DIANA MARIN

Tag: creative writing

  • Beneath the Ritual of Suppression

    Memory has teeth, a hush,
    A chamber built of breathing wallpaper,
    Peeling, alive. I enter it daily.

    I step through, barefoot,
    into a corridor lined with mirrors,
    with versions of me as reflections:
    a girl in pearls and incense smoke,
    a woman swallowing her name,
    a mouth sewn shut with ribbon.

    A silver-flecked box beneath my tongue,
    its hinges rusted shut with prayers.
    No one sees. The wound wears pearls;

    I dressed it in silk,
    set candles beside the wreckage,
    and called it sacred.
    I spoke only affirmations,
    like spells, sweet words
    I fed the universe like seeds,

    my throat full of snowdrops and ghosts:

    Please grow me a life
    that doesn’t shiver in its sleep.

    But the ripple moves. It always does.
    Through time. Through space. Through me.

    I tried to frost the wound in light.
    I hung dreamcatchers like talismans,
    whispered mantras into tea.
    I spun silk out of lavender oil
    and rose quartz,
    lined the ribcage of my life
    with glittering distractions.
    I painted over the cracks
    with angel wings and moon phases.
    I made altars out of dissociation
    and called it healing.

    But silence echoes.
    Even in temples.
    Even in rooms where everything smells holy.
    The unspoken grows legs,
    wanders through the years,
    flicking switches I didn’t wire.
    It calls to me in mirrors:
    “I am you.”

  • A poem: Velvet glove

    An iron hand
    in a velvet glove,
    soft veils over roots
    unwavering- your core,
    honey-mouthed- your discourse,
    your silence.

     

    Within,
    there is the hibernating
    alpha-serpent,
    awaiting resurrections-
    you bathe in the light of
    her uttered incantations.

     

    You spot the red flags
    of the dark triad,
    you never wave white flags,
    for there’s no fire in your soul-
    not the red type that burns,
    and destroys the self, no,
    only blue flames that glow,
    soothe, and create the selves.

     

    What about the heart-
    underneath the layers- is it
    iron laced with velvet or
    all velvet beneath armour;
    is it slippery?
    What about the flesh?
    the snow melting under the skin
    until it gleams?

  • A poem: Snowdrop girl

    Snowdrop girl,
    I can feel your presence
    in the first whispers of spring;
    I can hear your breath
    in the windy corners of life-
    it’s my favourite lullaby,
    it makes me cold sometimes-
    you could be cold sometimes,
    in a scintillating way that
    I never wished to oppose
    or even dared to question-
    my fear was not of
    your reaction,
    but the possibility of
    your contamination
    on some elemental level
    Beneath many layers of
    innocence and frivolity
    and even more layers of
    impenetrability and frostiness
    I know what lies, I know
    the substance, the kindness,
    the taboo dreams,
    the sweet desires-
    and that makes me smile
    you opened up to me
    in the still wintry light in
    a moment of rare vulnerability
    I am thankful to have been
    entrusted with.
    The world may have seen
    your masks, but who else
    has recognised the rarely-resurfacing,
    pearl-like gleam
    in your eyes?
    I have and I enveloped it in
    my spirit shell
    where it shall shimmer forever,
    even after our farewell.