You
I carved your bones Into a tree. Discovered you in velvet petals Powdered with pollen, White feathers sullied by soil, Mouth smeared pink with juice, Seeds shining from tiny teeth,
Suddenly sullen Inside the wild strawberry plant.
Perhaps my hands offend you. They nurture sin. They lose their colour, Pulled back as skin from Godly grape. Abandoned, They spin spider silk, Stand at the edge Of a field shivering, Dark, Licked to sleep.
Natalie Crick
Dark
Your name tingles at my touch in the dark, as I trace its shape with my fingertips, explore all its sharp points and smooth curves. Three letters taste like whisky, one like silence, one like snow boots. The others melt in my mouth, filling it with light. Oh beloved, whom once I did not know so long ago, nothing is so beautiful as this. I'm a messy lost human, I know, but I love you so much I can't think straight. Cross my road, you streetcar. Break my seal. Remind me why I am. Tonight has no moon but you, and the wind is inhuman but you wrap me in flames and your name is so safe. Your breath is fierce. I am completely yours. I am completely here.
Finlay Worrallo
You and existentialism
You are a free agent. You are left alone, condemned to be free. The authenticity of your life is your experience and not your knowledge. You can act without being determined by your past, which is always separated from you. Your consciousness of death makes you realise what is important.
So thought Sartre, perhaps the Godfather of Existentialism.
On the other hand, Albert Camus, who saw himself more as a writer (un écrivain) than a philosopher, argued that you can’t create experience. You must undergo it. You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.
Whereas Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s soul mate and co-philosopher said, “You can’t assume responsibility for everything you do – or don’t do.”
But what do you think?
Tom Warman
Not Friendship
If I speak to you now when the hammer has hit your throat and your breath has become bone – lightweight, almost fossilized, would you believe in the miracle, would you kiss the shoulder of responsibility, eat the loaf you were given with great gusto, stop pushing your cart of distractions, stop and see. August is around the corner. And no spiritualist’s spell nor week of Sundays will change the face of nowhere. Letting go is always in my veins. Letting in the emptiness and not being afraid. If I speak to you now, it’s just to let you know you are forgiven, the smoke has cleared and all my expectations have long since died. It’s just that I feel for you. And I need you to know that I am not, will never be your enemy.
Allison Grayhurst
Smokescreens
She weaves idle chatter into patterns of finespun flirtation while considering the subtext of your conflict, an unwelcome concept in this context as she contemplates the shape of you.
She is not your only lover. She is bumbling on the surface with this frenetic meditation allowing her scattered thoughts to form an orderly queue.
With a thin skinned presence and a dependable cadence that resonates, she deliberates how best to hold the space for you
while you keep a place for her, behind the embraces you cling to as they dissipate, evaporate like candyfloss on your tongue but with a sharper taste.
Let the others call that love. You know better.