Drenched by Amelia Theodorakis |
Drenched
There was no falling there was howling like babes into the crush there was waking up under water with comets in her eyes She starts believing that it rises out of her teeth comes in through the bottoms of her feet after it rains a few fat thrilling drops hitting the ground at the start now her molars are mostly water Now they’re spilling out over the edges slipping words down the sides of each other’s necks hoping they’re still true when they get to the shoulders he slipped up first There’s him, sweeping crystals from his hair a puddle settling around her rose hips for the rainy season soaking into the spine, becoming part of her keratin he doesn’t check to see if it’s okay There’s her, overdosing on seawater fingers skimming the underbelly of those eternal numbered nights you’d stay to slide under the gauze too no one to see you carry your sins back to shore The best ones come with elastic bones already they learned to breathe without gravity before you they know the whole damn ocean’s a place to hide at least until your thirst’s all quenched. |
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It lifts my chest
It lingers like the blush of a sunset afternoon -- a sudden pitch to darkness and you’re in the cold. It’s all just stars, all rising up to remind you what magic ain’t. It hangs overhead like a puff of steam, lifts chest, fills lungs, seeps from the mouth, sighs through the lips, it gnashes the back of the neck, uses its teeth, uses my hair to hide behind. Sometimes it pinch, sometimes it crack and is coloured white, sometimes the pinching feel good. This longing it grope at me, skims my breast with sugar tongue licks skin inside elbow, falls into the crook of my thigh. It turn my hands into old shapes; a slew of pink musk memory: eyes half closed, closing moans coming off the top of my head, strands of hair catching some breeze, pulling up, lifting away from the scalp. I’ve held much more than his back in my hands, pulled him deeper, sucked the pillow better. At night brown moths come in through the window, beat themselves to bruise against the glass, become like dust on the sill. I’m longing for him this night. Taking so long -- It’s been tonight forever, been the longest night of my life. |
Amelia Theodorakis is an emerging writer from Melbourne. Her poems have been published in Cordite Poetry Review and the Australian Poetry Journal.
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