Bent
I can bend
and break,
mend and make
amends,
start riots and
cry out—
in surrender
of once feeling
stifled.
I can close my eyes
and still see what is
gained, lost, and
corrupted;
for what is done
does not die.
It festers and
flourishes—
seeps into the hollows
of every passing
moment;
for pain itself
is simply a shelter
that serves to protect
the past from the threat
of being forgotten.
And yet
how can I ever want
to straighten my back
when I am
stronger through this weight
I carry?
Finite
You were not
the orange hue from the streetlamp.
You were
the streetlamp
as we lay upon my parents’ driveway
on nights that were heavy
with humidity
and our quick, quick laughter.
Not the light itself
that coated our
limbs,
but that flickering beacon
on the street corner that
lent a hazy glow which cancelled out
the surrounding night.
I want to tell you
that shadows shimmering on the pavement
still exist.
They serve as a reminder
of the ever changing light.
You may have been
the beacon, but
I’m just like the trees, shaking against
a sudden gust of wind
when I think of you
now. I do not move,
but I creak and sometimes
leaves drop from me.
Ready
They’re stripping
the house bare,
or we are, we are
stripping the house bare.
miss me, miss me, now you gotta
I double-dog dare
The walls are now “butter” yellow,
a warm, creamy color to cover
up the grey.
The buyers
are supposed to like it.
Even the railings
are gone,
unplugged from their holes in the walls, so
my hands end up grasping at air. But
cross my heart and hope
that’s not permanent.
I once swung
from these branches and perched
here to clamber onto the roof,
and now I find the workers outside,
shaking
the ceiling popcorn from their skin.
please, please, PRETTY please,
I really shouldn’t mind, it’s not as if
I’ll be here much
longer. Things will just be
different.
ready or not, here I come
Transnational
Here you can be both
island and continent;
land that runs red and blushes
pink before it seamlessly becomes
ocean blue.
I have traced the space
between the rainforest town
of my father
and the urban sprawl from which
he eventually departed;
I have run my fingers
along the rambling roots
of trees with textured curves that
rival unbroken
waves.
I have awoken
to kookaburras and cockatoos,
have befriended possums and wallabies,
have smelled fresh eucalyptus and ripe mango,
and have fallen asleep to a chorus of magpies
and the obstinate bellow
of the cane toad.
History here is both
recent and ancient,
stories carved into the earth
of how the first people
and the land
are one.
It is here
where the ocean current
pushes me further from shore,
only to usher me home
once more.
Preservation
I imagined that you looked
the same as the day
you were laid
in the ground,
but I saw that in the unearthing
the adornments of ceremony
and of memory
fell
away,
and that even your very softness
has disintegrated,
left only
your fragmented outline:
rough edges that delineated
a silhouette that danced
along the brink of
familiarity.
The might of imagination
and the weight of scientific discovery
meant that I could attempt
to piece together the details of a life long thought to be
lost.
I wanted
to brush away the dirt and grime
that obscured your visage,
but I worried
that doing so would cause
your image
to come apart
in my hands.
***
Ariana Turner is a writer and doctoral student in the clinical psychology program at Northwestern University. When she is not writing stories, she is conducting research on the psychological significance of how people tell their stories. Her poetry will soon be featured in Voice of Eve. She’s lived in Kansas, California, Italy, Sri Lanka, and Australia—but now resides in Chicago with her cat, Apollo.
