scribblings

may 18

the writing

moon rise finds her 
dressed in black silk, red lipstick 
beckoning you close

~

They eye each other across the room, restrained by propriety & the host’s threats. 
It’s been a thousand years. It’s been ten minutes. 
He swears he can smell her perfume from here, wonders how her lipstick tastes, how her teeth would feel against his skin. 
She smiles. Wicked. Feels a phantom touch on her thigh, at her throat. 
They circle each other. Distant. Feral. Hungry. 
The music crescendos. The night drags on…

~

held in place by roots 
& wires, city crumbling— 
where is your god now?

the reading

Poem: “Aubade on Piazza del Popolo with Saxophonist and Chopin” by Ashna Ali

“I couldn’t tell you what I was doing. I only know  
that I stood three meters from this boy, his skin a hue  
even deeper than mine in that city hell-bent  
on drowning us under its weight.  
 Gray and blue and purple wafting behind him  
more ancient than any ruin, even as they slide  
into light. He grew me into something else, this boy. 
Something no longer a child. Stale smoke  
on the morning air, a tang of espresso beans.  ”

Essay: “A Beautiful Death” by L. Binnie

“A corpse, generally elicits disgust or fear. And yet, when the corpse is that of a young and pretty woman, things become more complicated. We pause- they are tragic, beautiful, forever frozen in time. They are the quintessential sacrificial or folkloric maiden. We hold them in our minds somewhere between horror and worship.
[…]
There is something uncanny about the beautiful dead girl because she exists in the space between beauty and horror. She is lovely and desired, but she is also silent, rotting and uncanny. She reminds us that the body is fragile, that beauty is temporary, that death is inevitable.”