We often drink to swim in sorrows past
Only to relish in the marvel of their sweetened complexions
Seasons seem to bear no malice on thoughts and actions spent
Worlds apart from modern conviction
We often drink to swim in sorrows past
Retired disappointments we find abandoned
We often drink to swim in sorrows past
To find them snug and sound ….
….no longer our bedded companions
to hell with stolen hearts,
broken hearts,
the beautiful and the
damned.
to hell with thieves,
the wreckers, their grand larceny, a
sham.
i’m curious, girls, what were you
thinking, where did you go wrong, how
could it turn right?
unplug the telephone, turn
down the heat, your house is
on fire, so bright, so
bright.
‘listen asshole:
“you were my worst mistake, my
favourite crime, raised me
like ecstasy, dragged my
soul through the Styx.”
‘dearest jerkface:
“a seed for every sin, pomegranate
for sanity, a coin for Charon, for
you, a coin for the
prick.”
to the dearly departed, those are
crimson cries, your ache and break, in
diaries, letters, in
death’s slow wake. see,
Troy only burned when a horse rode in, its
pillars its columns its trysts
made faint; and he was your flame, your
white shining horse, the devil
posed like an angel, like a
fucking saint.
it burned, did it not, the plums and
tangerines, the coal in the orchard, like
apples in the grave.
it burned, how the fire burned,
raw and relentless, but
never ate away.
there was coal in the orchard, licked by the
flame, grazed and caressed with fire’s heated
grace. that was the way he kissed you, the
way you echoed back, the way he gazed, the
honeysuckle taste. the same way the flame
receded when it gave coal its all, it’s
a dance of desire, the dance of
its fall.
i say, don’t go weeping, don’t
douse what was yours, remember the
flame quivered, remember it
adored. it’s how
you get by, the lingering
truth, the shimmering layer
above any lie. remember
the soft flicker, the
flicker in the flame, remember the
tears of the wicker, remember the flame
flickered all the same.
when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
you are alky and he is flame
a guy in your psych class is
going at it against the wall
with a girl in lace tights and
smeared lipstick, and
you wish they wouldn’t, haphazard
under the strobe lights
people give themselves away too easily and
the world is too big to find a soul that has let away
when your friends are blaring off-tune about the bludgeoned and
broken, welcome the darkness, welcome
to the dark parade as
the girls outside blow out smoke swirls with
their eyes closed, the truth is
you know what they’re seeing
you know what they’re singing about
inside, the glass floor with neon lights is a battlefield
of terracotta soldiers with bullet holes for
hearts, and
you’ve walked their walk before,
it isn’t a happy one, it isn’t even
sad, lipstick and bruises ought to
scream out
and it’s something at the cusp of your tongue that sours when
you realize they only whisper
they’re dreaming they’re awake
when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
space and time and distance meld
into one and the only divination
the only dimension plotted is
the displacement in between
his gaze is a hundred luster beams
a thousand voltaic pulses
the incandescent flare of something lit up by nothing as
your nose grazes his
you aren’t two ships passing in the twilight
when your eyes meet his across the crowded bar
you are
two parts of a ship coming together
again and again and
again
aether drifting among the mortally broken, the
drizzle before the storm, a
supernova waiting to happen
but before the big bang, the explosive splay
a cosmic aurora dancing above earth
when your eyes meet his
there is a moment
where darkness flickers and
whispers fade
all around, lights go out, one
by one, nameless faceless terracottas dragged
by the ends of their coats, the
weight of their bullet-ridden chests
you are two entities
gravitating towards each
other in the moonshine, so
don’t hasten your steps, don’t
dash for flight, take
into your palms these
violent delights, for
in the beginning you plunged
into the black sea of
gunpowder cries, and
tonight
you are coming together
a soft respite.
shadows recede, the first day of spring
endless waiting, shadows aren’t shadows
when they materialize into things, and
things with affinity always
come back and voices
in your head whimper, not yet
this is hard,
the mind, in tune with the gods
above, as the door opens
it sighs finally,
finally
and for you, it wasn’t the brightness of day or
the way the clouds skipped and hugged the trees
and earth that marked the start of spring
when the door opens
you are on wings
this is where spring begins
the heart is a chorus of crickets
it sings, sings and sings.
before the hollow amber glass spins,
its final round
this time settling
unmistakably
in front of me, its
bitter lips
puckering
and saying
‘i choose you, finally’,
i am sealed within a circle
of judgement, a ring of
secrets and
heart.
secretive hearts
are unwelcome
in the non-judging drinking circle,
while unrelenting eyes and coarse
whispers judge anyway, gasp
at the atrocity behind the absence
of a presence, the blowup of a
breakup, the dregs after the death of
kindness.
how is it terribly wrong
of me to cease
up, when i am at the crossroads
that separate the
bold
from the brave?
truth or dare
do you dare to tell
the truth, or
are you only brave
enough to burst into flagrant
flight, show some sudden strength
to leap off a ledge or
climb a cliff in the drunken drizzle
of harsh beer and champagne?
why i am forced
to take on that oath is
beyond me;
i either bow out or
bow down.
a coward for both deeds,
giving in or
giving up.
the circle applauds
with my vow
to say the truth
and the truth is
that i am far from
stupid.
i am not an open book,
as the judges sit
in unison
waiting
for a sliver
of untainted wisdom,
never before uttered detail
of what-happened-when or
remember-that-night-of.
i vow to say nothing but
the truth, and the truth is
that guilt doesn’t wash over me
when i spill scotch
over scars, champagne
over shambles and
shame.
when i say the truth,
i am saying what
i’m expected to say, what
they are waiting in haste
to learn, their worst fears and best
wonderings confirmed, anything beyond
that train of thought
earth shattering and
you only say
what they are waiting to hear.
your heart
is a closed one,
locked and
bound and its
see-through moments are best saved
for nights when you would fling
off its bandages and bare all
for the ones who were there for it all.
your face is a closed mask
but you aren’t transparent inside,
no light passes through
in the moment
when you utter words
that lace the hard sharded truth
with citrus curls, the sugar over
the astringent, the tangible over
the surreal. tonight you performed
a survival act,
and you are simply grateful
your heart is
intact
April Chye is an undergraduate student currently studying English Literature in Columbia University. Her collection of poems is an eclectic mix of Western and Eastern culture and experiences reflective of a student from Singapore who spent her teenage years in an English boarding school in the UK.
These oppressively hot, humid nights,
alone
with my thoughts and the heat in this premature summer.
Thinking how friends continue to scatter,
progress, bloom
into adults.
And I’ve somehow failed to climb out
of the liminal tweens lifestyle,
eight years in the same city, vaguely grounded
yet stultified, underpaid, underwhelmed.
Balancing part-time work, half-heartedly
pursuing dreams, boyfriends,
life. Desperate for change
yet afraid to be hopeful. Treading water,
staying afloat but receding,
relinquishing days to inertia.
Wondering if I’m a traitor
to my sign. A Capricorn
is apparently industrious, ambitious, driven.
Yet we also do things on our own time.
Ah. I must be a late-bloomer, I am one of those
fragile, erratic breeds, prone to sickliness,
then unsuspecting growth spurts.
I’m subtly subverting tradition, waiting
to eclipse the heat, approach my own version of adulthood.
Rachel Carbonell is a writer, artist and teacher living in Brooklyn, New York. She maintains a blog, and has been published in The Vagrant Literary Quarterly and accepted for publication to the shady side review and cliterature. When she is not writing or teaching, Rachel enjoys exploring NYC, biking, seeing live music and spending time with her friends and kitties.
