can’t have because of you.

Why not take out the best Miluochun leaves
handpicked from the green hills of the Yangtze River Delta?
Why not use the Nongfushanquan mineral water
flowing down from the glaciers of the Himalayas?

Sprinkle the fine leaves on the bottom of the pot
and shake gently. Let the fragrance fill every inch
of the room. Pour the boiling water, 85 degrees centigrade,
and let the hot steam kiss open the shy leaves.

Cover the lid and leave it brewing for exactly 90 seconds.
Then serve the orange-coloured liquid in jade-textured teacups.
Place the cups in delicate saucers and present them with both hands,
showing care, precision and respect.

While your parents are sitting back cozily sipping the tea,
wondering why their son has changed to a different person today,
tell them gently, calmly and slowly: Mum and Dad,
I’ve got a boyfriend.

IG: @PatrickBao123 X: @Patrickbao1

Fox Ferguson

(They/Them)

‘Harley street in Technicolour!’

It is warm in the 1961 Chrysler Imperial. Just purchased by your husband – all steel and chrome,
450 horsepower, AM radio. Ready to drive you into a new age.

You forgot about the radio – so now you take your white-gloved hand from the wheel (under the
glove your knuckles are white too) and push the radio button with only the slightest tremor in your
fingers.

Ha – of course it had to be this song! Come on and be my little good luck charm, Uh huh huh, you
sweet delight…

Elvis is still crooning when you pull up in Harley Street. The way you slam the door, that sweet
cream flank of the car, is barely noticeable.

It is sixpence for the hour. You have never used one of these parking meters before – only just
introduced, you know, a machine from the future!

You fumble for the coin. Ungloving one hand, you can feel the sweat between your fingers and the
shard of silver in your pocket. Come on and be my little good luck charm…

I should have –

You stop yourself. No point.

You drop the coin into the meter and smooth down the folds of your cocktail dress – polyester, you
know, the fabric of the future! You wonder if the gay floral pattern is too garish for the occasion. No
point in thinking about that now either – your appointment is in ten minutes.

The brick four- and five-storeys of Harley street loom over you as you walk towards the clinic. As
you arrive, you see the iron railings, the brief sweep of steps up to the black double door. Before
you know it, you are there at the bell. You press the large gold button and wait.
You are quite sure that the receptionist who answers the door introduced themselves, but now,
sitting in the waiting room, you cannot remember their face. You realise it is because you were
unable to meet their eye.

A smiling crisp-uniformed nurse offers you tea but your mouth is too dry to stammer out
acquiescence. Behind the reception desk, a transistor radio plays. It’s just a matter of time, Brook
Benton reminds you…

In the final moment before the brisk and large-gestured doctor comes to take you through to the
procedure room, you place one hand on your stomach, try and feel the life in your churning guts.

I’m sorry, you whisper in your mind, but the words sound hollow and too small.

Afterwards, walking back to your 1961 Chrysler Imperial, all steel and chrome, you realise that all
you can remember of the procedure is this: the sight of the doctor opening his toolbox, the
implements inside, all steel and tubes and sharpness, a box of horrors.

Driving home, you turn on the radio. Ella Fitzgerald holds you the whole way back.

You cried the long night through, Well, you can cry me a river, Cry me a river, I cried a river over
you…

IG: @the.thought.fox

Anna Malone

She/Her

Healing

Breathe life into me
Shake off the dust of many years
Oil my stiff, aching joints
Restore my heartbeat
Blow glitter into my face if you have to
To bring back the twinkle in my eye
Sew up my open wounds
And smooth over my old ones
Hold my hand
So that I may not walk this alone

IG: @anna_malone_costume

River Quinn Mayne

He/They

I am both abraham and isaac

bleating on his doorstep, self-sacrificial lamb
teeth rubies set in a broken jaw,
begging through the blood for the
love he had in his eyes, you know
that one time, that hint of something, and

he kicks you in the mouth
bare foot slick with spit and bleeding gums
what he excelled at was hurting you
but at least you can feel his touch before
you black out

IG: @rivm545 X: @rivermayne

Viktoria

She/They

September 2017.

