Spiralling,
A beckoning sign.
I’ve been teetering on a thin line
The catalyst-
Something as simple
as a knife twist,
disguised.
A reframing of purity-
turned glacial.
A false sense of security,
dissipating.
Withdrawing, inward
submersion.
It’s coming, one step forward-
the possession
the engulfing
It’s on.
The switch has been turned.
The demon has been summoned
I sense the first intimations of life,
feel its claw without being touched,
almost taste its void, hushed
She picks up and licks the knife
it turns into a magic wand in her hand
the open wound morphs into a black hole
I can no longer lick it to exorcise my self
She is free to bleed into me, she’s in control
The last protective layer is pulled off, violently.
After a battle spree
progressing morbidly, artfully
I summon the will
to lull the beast to sleep
before I get silent and still
I’m in it really deep
yet once again manage to make it all seep
out of me as I get ready to take another leap.
poetry
Siren’s prayer
In my dream
I was a siren, dwelling
in a pool of blood
filled with corpses
of preys
awaiting
their starved predator;
Musical, aquatic Scheherazade-
unwilling witness, captive,
or cold-blooded accomplice
with a gnawing change of heart-
so not so cold-blooded after all?
Moon-intoxicated, I sensed
your presence from afar,
running, teeth-clenching-
anxiety rising,
clinging
to the last tidal dream,
I wonder – who am I
supposed to
hypnotise:
the new live prey,
the ghosts of the dead,
or you?
Reluctant to find out,
I sing my melody, inwardly
to drown out the sound
of your blood feast.
Window to the soul
I watched her face
as she integrated all of them
inside her being
the change was subtle
I was attuned to her
inner turmoil
recognising the look
of the split self
in micro-expressions;
others couldn’t tell
why she seemed off-
the warning signs,
so tragically striking
in retrospect.
Her soul seemed made
of something solemn, unrelenting-
I trusted she could bounce back
from the lowest circles of hell.
Sculpting a hybrid scene
I always had a reverence for those fluid mythological mirrors –
the cosmic girl, her words made flesh, the self-‘othering’,
the bickering between the new and the almost-forgotten
for the
“I’m sorry…
…you feel
threatened by my presence
and bewildered by my absence”
The message – once uncannily cryptic, embedding itself
in the adamant lucidity of the conspicuous,
now – in your face, yet unreliable somehow
the meta-awareness messes with the reintegrated
unhinged –
it could be self-gaslighting
or absolute transparency
Regardless, please satisfy my desires
and you shall be forgiven rather than forbidden
I never expect you to decode the world:
your assumptions,
like your assessments of character,
are sometimes reflections of what lies within you, my dear.
May Queen
I shut my eyes and let her caress me
with her veils, scents, and many voices
that touch me in moonlight-tinted spaces;
a mother figure, playful yet collected-
forgiving minor sins, sighs, disguises,
the slight disturbances of
extinguished raptures,
in a glimpse of purity,
in my unknown gestures of kindness –
towards myself and others – she saw
a potential for lightness
She rewards the sweetness
of the gaze with an aura of safety
She crowns me May Queen
whilst I bury my past
and penchant for remoteness
in a crimson house
overrun with honeysuckle vines.
Nausea
When the whole world is drenched
in performative glue,
you feel everything’s tainted
still, you want your mind re-painted
so you can try to pursue
the myth that it’s all about perspective:
treat it like a tool or an ordeal, right?
it doesn’t always hold up,
especially at night
when you try to untwine
your hair and your spine
when one insight
can incite a riot inside
and you are so tired-
you know the tiredness I’m speaking of-
that of piercing through the sickly sweet
glue that ties people together
when they should be apart
unwittingly toxic,
such entanglement ensures
a removal from any ounce of
authenticity
your pathological detachment
from genuineness
is the source of my nausea.
Rite of passage
the texture of hell can seep through a broken mind,
but its lingering echoes will leave a mark
looking ahead, I see parks filled with disease,
a small, kaleidoscopic winter coat wrapped around
a phantasmal presence that screams:
I am Home-
I am a haunted home
where it rains.
her hand reaches out to
wipe the morning dew
off a snowdrop lost
in the glittering white-
a mystical anachronism
I look at her with a half-smile;
as if sensing it, she turns around,
mirroring me-
meanwhile,
the world is disintegrating
in secrecy
an ethereal cage descends to envelop us;
a moment cannot define an entire existence
unless it echoes
its beginning and its end
our fate and lips are sealed
it’s more than a folie à deux
bred in liminality
a pact between blue hedonism
and dazzling dissimulation
clears the way forward-
some voices may forever
be confined within
yet the dreams ascend.
