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