White wine, sprite and cigarettes. You and I in the middle of the road,
music blasting. It’s 1:30 am. Dancing. You, teaching me how to waltz.
You lead, holding me so tight, swinging me around like it’s nothing. It’s
drizzling, the smell of rain in the air. You are the only person I want to
exist with me. After all the crying, all the bad, the fear. You took some of
that away. Now I can see clearly again. The doubts lifted from me. I can
love who I want and you’ll still be there with me. We just laughed.
Danced the pain away. We smoked your whole pack of cigarettes. It was
the first time I ever smoked; you showed me how to. You always taught
me things. Taught me to always be myself “You don’t want to be like
everyone else. I don’t want you to be. Don’t change. I love you.” I loved
you too, but more than you will ever know. I didn't care, I was just happy
to be there. I wanted to kiss you – you to kiss me. Forget about your
boyfriend, I can love you better than he ever will. You can teach me that
too. I cling to every word on your lips like it’s the last thing I will ever
hear you say. And then you left.

I’m left with the memory of the first girl I ever loved. I was just a kid; I
didn’t even know what that meant but I felt it. I still feel it when I think
of you.

But white wine, sprite and cigarettes will always remind me of you.

Note: this poem was formatted differently originally, the limitations of our website did not allow us to recreate it identically
The poem is formatted as intended on page 35 of CV&L Issue 02

IG: @lolamoonwalk

C. Grayson

(He/Him)

Faith

Most of my childhood was spent in church
every Sunday like clockwork,
teaching me in the ways of selflessness.
I believed taking on other people's pain
was a noble and loving thing to do
and I have done that my whole life.
I have immense guilt, I always felt sinful
for needing to put myself first sometimes,
for the way I love not being enough
to heal anyone, or save them.
It is not my responsibility to save others
but that’s not what you’re taught
surrounded by adults telling you hell awaits
anyone selfish, doubtful, or different.
We must protect those we love from harm
but I watched my father cause harm
to my mother, to my sister, their tears
marking my failure to be a good person.
I saw how he used guilt to divide us,
I saw my mother’s pain became my sister’s,
I saw my foundations crumble before me
as I stood a powerless, small child
and knew my soul was marked by it forever.
That was the end of my faith in my father
when I knew there was nothing to look up to
in him or in my mothers absence too.
I needed something to believe in, the world
was too confusing, too scary, too aggressive
and unkind, so I turned to the only person I
had. The only role model still there.
She left religion, I always followed her.
but I just replaced one god with another
and tried so hard to be a good disciple
not knowing that the truth was
I never could earn the love promised.

The final disappointment of true isolation
when my sister turned away from me at last
hit my chest so much harder than any other.
At one point or another, they’ve all left,
splintered off in their own directions
and it was hard not to latch on to someone
because I so desperately wanted to be safe
and I was taught safety was being amenable.
I learned to become what was needed of me,
to stop their yelling I bit my tongue,
to stop their rejection I said yes to them all,
to stop their coldness I learned how to please
and it crushed me to be abandoned anyway.
I couldn’t coax out the consistency I needed
from my family, no matter how hard I tried
to be funny, charming, loving, kind, good.
I am in pain because I believed so deeply
I could love people into seeing who I am
and if they finally deemed me good enough
I would get back the love I was begging for
but all the gods I believed in have left me.
I am trying to lead myself with no example,
trying to love myself with my own heart.
I am reading from my own book of life
and trying so hard to trust what I have learnt.
It’s hard but I’m starting to admit out loud
it was easier to see myself as the problem
then to accept how badly I’d been let down.
I see the soft, sad child desperate for love
and I will not abandon him. I will love him.

c. grayson

IG: @marstawayne

K.C. Finn

He/Him

ERADICATION

WOULD WE LAY TO GROUND WHAT WE LOVE, NAMELESS?
NOMAD, PAUPER, RICH OR FAMOUS,
ALL ARE PEOPLE, SET FOR GRAVES
AS VILLAINS, HEROES, MASTERS, SLAVES.
SO WHERE’S THE HARM IN WASHING OVER
THAT WHICH FRACTURES OUR COMPOSURE?
THOSE DIVIDES AND CULTURE CLASHES,
BORDERS, BINARIES AND CREEDS ALL COME
TO ASHES IN THE GRAVEYARD, FEEDING WEEDS.
BETTER THEN, ERADICATE THOSE LABELS NOW,
MAKE PEACE, LESS THREAT IF WE ERASE
CONSTRUCTIONS TIL WE’RE ALL THE SAME SOMEHOW.

AND YET.