November light
Dark November, darling November,
my birth month, a glorified time
of contradictions,
of re-emergence from dreams,
wearing adornments
and smiles of
miss “seen it all, heard it all”
Scorpio depth,
shrewd intuition,
and inner power-
It’s nature and nurture
even when the nurturing is done
in a glass castle
it is said that art is life intensified,
heightened experience
is this what it was, an artistic process?
all-consuming, delving deeply into
my life force, the closest I’ve ever got
to a spiritual experience,
however demonic,
in all its ambiguity and uncertainty-
was it but a psyche glitch?
is that what it takes, a cognitive distortion,
to erode the pillars holding up
a self-concept, a world,
in a most magical way-
heaven knows no human could do it-
aren’t most, if not all spiritual beliefs
a coping mechanism against
cosmic futility?
Here I am, inevitably returning
to the eternal question
that injects everything I do and feel;
Surrendering to Phoenix wisdom-
with my Eagle’s eyes,
fresh perspectives materialising
from the flames of the opposites
inner chaos leads to stillness
leads to outward ascension
from a special hell-
the tension of the opposites
within;
oblivion is laced with sweetness
it’s a universal truth: life is escapism,
just like wearing a tiara on your birthday
to forget about the flow of time
Although shifting from limbo
to a personal dystopian hellscape
and then into whatever followed
(labels have become frivolous)
has made me revere time,
realise I’ve had a coddled existence
for the most part
You can’t write words revealing
you are convinced of
your innate grandeur anymore,
without being deemed narcissistic
A good night kiss bearing all
the gentleness and sacredness
of a celestial being
should be a tell-tale sign
that it’s not pathological
but it’s hard to understand
a moment of uncanny ecstasy,
an awakening, how deeply moved
a sceptic can be, on a soul level.
Pour your life source into me
and lift me up
I am trying to be authentic
but I am not estranged from
the light and darkness of ego
something tells me ego
has shaped you in my mind, too
Whether external forces were at play
or you are just a part of me,
I have to say
thank you and
no, thank you.
Labyrinth
Within this labyrinth-
sacred lair, profane shrine-
I roam to banish anhedonia
I am seeking something
I know I have in me-
an elusive land
of ecstasy and renewal
My mercurial mind feeds
and fights
with itself
in the process
There are two main levels of feeling
I acknowledge as relevant-
the bipolarity is astounding, so
let’s just focus on the second one,
I wish I could teleport there
instinctually
[I can’t, I overthink everything
and only over-feel the negatives]
I have to dig deeper, and yet,
the more I dig, in a frenzy, the further away
I seem to find myself, somehow.
I try to hunt it down,
following the arcane trail
the anticipation
builds- the warmth melts the ice
it’s a basic state of being and yet
no matter how many maps I read
or people I ask for directions
along the way, it seems
despite their devotion,
no one knows the right way
and it eludes me at all costs
the maps are contradictory anyway
I know, deep down,
I need to pave my own path
Precious force,
Awaken me and I shall blossom
on the way, shed my old skin,
and leave a trail of petals from my past selves;
my scent lingers on and intoxicates-
entrances some, bewilders others
as I go deeper and deeper
into my idea of nirvana
I am content, but that is not enough
I don’t care about your concepts
My life is not a blank canvas
onto which generations can paint
cloned expectations
I won’t adjust myself to fit into a pattern
You don’t have the power
to influence me
if your mindset doesn’t fit in my utopia
The promise of that place throws me
into hypnotic depths;
it would have been easy
if it was at home,
but in my case, it isn’t, and
easy isn’t often
intensely good
not to mention
I’m a drifter anyway,
seeking a mythical land
I -a wayward nymph on an odyssey,
mesmerised by its promise
of feeling and being filled
with bliss,
Come with me, you,
special one,
Come with me
to a place of worship
But tread carefully,
with the right mix of
unconditional protection
unparalleled care,
and carefully chosen acts
of reverence
to honour
this labyrinth within.
Her Rebirth
Haunted by Ophelia’s phantom,
enraptured by vernal murmurs,
she succumbs to dreaminess
lost in the stream
of consciousness
carried away by Woolf’s whispers
and echoes of myth from
a scent of white Narcissus-
fluid nostalgia in full bloom-
she remembers her touch
before the plunge;
the sacred memory shatters
underwater-
her pale skin resurfaces-
she is beaming;
her alter ego withers
underwater
Nature witnesses
an act of self-love.
DIANA MARIN 