Category: l’appel du vide

Woolf Greets the Sea

Eva Lynch-Comer

Trigger Warning: Suicide

The train rattles
like a penny clanging in a hollow can.

The patter of rain thrums on my ear
which cools on the train window.

When we stop I kick off my shoes,
put seashells in my hair as I amble along the shore.

I unbutton my coat and let it fall on wet sand,
crisp air catching in my breath.

I wade into the water
as I sink, frigid waves roughly comb my hair.

The sea is a hand cupping my heart as it beats
I’ll take the next few pumps, she says.

I roll around like ice crushed in a blender
in my pockets rocks clang together.

A few of the rocks escape
and the sea tries to push me toward the surface.

I consider swimming up
giving my lungs the air they are craving.

But I have swum out so far that returning to the shore
would be as tedious as swimming farther.

So I kick my legs and swim deeper as I exhale my last breath
my body mingling with the jetsam on the ocean floor.

Eva Lynch-Comer

Alternate Ending Where the Car Flips

Julia Watson

Trigger Warning: Miscarriage

Like a two-sided coin or loaded dice, you wait
for the crunch, final rouge curtain
suspended in non-gravity— this is the alternate ending,
off-broadway show where the audience doesn’t
clap, only lingers, unsettled, a wet cough or creak
of armrest, nudging: was that it?
Was it one of those shows? The director
of the car teeters over the ditch, pitchy
pop tunes cut in and out over the high-whine
of the backseat dog floating sideways in its crate.
It sounds like the song is over; it sounds like
the apocalypse. You might end
in flame, you think, thank God
it’s raining. This slick mud dangling you
off the earth’s end, as a cat would twirl the tail
of its catch, saliva dripping on the body
of the car and you can’t remember your life
story like they said you would. Can’t
recall your father, his wilted heart, holding your thumb
before surgery, your sister, her baby
bobbing red in the toilet, your first love’s blurry
face washed out by the rain breaking through
the windshield. You ward off these tailgaters,
nudging you back to them.
There’s supposed to be resolution,
each good play: an outcome, an outro, an encore,
a side door to slip through once all’s said and done.
The road is unpaved, the script shredded up
by the dog retching fear and endings
in the backseat. Is this it? You wonder
if you are the actor, the audience, the prop forgotten
on stage, the writer, the scene-stealer, or simply
the curtain, its shadow, looming near the floor.

Julia Watson

Returning Home

Shay Siegel

Trigger Warning: Depression

Home
Is the hole inside my heart
Where I bring my cup of coffee
Curl onto the weathered couch
Sip
Rest an aching spine
With the lust of the past
That wasn’t that good
But we want what’s not good
Most of the time.

Shay Siegel

Where I Am

Victoria Punch

I am white noise and rustling, soothing as a baby breathing
I am the taste of water, the thirst behind it:

I am lamenting thick under the sorrow of leaving.
I am the aftertaste of wine.

I am under the quilt for days. I am the wait and the wonder,
I am wide-eyed and softly spoken. I am love in its first and final form

I am balanced by my softly swaying forward motion.
I am unsettled, over the edge, and leaning

I am the longing of the open suitcase,
the one-way ticket one way on

I am the smell of the last leaves on the ground, sodden and underfoot,
I am the stitches of a scarf, every ridge an act of love, pulled tight

I am where you are – lost, twilit, remembering,
beakbone and bearlike, caveling.

I am wintering wild, limbs unfolding,
you find the sky and know your homecoming

Victoria Punch