EQUALITY’S A CHEATER’S GAME IF ONE AND ALL
START OUT THE SAME:
NO BRIDGE TO BUILD, NO STREAM TO CROSS.
WITHOUT THE LESSON, LEARNING’S LOST.
IN EVERY OPPOSITION’S CLASH
THERE’S SPACE TO COMPARE AND CONTRAST.
AND THAT WILL SOMETIMES CAUSE A SMASH
WHEN WE REJECT, CORRECT OR BASH.
BUT IF WE HOLD THOSE INSTINCTS BACK,
ACCEPT IDEAS WITHOUT ATTACK,
HOLD SPACE AGAINST THE TONGUES DERISIVE,
THEN DIFFERENCE NEED NOT BE DIVISIVE.

FOR SOME, THAT JOURNEY’S FAR TOO LONG,
CLOSED MINDS ERRATIC TO THE ONSLAUGHT OF LABELS PROBLEMATIC.
FAR SIMPLER TO IGNORE THAN TO SUCCUMB.
LIVES LIVED IN AUTOMATIC FALSEHOODS,
“PROTESTS NEVER DO YOU GOOD”.
LYING LEADERS LOVE SUCH MINDS
AND WRAP THEM TIGHT IN SAFE CONFINES.
THEY CALL FOR PEACE AND HARMONY’S SAKE
WITH CANS OF WHITEWASH IN THEIR WAKE.
ERADICATORS LOVE TO PREACH.

SAY I, COME GATHER WHERE THEY TEACH.

COME DESECRATE THIS GRAVESITE NAMELESS,
FILLED WITH PIOUS, PRIM SELF-SAVIOURS.
BRING PERSONAS, TAGS AND LABELS.
COVER EVERY TOMB AND TABLET,
EVERY SLAB AND EVERY GABLE
TIL ITS BRIMMING TOE TO NAVEL
UP TO NAPE AND OVERHEAD.
EVERY COLOUR, EVERY TYPE,
EVERY BLEND AND EVERY BENT,
TELL ME THEN THIS CAUSE IS DEAD,
TELL ME TIL THOSE WORDS ARE SPENT.

ERADICATION, TEST YOUR MIGHT.
AGAINST THE FERVENT APPETITE
OF WE WHO CLAMOUR, RAZE AND CLATTER.
WE EXIST.
OUR LABELS MATTER.

IG: @mrbrakedown

Issue 01 Online Library

Here you can read the collection of Poetry and Short Stories from Issue 01

A Flea

(They/Them)

In soil-devon-red lie my father's bones

On land not his, nor theirs. But Ours. by gold band bound he too was ours
despite claws that grew in secret sharp and cold
Sinking into the flesh by his grace given, and taken

I do not know from whence they came and yet feel deep that their root is why
he is buried, not with his grave beside that of his father but in our church yard

blood is thicker than water
but they'll seep into the earth much of a likeness not too far from the apple trees the wounded child that is mine offers a sticky hand to his and I tell us both:

It gets better now, I promise

Morning has broken, and I will stitch it fixed with weary hands, my own blood under my fingernails

One day we all shall rot,
and yet our tenderness will outlive us all

In our tombs will lie the softness we held unflinchingly for all we saw wounded, because in them we saw ourselves and we have learned to be gentle with ourselves now even in the face of our own guts and viscera

And golden shall I beam,
and all that which my sunlight touches shall be midas unbound
Radiant and complete and ever expansive for-ever-and-ever-and-ever-amen

Alice Foxall

(She/They)
@oof_itsalice & @welcome_to_theproject on Instagram

God is a Freak
I’m gonna say it
God is a bit of a freak
I mean what’s with all these whips and getting stoned
Ok so maybe I haven’t read the Bible
I’m no expert on this
Supposed unconditional love
But it is conditional, isn’t it.
Someone wrote a whole book with a list of your conditions
And when they taught me about you in school
It wasn’t this love they focused on
No, in school the love was an excuse
For your never ending wrath
For a hatred, a dismissiveness, a one manned patriarchy
A threat of burning flesh
And death
And a thousand year plague

My grandma
Pouring out affection and love for every person and creature
But who on occasion would denounce your existence
Does she burn?
My godfather
So deeply in love with another man and so deeply loved by a man
Does he burn?
For every girl I kiss I fear the next time we meet shall be in your fiery inferno
Will I burn?
Do the ones who love the hardest but just not in the way you’ve dictated
Burn the brightest?

Because I have read the Bible
I had no choice
I had was taught to fear but desire you
Because God, God you sell a promise of salvation at the cost of living freely and
Jesus, Jesus died for my sins but I will still serve a sentence for them?
Christ, Christ was supposed to love me and forgive me so why do I feel so despised?

