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The darkness is a womb of endless Fire!

As we cross the Abyss upon the tightropes of our lives, most cannot help but feel some terror when faced with the enormity of the silent vastness of eternity.

Learning the truth, some do go mad.

I have watched men throw themselves headfirst into oblivion.

Some have built for themselves golden temples in which they offer up babies to the useless idols of war and commerce.

They have forgotten that all gods are false who shackle the mind and blind the heart.

Most people will do anything to avoid facing themselves. They instead worship desires, propitiate fears, and dwell in temples of trembling delusion.

Often, they will do anything but acknowledge the truth. Anything but sit quietly with the nameless unknowable mystery.

It seems only a few ever discover that its gift is freedom. They are serene who grasp the power of their own insignificance.

In all of this, never forget that you have a choice.

You can listen to the false comforts of the smiling faces and give your life to other people's stories, or you may write your own upon the skin of the Night.

It’s a thin choice, and neither leads much to sanity. But one offers fear while the other, wonders.

So… Be not afraid!

The darkness is a womb of endless Fire!

Can you not feel how the emptiness yearns to overflow? Can you not see how Nothing desires to become? Chaos tears itself apart in order to be filled with Light, and I wish so deeply to be luminous.

To shine.

To constellate.

To add my warmth and light to others.

Will you shine with me? If only for a moment? Like dancing embers winking in the dark, we are the retinal memories of a million sparks circling a hole in space and time.

That none of this was made for us is no cause for alarm.

Just hold my hand that we may burn the brighter and mark a small point upon distant eyes.

©️ JM Tiffany 2024

In the remainder of the tepid alcohol languishing in the flask of your eyes, we drink to the lost silhouette of love, burn our photographs wedged into the yellowed corners of our thoughts. We settle for cemented happiness, contemplating life through its glass corridors where mold is hidden, where I can feel the cracks of our suffering, where I can sense our hands dismembering our own poetry. When empty phrases harrow insomnia, I tape blossoms, breaths of life, to the pages of our unfinished chapters. But the trees’ barks where our initials dangle, imprisoned by a blistering heart, are peeling. I have just realized that flowers wither.

to slip on drunken petals 

© Margaux Emmanuel

The way your eyes speak, hidden under those sunglasses in the ink-seeped night, where I can see the reflection of our nightmares’ neon headlights, where I can see a hanged man, life tugging at his throat, his foggy, unstringed eyes peering at the existential questions left at the gallows’ steps. Astray in the poetry of half-alighted movie theater marquees and of weeping red diner booths paralyzed under the sterilized silence of the blinding white lights interrogating and polishing the checkered floor tile, time stops. With blood-stained eyes and a delirious steering wheel, quarantine my heart and let me sleep.

roadside mirages | © Margaux Emmanuel

It’s 12 am and teenagers are sitting down, cross-legged, in a fast-food’s parking lot, some loosely holding a crestfallen cigarette in their right hands, its embers lightly glowing in the darkness, some staring at the cars passing by. They’re playing some obscure artist’s b-sides on a beat down stereo that they all seem to be sitting around. “I’m going inside; so fucking cold out here. You guys want anything to eat? Daniel gave me a coupon for their sodas”, says a boy with piercing grey eyes as he rouses himself, long dyed-black hair peaking out from his over-sized sweatshirt’s hood. “I think we’re good”, replies a red-haired girl, almost mechanically, almost as if she is somehow not allowed to want anything, as she lies back and stares into the starless sky with an empty expression. Another girl in the group, chattering teeth and hugging her knees that she has covered with her large green knitted sweater, is aligning dominos on the smooth cement. “What are you doing?”, asks a boy, his veins visibly snaking under his pale skin and his eyes hidden behind strands of brown curls. “This…is us”, she answers while pushing the first domino and watching them fall, one by one onto one another until the very last one drops down and they are all lying there, inanimate, almost breathless. “The fuck are you rambling on about”, he sharply rejoins. “She’s saying that if it weren’t for Lawrence we wouldn’t be in this shithole”, suddenly says the red-haired girl, a little too loudly, as she sits up to face the other members of the group. “Shut your trap”, whispers the boy in a foggy breath as he nervously turns his head to make sure that Lawrence isn’t in sight. “Don’t you tell me that it’s not true, Anzu will tell you the same”, she continues but now in a lower voice and slightly turning herself towards Anzu, awaiting a response while bitterly putting out her cigarette against the asphalt. “Kat’s right…”, says Anzu under her breath with composure. The boy doesn’t say anything, perhaps because he knew that his friends were right but it hurt too much to acknowledge it. He moves the hair that was covering his eyes and places them behind his ear, revealing mellow cedar eyes that betray his cold demeanor. He peers at the dominos, almost frightened by them. Suddenly, he reaches towards the stereo and turns it off in the middle of “hear what I say and tell me if you still-”. Katherine and Anzu look at him, gaping. “Let’s go”, he says as he gets up and grabs the stereo. The girls remain where they are, puzzled. “Ernest, are you fucking out of your mind? We’re in the middle of nowhere and Lawrence has the car keys”, says Katherine with an anxious chuckle. Ernest begins to make his way across the parking lot, holding the stereo in one hand and putting his other hand into his hoodie’s pocket, ignoring Katherine’s indignant remark. “Ernest!”, screams Katherine as the washed-out boy’s figure progressively blends into the dark horizon. Anzu calmly lights a cigarette as Katherine arises and begins to desperately run after him. “What’s going on?”, says a voice from behind. Anzu turns around and sees Lawrence, insouciantly biting into a hamburger that he holds with his two hands, ketchup dripping onto them. “You really don’t understand, do you?”, she mutters into her green sweater as she watches Katherine and Anzu from afar. “Anzu, what are they-“ “Lawrence, it’s freezing, we’re far from home and we haven’t slept in days, this had to happen at some point.” “You can’t possibly think that this is all my fault!” “That’s not what I said.” “But you seem to think so.” Anzu doesn’t dare to look at Lawrence, maybe because the way that he would look at her would bring back more painful memories. She sniffles. “Are you crying?” “No, I’m just fucking cold”, she says as she rubs her sleeve against her teary eyes, gets up, and leaves Lawrence alone in the icy parking lot. He looks at the dominos laying on the floor and then, almost as a reflex, bends down and grabs them. As he turns the hard rectangles in his hands, he thinks  to himself that nothing can be done.

