"Burst" by Perrin Clore Duncan
Two poems by Isla Cueva
Lava Lamp
there’s a lava lamp where my heart used to be /
sometimes i shut myself in the dark / spread
my ribs open and watch / blobs of fierce fuchsia
float up and down past my lungs / cotton candy
magma / sweet obsidian / fusing together and
pulling apart like warm dough / i am seasickness /
glowing pink fever dream / i’ve been stealing teeth
from the night sky / feeding them to the void
where my guts used to live / there’s lexapro
shivering in my brain / and the sun flickers on
and off if you look long enough / i tried to be
a sunset / all tangerines melting into sea blood /
but caught on fire instead / if i try to shake it off,
can you still see the liquid light in me? / tilt your head
to the side / it looks like i’m dancing.
there’s a lava lamp where my heart used to be /
sometimes i shut myself in the dark / spread
my ribs open and watch / blobs of fierce fuchsia
float up and down past my lungs / cotton candy
magma / sweet obsidian / fusing together and
pulling apart like warm dough / i am seasickness /
glowing pink fever dream / i’ve been stealing teeth
from the night sky / feeding them to the void
where my guts used to live / there’s lexapro
shivering in my brain / and the sun flickers on
and off if you look long enough / i tried to be
a sunset / all tangerines melting into sea blood /
but caught on fire instead / if i try to shake it off,
can you still see the liquid light in me? / tilt your head
to the side / it looks like i’m dancing.
What Is Not Lovely
I know how to walk through this house without
making sound, more ghost than girl. we all do.
all these stairs that don’t creak. all these steps that don’t
provoke stone-faced explosions. I learn to keep my
mouth shut on drives when my mother starts sobbing,
face blotched red and breaking. I learn to lock my bedroom
door before falling asleep, and to hold my breath
anywhere near my father, ears full of roaring, scalp still
stinging from when the sideburns were ripped from
my skull. my professor asks how many of us think
it is never okay to hit a child, and at nineteen, my hand
shoots up like rain running back to the sky. everyone looks
at me funny, but I remember how hastily I had to move to
avoid fists and my arm doesn’t waver. at nine years old,
I watch my grandmother make lemonade with my head
pressed to her side. I ask her why her son beats my mother.
why nobody breathed even as we watched. she smiles thinly,
hands still squeezing lemons. oh no, sweetie. we don’t talk about that.
we don’t speak of what is not lovely. I stare straight ahead as she
stirs the lemonade, spoon bumping round the pitcher in circles.
I want to ask her if that is why we never speak at all.
I know how to walk through this house without
making sound, more ghost than girl. we all do.
all these stairs that don’t creak. all these steps that don’t
provoke stone-faced explosions. I learn to keep my
mouth shut on drives when my mother starts sobbing,
face blotched red and breaking. I learn to lock my bedroom
door before falling asleep, and to hold my breath
anywhere near my father, ears full of roaring, scalp still
stinging from when the sideburns were ripped from
my skull. my professor asks how many of us think
it is never okay to hit a child, and at nineteen, my hand
shoots up like rain running back to the sky. everyone looks
at me funny, but I remember how hastily I had to move to
avoid fists and my arm doesn’t waver. at nine years old,
I watch my grandmother make lemonade with my head
pressed to her side. I ask her why her son beats my mother.
why nobody breathed even as we watched. she smiles thinly,
hands still squeezing lemons. oh no, sweetie. we don’t talk about that.
we don’t speak of what is not lovely. I stare straight ahead as she
stirs the lemonade, spoon bumping round the pitcher in circles.
I want to ask her if that is why we never speak at all.
Isla Cueva is a writer from Arizona.
Perrin Clore Duncan, from Oklahoma, graduated from DePauw University in May 2017 with a B.A. in Economics and Studio Art. Her work has been shown and published in Ireland, the United States, and worldwide through online publications. Perrin currently pursues her M.F.A. at the Burren College of Art in Ireland.
Visit her on instagram at @perrincloreduncan.art or at her WEBSITE.
Visit her on instagram at @perrincloreduncan.art or at her WEBSITE.