But despite all of this
Despite avoiding you and resenting you
I would love to bask in the light of your glory
I am sold on the dream and the fantasy of the conditional unconditional
But when I look up at where I think you are
Where I am told you must be
And I feel you looking back
I know under your rule
I am too far gone

And I am already burning.

Angie Else

(She/He/They)
@_angie_else on Instagram

Upland Water
I’ll braid your hair for longer tonight, out in the prairie,
it’s not quite our home but that’s alright, I can be your Brutus.
The space between my bones, you own, the parts of me that aren’t.

You and I have sat and watched the cattle graze and low, and as an
amber sunset mollifies the sky, I know I would’ve waited under the stars for you until the seven day war was over. I am still sat with heavy chin in calloused hand for when you wish to never see me again.

I wish I could press each fractal of my spine into the red sand beneath us, and create a mould for a new me. A mercury, gun-metal, steel and wax, me.
My body would snap together and leave, it would be gone, and I could watch it go.

The sun is still above me, the stars are there too, I am on my back in the sand and day and night are both one. There is not another beings shadow beside me.

Those who are unafraid can find the upland water, and that is where she is.

Bianca Agrimi

(She/They)
@biancaagrimi on Instagram

The Garden
It all seems to be written for us. When I close my eyes, us is all I see. We have existed so many lives, and it was always together. Always recognising each other with tenderness and delight. I remember all those past existences so clearly, when they come to me. These sparse frames of ecstasy, how they soothe and shatter my halved, little heart.
There was a spring night, once, at the truly of all beginnings. I knew then, I know now.
Oh, how I wanted you to hold me to fit inside the curve of your neck, smell the essence within the delicate crevice of your flesh. Nature was embracing us both, nesting two vacant souls in a chrysalis soaked with the smell of our beings.

We happen to forget that we are not invincible against time, but how can we not be? When the world stands still every time I look at you? I crave for you, I long for you to consume me.
May the moon be the sole witness of this Eden; a silent spectator of how we were too naïve to know that, like all beginnings, it was not meant to be for ever.
When God made the rules of time, did he make an exception for us?

Suddenly, a spring night is no more.
Bare is how I feel when I come back to my senses. I have lost you once again.
How dare these blissful memories feel like a curse for I am the only one remembering them?
What I see behind your eyes speaks of a cross I am bearing alone. I beg of you, my angel, to recognise this body who used to weep like a harp under your most gentle hands. Unknown, unwritten, but always the same.

“How funny — you’d say — if all this had happened to us already?”
“I would remember it forever”, I’d say.
The grass underneath my soles preens to the sweet gust of the wind. Does it know I’m being cradled all the same by your words?
“I remember it always”, I’d say again.

Cat Caie

(She/They)
@cat_caie on Instagram
catcaie.journoportfolio.com

Purple Pansies from B&Q
My green thumb took over,
asserted a part of my identity.
Purple was my favourite colour,
pansies were my favourite flower,
a calling for simpler times of confusion
as to whether I could be classed as a tomboy.

No pink or blue but purple pansies.

My aunties took me to the theatre
to see Jack and the Beanstalk.
Jack was played by a girl.
I loved him either way.

No pink or blue but purple pansies.

I was possessed to save them,
turn them into my very own beanstalk.
Abandoned in the B&Q shopping trolley
with velvety leaves and an elusive symbol
of confidence and community.
They sprouted fresh flowered ideas
of who I could one day become.

No pink or blue but purple pansies.

Connie Baxter

(She/Her)

The Sand Dune
There’s sorrow at the heart of all this anger,
Sorrow like the source point of a sand dune;
A smooth round stone, round which bitter grains gather,
Whipped up by wind and churning waves. It’s too soon –
Since we walked beside those waves in Whitstable,
Beside because it was too cold to swim.
Memories, sharp and scalding memories, dreadful:
Of my head on your shoulder. They’ll dim,
Surely, but still catch the throat forcefully,
Sirens of sorrow sent up from the stone.
Though it’s all because I miss you, really,
Really all because I miss you dearly,
I did not want to hold your hand,
Rage compacts these grains of sand.

Fox Ferguson

(They/Them)
@the.thought.fox on Instagram

TW: Suicide

'Skeleton of pleasure'

I came here today to –

I came here today. To the beach. I reached Brighton Palace Pier and thought – left or right? Left, out
towards Kemptown, were the bars of my youth. Right, that was another story. Getting out towards
Hove you find the ruined pier.

