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.
Carella is a poet and digital artist who splits her time between the ethereal world of dreams, and Toronto, Canada, depending on the weather. Her work involves themes of mental health, nature and sexuality, often in a surrealist tone. Carella is the recipient of the Stanley Fefferman Prize in Creative Writing (2006) and 2nd place winner in the Open Minds Quarterly BrainStorm Poetry Contest (2017). Recently, she has been published in Margins Magazine, Wrongdoing Magazine, Shuf Poetry, Myth & Lore and Solstice Literary Magazine. Forthcoming publications include Nightingale & Sparrow, Paddler Press, Fragmented Voices, Querencia Press, Stripes Literary Magazine, Door is a Jar, Writeresque, Free Verse Revolution and Burningword.
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