The soul of each moment is alive. A living voice, a broken down song. Like an abandoned car in an alleyway, from another life you’ve lived. Within another’s ghost towns.
* * *
“The most beautiful thing about you, is that you’re strong enough to be vulnerable.”
(Fuck you).
“The ugliest thing about you, is that you’re weak enough to be impenetrable.”
If I could break into your mind (love) like a shattered vase, I’d find no water on the floor.
I spilled too many of my flowers at your feet, thirsting for the voice and breath I’d given you.
Silence. You’re the profound silence from the bottom of a well many women fall into, seeking the fragile child only to find a Black Sun staring down upon them, laughing.
Your little boy is an illusion, a mirage the Queen of Hearts stole a piece of to complete her own, and you believed it, you actually believed that love is a finite thing, and petals can’t grow from stone, and floors must always be washed clean of dirt.
Memory is a sin and a stain, but you remember every fingerprint, catalogued in a desk of drawers next to a collection of video games and pornography, and stamps to worlds you’re too afraid to travel to, lest you should leave some piece of yourself behind.
The White Pawn was your pass, the Black Bishop your port. And yet, you are a grown man hiding within a child’s fort.
I am no better, with curtains for eyes and a home inside built on dreams as fragile as a web of tears.
Blow them away, love. Wipe the dust off your radiator, and watch all the women you’ve buried your head in drive past in their sleek cars, out your window frame, your standing-still-moving picture, and beyond the eclipse of your White Knight.
Black Bishop, White King. Black Pawn, Yellow Rose. Friendship is a hard thing to come by, in this land of salted flowers; and real love, harder still.
Tomorrow, I may write of the Crocodile and his tears, the Cowardly Lion and fields of rippling poppies in a sea bleeding with dreams. Or perhaps I’ll scale a different rainbow, find marigolds and lavender and sunshine. I’ll write forever. After all, words are the only thing left of us once we’ve turned to Stone.
Sincerely, the Queen of Diamonds, from the bottom of her cavern, Spade in hand.
*Originally published in Deep Overstock Issue 18 (2022)
Carella Keil
Carella is a writer and digital artist who creates surreal, dreamy images that explore nature, fantasy realms, portraiture, melancholia and inner dimensions. She has been published in numerous literary journals, including Columbia Journal, Chestnut Review, and Crannóg. She is a Pushcart Prize Nominated writer, Best of the Net Nominee, and the 2023 Door is a Jar Writing Award Winner in Nonfiction. She is the featured artist for the Fall 2024 Issue of Blue Earth Review. Her photography has appeared on the covers of Glassworks Magazine, Nightingale and Sparrow, In Parentheses, Blue Earth Review, Colors: The Magazine, Frost Meadow Review, Straylight Magazine, and Cosmic Daffodil. instagram.com/catalogue.of.dreams | x.com/catalogofdream
