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Love as Universal Constant

Ironic that the holiday of love falls in the coldest month of the year. We all know love can shock the system in a variety of wild and electric sensations, and maybe the enveloping sheets of ice create a burn that just feels right. When asked about favorite cheeses most answers vary from gouda to gorgonzola. Love is often cheesy too, from blue anxiety to double-creme heartbeats and aged captivation. The poems this month all flow like a fine red wine. Love is such an intrinsic condition of the human experience that perhaps even poems not about love are about love.

It’s just the way of things.


Love and Peace,

Mayan Godmaire

Creative Writing Editor

Blue Roses

By Raven Katsit’tsiio Edwards Brown

Contributor


Like melted candle wax dripping down her face like tears.

Splashing into waves that will form an ocean to save her.

Feeling her shaky hands in mine as she looks at me with her fragile eyes from seeing far too many things at once.

She smiles, because we're standing under the stars in the middle of nowhere and our hair is going crazy because of the wind.

She's holding my hand tight now, so tight like she was afraid to lose me in this black quiet night where everyone is blind.

In the other hand my tota holds a blue rose and the expression released on my face is a mystery that cannot be fully unraveled like an illusion of a person that is dead.

I wanted to pour myself onto the Petals of this blue rose and form my home, latch onto the thorns and know what it feels like to be safe.

To connect my veins to the stem and rest my soul.

To hope for a love that is impossible to grasp like the shadows of our ancestors rising up like flames. Patiently dancing in the smoke on midnight bonfire days.

I looked straight into her brown eyes, I can feel the Indigenous Pow Wow music beating like drums in her heart.

The heartbeat of Earth.

Visions of us dancing through the lens of her eyes making each step vibrant and strong.

I can feel the stories of our hardships being projected on my skin forming three dimensional tattoos.


"Konorónkhwa" she said putting the blue rose in my hair.

You are so rare, you can't be reached.

The beauty of your self-worth is what the world needs.

A quiet storm in defense, never breaking.

With a blue rose woven into your third eye your Indigenous soul will never cry.

She braided my long hair like she used to when I was three. You have Sprouted and Bloomed in every which way you have taught yourself to.

You have made it this far.

she held my hand as we walked down the dirt road of blue roses as it began to rain on our path towards healing.

Walking, walking, walking

I notice the delicacy of our footprints,

I observe the thin blue rose petals,

overlapping, folding, pouring into one another,

diving into the deepest creases to see what lies within, to hear the secrets never told.

I wonder if Blue Roses really do exist without colouration?


when asked about love

by Beth Fecteau

Contributor


sometimes rain is gentle,

the sun shining against the softened sky

and you watch the water fall through her beams

the grass looks greener than it ever has

on every side you see

and the air is hazy

the drops pat onto your skin

like tiny warm kisses,

pressed wherever it can reach

lazily slides down your body

it makes you feel alive

sometimes rain is consuming,

sheeting down through the grey air

rebounding from wherever it hits

collecting into puddles your boots can’t keep out

slices through your clothes

and clings to your bones

you stand on the wet pavement,

watch the streetlights play in the reflection

turn your face to the sky and understand

you could never hope to have control

it makes you feel alive

sometimes rain is violent,

hurling itself to the ground

like hundreds of knives aimed for the jugular

the sky is an open wound and

the winds press you from all sides,

pulling you in every direction at once

the force of the drops stings your skin

and you can’t find shelter

you can’t keep it out

it makes you want to scream until your throat is hoarse,

want to lie down and let it wash you away

it makes you feel alive

rain is healing

every plant stretches towards the sky

as the earth drinks her fill

and the rivers run faster,

replenished by it just as you are

you dig your fingers into wet soil,


feel the cool water wash over you

and soothe your burnt body,

as you watch the clouds part

and let the sunlight through

it makes you alive



anxious brain in action


By Tabéa Benlakehal

Contributor


on the sidelines of the game

knees restless by the bench

looking at the match

seeking to take the ball

aspiring to make a goal

frozen to undertake a move

I gaze and listen to the players

actively engaging

right as I decide to leave the court

a player gives me a chest pass

glad to be noticed

pleased to be acknowledged

but I handle it awkwardly

obvious when originally

no steps towards the team taken

feeling more like a loser

and less of a pro

I make myself tall

and take the bench with me



Memory


By Morgana Follmann

Contributor


I wrote you

Love note after love note

Red lipstick kissed notebook ripped pages


I left with you

Passionately blazed quote after quote

A shattered forever and promises to last ages

Of recklessness in a youth spent together


But it was you who failed me

Who hurt the other the most

Who left me in ardor and sweat and plagued by ghosts


When I have kept my utmost precious oath—

To break and bleed and rip myself to pieces

When writing about you;

To burn and fall and crash

When so ardently dive in the memory of our love;

To come back for you

Even when you gave up on coming back for me


Medusa

By Kristina Wong Kwan Chuen

Contributor


Vine-like locks,

Coiled and beautiful

Braids delicately carved into

Fragile stones


Hands reaching out,

Palms relaxed and open,

Fingers gently curled inward


Waiting


To be dismantled

In the middle of a room

Surrounded

Trapped


Tourists walking through

A museum of corpses

Spit on its hair,

the slope of its nose,

a mouth that is too broad.


A beggar

They say

All body, and no woman


Until they turn around to admire her backside

The dip in her waist

The polished smooth skin


A body

They say

All woman, and no person


They do not see her teeth,

Bare, her mouth open


They do not notice her feet

One planted to the ground

The other on its toes,

Stance steady, and ready

To strike



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