December Poetry Compilation
Sunstroke’s Monthly Poetry Compilation is a collection of work submitted by readers, contributors and staff members. Take a seat, light a candle, grab a cup of tea, and dive into the intricate words of our community.
Yielding to Time
by Roxanne Noor
Girl slash daydream slash reality
The perceivable infinite turns finite
Mountains return to sand, to dust
Youth inevitably decays
Girl returns to ocean, the original womb of Earth
Girl cannot escape the clicking clock of time
A tribute to the temporary
The cycle of everything, nothing is built to remain
The wise know and behold this impermanence
Heraclitus wrote it’s truth,
“The only constant is change”
Relief
Do you wish you could go back?
Make your voice a whisper — your touch softer
Do you wish you hung onto the gentle moments — the slow days?
When our conscious minds still thought it was love
When you sunk into the full bath behind me
Ignoring the overflow — the mess it was making
Water soaking through the cracks in the foundation
Growing colder — eroding the years of life stamped into the structure
I reach behind to brush your cheek —
My fingers only to graze wet tile
Relief
HOW TO DISAPPOINT YOUR MOTHER
first thing’s first: you’re on first-name
terms. when you say debbie, she becomes
the well and you the bucket, her rooted
cylinder there to hold you when you’re
empty. when you say debbie,
what she remembers is the
tsss of your hairspray,
the pungent chemical swish
as you turn to march away,
abrasion your memorial scent.
triple the number of notches on your
bedpost and tell her you’ve never
been in love. unless
your cat-tongue razor counts,
the one that plucks the pubis
and the vulva into smoothness
but pressed concertina
troughs onto your forearms, still
cold and pearly as a midnight
cornershop. dribble
over with liquor until you can hardly
support your own head and then
ride your bike home anyway.
you wish you didn’t
mean so much to her, but you
mean so much to her. the constellation
of weed butts on your windowsill,
your clean-shaven pussy, your
sinking savings account and
broken bike saddle mean
so much to her. how to
disappoint your mother? wail
when the midwife slaps you.
Bitter Belonging
it’s been a while since i was so…
bitter.
perhaps it’s the empty mugs from
when you last slept here,
coffee grinds pressed into a carpet,
such a bitter reminder.
or maybe it’s the glossed pictures i
got printed for us,
from summer, when we were happy -
we were happy, right?
there’s one, with smeared lipstick,
a bruise developing slower than the film,
and in your eyes,
an air of annoyance for the lens -
bitter hatred for my documentation of it.
you hated the saccharine smiles
our parents gave us, when
they heard the end of another
lover’s spat.
did we love one another?
they swallowed down their thoughts with
their mediocre meals cooked by you,
each one leaving a bitter aftertaste.
but you’re not here anymore.
a week gone, in fact.
pleasant? yes.
relieved? yes.
lonely? no.
simply bitter i wasted good camera film and coffee on a soul so rotten,
if the devil wanted a taste,
he’d spit you out after one bite.
Party
by Millie Lackey
I try not to suffer indefinitely
however, nothing could have been more tempting
at that “Party,” I find The small bowls of
what seem like missing things
melon balls, sliced peaches, canned pears,
things they had pined over
Before
on simple plates.
and anyways! no one is preoccupied Here
for that matter!
and I am not falling apart
with only twenty two minutes
and a Few people assembled around a second fruitcake
It will end up easy for you
If you want things like bacon, chopped carrots, and children,
Find out how to submit to future Poetry Compilations here.