Poetry: To Complete In A World That Undoes All Things, by Jack J (MATURE CONTENT)

a rebirth in 5 parts

part 1: your part

pass to me your fingerbones and a handful
of filaments
wrapped in milky petals peeled alive
and I will listen so
you tell me how loud
you scream
when this earth burns
into melted knots, and the universe – herself, a bestial discarded thing – backs us
up
into corners. the crevices of our own hands.

part 2: and I will do mine

I will listen to you sing so
you scream.

part 3: our part

that is the closest thing we have to peace
threading our fingerbones together
with filaments, yours wrapped warm in milky petals
mine wrapped cold in skin
because the heat in mine already escaped, like peace escaping from things that can’t complete on their
own, like filaments hoping to tie together all that is left, your hand feels so warm, it is, then, in a burning
world, safe. safe, only because my hand is so cold, it is, then, dangerous. the milky film of the universe
begins to swirl into the shapes we know. people, completing each other. the closest thing we have to
peace lives in those moments. moments where dangerous hands become safe.

part 4: her part

those pieces of the ocean – herself, the most beautiful composer – can sing
the song her mother wrote
in her deeply youthful voice
completing the waves as they travel forwards
and their ghostly ends retreat
– completing us.
in those corners I find no place to retreat
so I burrow. the crevices of our own hands. the
forever holes
in your fingers like flutes.

part 5: thank you

we will scream and so you sing
– that is the closest thing we have to peace
when you murder me, and I can be born again
bleeding some togetherness
of our blood
and when we as close as
the closest things can be – when we complete each other
and those crevices hum with light
the universe and the ocean
the discarded and the beautiful alike
become so dark a conceding feast
below our forever upwards motion
– that is the closest thing we have to peace.

Photography: 14th Street In The Rain, by Lee D

Flash Fiction: Twigs, by Rose S

In a movie, I would be running fearlessly through the trees right now with twigs shattering across my cheeks and drawing blood through too-clean cuts. But I am not in a movie. So I don’t crash through branches, hoping they break before my ribs do. There are better ways to maneuver this forest, and my ankles never twist on the stones that litter its floor. 

I tuck my hair behind my ears again, hoping the auburn strands don’t get tangled in the twigs that reach down like dripping icicles made of fragile carbon. I can’t afford to lose time. 

They’re coming for me. 

I reach out and touch a tree, swinging myself around its circumference and landing behind it. It’s thin, but maybe if I don’t move, they won’t see me this deep in the woods. 

     

They’re coming for me. They know what I’ve become. The only problem is that I don’t. I don’t know what I’m capable of, but I feel pressure swelling in my hands. I brush my hair around the side of my head, running my fingers through its length to release the static, and it leaks down my gunmetal grey puff jacket like a waterfall, glinting scarlet in the cold sun. My long fingers are smooth, thin, bloodless. I don’t think my nails have ever actually been blue. The buildup hasn’t reached a climax yet, but when it happens I don’t know what I’ll be able to do to stop it. 

“Carly!” My head shoots up. “Carly, come out!” 

“Ugh, dad, no!” I whisper so quietly that even I can hardly hear it. 

“Carly, where are you!”

“Mom…” I reach up, smoothing falling hair back from my face. 

Carly, it’s their nickname for me. Short for Clarence. They used to always tease me about that dumb Nickelodeon show, I never really forgave them. 

But that’s not them. They’ve been missing for eighteen months.

Poetry: Kitchen Light, by Jack J

pt. first
The softest glow I’ll ever know is that upon his back
the yellow crept so slow and reached
no further than his shoulder bones
the pupil light is given flight when he taps the cigarette
the kitchen is so bright and warm.
And outside. On the veranda.
Where he sits. Belly up.
it is not.

a pt.
and my father breathes in. And puffs out empty memories
and his back is illuminated by the incandescence
by the faded liveliness that is nourished further
when the kitchen continues to glow
and mother and sister are asleep
but the kindled flame – nursed in the kitchen pane
continues. On his back.
To weep.
So bright.

a pt.
and I walked up to his chair on the veranda
to grab a tea-cup I’d given to a guest
and my father drew back his breath
and it was sad then. So sad.
To witness all the words
he didn’t say.

a pt.
and he looks so deeply into the black
and his face escapes the kitchen glow
and his picking up of the beer bottle
is so solemn. So fearful. So slow.
A man who is half glowing-
one-part radiance
the sum of incandescence but who’s
face, and legs, and belly
are dark and do not gleam.
They scream like dead tree bark.
And are so dark.
So dark.

pt. last
it must have been then, must have been
that any glow inside him had gleamed
that any pupil of light had taken flight
(perhaps when life
had tapped him).
It must have been then, must have been,
so dark inside him then.

Photography: Descent, by Olivier N