A CHILDLESS DREAM

 

See the spectral
blaze of a child’s
silhouette seared
against the plaster.
Sound waves of
laughter take shape
into that of a hum
drumming through
my body, no
ponderous
force pulling me
down the center.  
Her phantom bore
a hole through me.
Pink fractals sprout
throughout my skin.  
The longing has
gone, disintegrated
into the brackish
water that’s
extinguished the
flames of need.  
I no longer
sense the urgency
in my womb.  
She’s just a faint
memory of want,
an etching fading
from erosion.

 

INSOMNIA

 

I ruminate about the past and
future, in a world that subsists
in the present, spinning in a
cyclical existence.  Stories
form creases across the folds
of wan, scarred skin.  My
clothes are torn and faded.  
Dressed like a vagrant, I let
words slip out from my mind,
down through my fingers,
and onto the typewriter.  
Indelible memories flow out
in ink.  Into the night, my
head nods as sleep beckons,
a miasma of cigarette smoke
and ash hangs.  A nicotine halo
wreaths me.  Disgruntled
drones wake carrying off to
work in a sleep medicinal daze.  
I am the stupor filling in the
fractures of their skulls.  Dusk
has long passed and dawn
sneaks its way across stretches
of moonbeams over the
landscape of my psyche.  I
yawn, fanning my face with
scribbled pages in the heat.  
Show me it’s time to lay my
head, my world upon a strained
neck, down on my pillow
to greet the escape of slumber.

IMMORTAL

I idealized you as if you were one of the divines of the
pantheon, but later found you lying amongst mortals
piled on a heap like discarded rabid dogs.  Only

memories of you drinking from a plastic cup, sleeping
on stained sheets in the corner of a dilapidated shelter
remained.  You kept me honest with your tales.  I

empathized with you offering the sanctuary of my
heart, allowing words of substance abuse stumble out from
the hollow of your mouth.  I watched the syringed

needle reach your mainline vein, a flurry of pleasure
pulsed in waves throughout every cell of your body.  
My wallet emptied, green papers I once held now

elusive like faded smoke rings.  I embraced you into my
core with patience waiting for you to come back to
me like a god.  Your ashes in the urn sprinkled out

into the ocean.  I lie here expectant, anticipating your
presence to recompose, rise, and hurl a lightning
bolt into the onyx sky like the deity you once were.

 

Olivia Lin DeLuca, a first-generation American born Taiwanese Buddhist, holds a BA degree in Psychology from Thomas Edison State University.  Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Yellow Chair Review, Blue Bonnet Review, bluestockings magazine, aaduna, and Five 2 One Magazine.  You may find more information about Olivia and her work at olivialindeluca.wordpress.com.