February Poetry Compilation
The Sunstroke Monthly Poetry Compilation is a collection of poetry submitted by Sunstroke readers and staff members. Take a seat, light a candle, grab a cup of tea and dive into the intricate words of our community.
Photo by Mariel Wiley
Your Hickey Will Fade (and there’s nothing you can do about it)
By Marissa Adamski
The first time I got a hickey, I rubbed it out with the blunt edge of a silver spoon. I had not been born with one on my tongue–a silver spoon that is–so my neck had to suffice. The only offer I could give him.
It didn’t go to plan.
Violet bloomed where love never did and all I got was heartache that brewed into vulgar contusion. Crimson presence that faded into pale apathy after only seven days of squalor.
I wore knit turtlenecks that made no sense for the noxious heat of summer. Playing at whimsy and innocence. As if I could make myself a vessel for one of those box-office coquettish fantasies. Lollipop preening between my lips, endless devotion in my tattered heart.
I was a goddamn fool, baring my pearl-lined throat for the guillotine.
Fifteen is a strange age in that sense, you want to be adored for all the things you aren’t. You press and push and prod for mass manufactured perfection. Often falling short, often falling into a bottomless pit and skinning your knees on arrival.
No one’s coming to clean up the blood. There’s nothing poetic to be found in a girl crying over spilled milk.
Haven’t you heard? Hasn’t anyone told you? You poor girl of smeared gold and watery mascara; someone should have warned you. They really should have.
Your hair is going to burn out on that straightener, I promise you that. You’ll eat leafy greens and avoid the sprinkled cake and still, he won’t come back for you. You can wait ten years, you can bleed yourself dry.
The lesson remains the same.
There is nothing romantic about rose colored flesh or marks the color of eggplants when the object of your affection doesn’t pause to kiss the pain away. Rather laughs and inflates his head to the size of the moon, which apparently isn’t on your side after all.
By the way.
La luna, la love–she’s turned her back too. She’s seen this all before and who can blame her for no longer being able to suffer the aching tune of a broken record?
The last time I got a hickey, I did everything I could to make it stay. Tried to ink it into my skin like the pressed flowers of my youth. Tulips and marigolds and rhododendrons kept pristine between the pages of a false horizon. I put it on display, didn’t rush to cover it beneath my sweater, and showed everyone how loved I was.
I put the straightener down and burned a hole in the carpet. Envious of how it lasted, immune to the removal of time.
I ate the sprinkled cake and waited ten years. Followed the manual, the white rabbit, the yellow brick-road.
And yet, the memory of touch faded into beige toned neutrality and a sunburn replaced what once was cherry pitted heaven. Hollowed out by the acrid, wanton ichor dripping from my tongue.
As it turns out, twenty-four is no different than fifteen.
Untitled
By Ana Sophia Rollins
a sun drenched dreamcatcher
a handful of oxidized pennies,
tails up ( i think )
the inscription of a lovers name on
your body
erroneous, careless,
( i think )
end credits roll and
i close my eyes
i close my eyes
i shut my eyes
shut them
closed
chisel and knife to your bones
michelangelo said “i saw the angel in the marble and i
carved until i set him free”
cut away skin bone stone
no angels, but
no angels ( i think )
my heart is gray,
greenish gray today and all i
see is
a forest of lies set ablaze by the matchstick
held in my marble hand
stone hand
one hundred pennies is one dollar
dig nails into palms
wishing well
close your eyes
close your eyes
if i can’t see the end it must mean it isn’t over
i don’t know ( i love you )
a stack of books ( the library closed yesterday and forever )
rent is due tomorrow ( overdraft fees )
butterfly wings in your throat ( they hate butterflies )
a gaping hole in the soul of someone who has been broken
( a box of bandaids from cvs )
god ( i was raised wrong )
i close my eyes
i have to.
shut.