Jeanette Winterson, From "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal," Publ. In 2011

M.L.Rio, “If We Were Villains.”

ari b. cofer, Unfold: Poetry + Prose

I take a photo with the old camera out of my mum’s drawer

A quick shot of life

One short silent depiction of how I view the world

I like the old films

Colours not too bright

I’m not good at photography either

Smudged pictures on 15mm

Too orange, too yellow, too bright

I like looking at people, like capturing how life is for them

I don’t like being near them

I like myself on black and white film

Charles Bukowski, "hurry slowly," from Come On In!

Tightrope Walker

I’m struggling,

Stumbling like a failing tightrope walker

I turn and want to blame someone

For sabotaging the rope,

For distracting me

But there’s no one but me

I abandoned safety net and balancing pole

Instead there’s darkness waiting should I fall

There’s no way of knowing what’s down there

Should I tumble, would I crack?

Should I fall, would I break?

Should I jump, would I

Die

My heart, it soars

Spending not a single day chained to the earth no longer

While my body, it rots

Beneath the daisy field

"To forget, to forget ...", Vahan Teryan (translated by Tathev Simonyan)

Birth

I have my mother's rage.

The quiet rage, the unassuming one,

the rage which grips onto every molecule of your body,

until it claws and licks at your whitened bones.

The rage which sinks its sharp canines in you

which savours the taste of blood,

it craves it.

It lures your loved ones in carefully, it invites them into its stenching residence.

Sets out a nice cup of tea, or perhaps, the good tablecloth.

And when they think it's gone, the rage twists their necks,

and laps up the blood with its serpent tongue.

I have my father's indifference.

I sit and watch as it happens, smiling, as I watch and watch my house burn.

- e.u.