The ruined pier is the West Pier. The designer, Eugenius Birch – what a name! I could imagine him
on that blustery day in October, 1866, opening the pier, with ladies in their crinoline applauding him
as the scissors closed – snip! – on the ribbon. Untold pleasures were promised!

With the addition of a concert hall in 1916, the pier reached peak attendance. The women in
feathered hats and men in easy lounge suits. Their whispered words in the audience. Young lovers
sharing secret hopes for the music to come.

The pier never recovered its popularity after the war, bankrupting the owners and closing forever in
1975. The sea took it, of course. Huge angry white hands ripping beams and trusses limb from limb.
All that remains is four squat black pillars like a token of apocalypse and the small black skeleton of
metal and wood out to sea – the skeleton of pleasure.

I came here today and reaching the Palace Pier I chose right, towards the West Pier, the ruined pier.
It sits there on the sea like the Palace Pier’s shadow. I chose right. I squinted hard against the bored
empty wind, the bored empty sun.

And suddenly there it was – the West Pier. And I thought, Ha! that I should have come here today!
I came here today, to the ruined pier. I was so surprised to see it there, I almost forgot why I had
come, here, today.

I came here today to kill myself.

Marion Smith

(They/Them)
amaranthetchings.substack.com

We are unable to fully recreate the formatting of this poem due to our website limitations. To read the poem as intended, please see the link below to the writer’s own site or check out page 28 in Issue #01

Enmeshed, Enplatformed

To be a scrap of paper-pink confetti
spiralling among celestial bodies!

In this acetate-light afterlife,
we are all choreographers.

Our runway is a beacon,
sex sirens luring their queerest sea.
Gestural laws of opposites are now at play,
presented for guilded eyes,
pedestalled in judgement—
rococo and lace walking our Medlock esplanade.

Tendons ripple as the beat drops:
wait, this isn’t the advanced solo?
spins and dips are performed on a hairpin
as fingers, jewelled, snap to Donna Summer.
turn for me,
let me look upon you in this light.

House after house,
they leave their lives on that stage:
fantasy battles punctuated by a plummet
to the floor,
agate limbs on obsidian.
the rumours are true:
a universe is crystallised in these movements.

Enmeshed,
we are tartan/leather/latex village people.
fan your concertina, your coral lashes—
my eyelids are corsetted open.
walk for me, my genderfuck cowgirl.

We are fragmenting/refracting/reflecting each other.
The Category is Columbo:
glitter conspiracies have been solved tonight!
We find the world’s answers
in our sitzbones,
our limp wrists,

in fingers traced along triceps
and in stilettoed, platformed feet.

I am prismed, I want to see everything of you.
twirl for me, spin across our spectrum
splay your fingers,
curve your spine,
hold your pose for me.

We are instructed to keep this space and time
as safe, hallowed.
and for the first time in weeks, I venture
out of my skull,
into colour and beat.

Click Here for a formatted and audio version of this poem

C Grayson

(He/Him)
@marstawayne on Instagram

Limbo

I
Carbon-copies of our abusers
Wander the streets unscathed.
Our friends turn into clones
Once the cycle begins again
And we watch the lights die out.
The pattern follows us-
It rinses out half your soul
And the rest bleeds out slow,
Draining you from the inside
Until your organs give in
And your smile melts away.
Countless dead dreams,
Repeated familial atrocities,
Maiming each others hearts
In a ferocious battle for death.
When we see it take hold
We’re watching a disintegration.
It crawls slowly in both ears,
Burrows underneath their skin,
Burns itself through their retina
Straight into the brain,
Gnawing away who they were
To replace them with the empty husk
We hoped they’d never become.
The same nasty faces look back,
Multiplying its crowd of hatred,
Feeding off itself incestuously.
The ranks are closing in,
Soon we’ll be the only ones left
And I wonder more every day,
Are they truly alive like we are?

II
Are you ready to move on?
Staring at your own corpse
Dancing on coals,
Waiting for the final song
To be played by someone else.
Didn’t you already know the tune?
You hum it to yourself all the time
Pretending to watch the conductor
As if you ever followed that beat,
Copying movements you see
Like you hadn’t thought of it already.
Wouldn’t you like to be right?
Strike out on your own,
Leave the skeletal puppet behind
To inhabit a real soul.
Stare in the face of yourself,
The one that it is old and rotten,
And have the strength to walk on.
It won’t devour you
Unless you stay,
Hanging on the ropes you’re given
Rather than climbing higher.
Play the final note so it can rest,
Begin a new dance in its stead
And don’t stop pushing forward.
Despite those around you
You’ve got further left to go.

c. grayson