dominos | © Margaux Emmanuel 

He stares at the ceiling, a scratched melody bleeding through the thin wall. To his right, the wall was unadorned, in an almost naked, dehumanized manner. A lonely flower was limply standing in a vase, giving him big gloomy eyes, sitting on a small table. The porridge sticks to the spoon that he brings to his mouth. “Mr. Rodler, I will come back to give you your medication in half an hour” The white sheets are stiff against his goosebumped legs, he runs his hand on them, trying to decrease them, pressing his palms against his thighs’ skin. Weekend in a whirlwind weekend in a whirlwind weekend in a whirlwind “Weekend in a whirlwind!” “Mr. Rodler, I beg your pardon?” He bites his lip as the woman takes a last glance at him as she leaves the room. He rubs the back of his left hand against his lips, smudging the porridge bordering his lips onto his hand. He takes, or rather he grips, the spoon and circles it around the ridge of the empty bowl, letting the utensil schizophrenically scratch and screech against the bowl’s metal. He finally takes the bowl, rises it with both hands to his eyes’ level, and looks at his reflection. “Weekend in a whirlwind”. The nurse enters the room once again with a glass of water in her hand and a small tray in the other. “Can he play something else? I don’t enjoy ragtime.” “Mr. Rodler, what are you talking about? No music is playing.” He nervously turns to the left wall as puts his hands onto his ears. The white nurse stares at him with a composed incomprehension. “Why don’t you play some chess? Mr. Saito would, I bet, love to play against you.” “I don’t want him to know what I’m thinking.” “But, Mr. Rodler, it’s just a game.” He vigorously shakes his head as he nervously tugs on the sheets that were tightly held back by the sides of the mattress. “Don’t look at me that way, I beg you.” “Mr. Rodler, do I need to bring you to the upstairs ward?” He stays silent because he knows very well what goes on in “the upstairs ward”. He looks at the nurse and hisses: “Weekend in a whirlwind”.

weekend in a whirlwind | © Margaux Emmanuel

coal

He had been working in the mines for the past three months and he was beginning to cough like the others did.

A crooked picture ornamented the otherwise bare wall. That and the piano were his only valuable possessions. He would come back home every night and see both of them, one hanging a little too much on the left, one yawning with some of its off-tune teeth missing.  There used to be a midsize mirror on the floor, its back against the wall, but as the weeks passed, as his arms and legs grew thin and as his eyes adopted a permanent look of worry, he had gotten rid of it.

Before lighting the kerosene lamp, seconds after entering through the door, he would sit down in front of the piano and would let his weakened, tired, fingers fall onto the keys. He wasn’t a very good player, he would have to pause between some of the notes in order to cough.  He played clumsy nocturnes, only alighted by the moonshine, the grime on his hands making the keys stick to his fingers. It was always quiet, the neighbors were fast asleep and he would be alone with his moon. The tears would trickle onto his cheeks, mixing with the dirt on his face, as he thought of her.

He was scared that he would forget what she looked like. He would slightly tilt his head to the left every day, but the picture was blurry and he was certain that she was prettier in real life. You couldn’t tell by looking at it that she would always say “Keep the change” at the cashier, even though they could’ve used the extra dollar for another day’s worth of soup.

“Keep the change”, he would sometimes whisper. His lips pressing against each other, his tongue touching his palate while he said those three words- it made her seem more real. It was the concrete in the abstract of sentiment, it was feeling her pulse beat against his skin.

The moon seemed far away that night. It looked as if it were crying.

© Margaux Emmanuel

tonight we’ll see the stars

“What’s his name?”

“Suzuki…Or was it Nakamura?”

Edvin didn’t say anything as he opened the matchbox that had been in his pocket and carefully plucked a match out. In an abrupt motion, he struck the match. A small flame kindled at the end of the wooden stick. He carefully observed it, letting it take his full attention as his thoughts went blank. He didn’t want to think about her. But he couldn’t control it. His eyes crawled towards hers. An uncontrollable smile formed on his face as he broke out in a nervous chuckle.

“How do you say ‘fire’ in Japanese?”, he asked, feeling the tears bordering his eyelids.

“Do I look like I fucking know?”, she answered, her voice slightly breaking on the fucking as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

She blew out the match. A small cloud of smoke slowly whirled, tinting the darkness. Edvin watched the smoke dance with the cold breeze and almost imperceptibly inhaled it.

“You’re probably tired of me”, she suddenly said.

Edvin didn’t say anything and threw the match on the cold ground with a bitter smile.

“Your eyes… they’re not quite blue are they?”, he asked avoiding to answer to what she had just said.

She turned to look at him. The only source of light being the streetlight down the street, she could only make out his silhouette.

“It’s just that, at the party, they seemed a little lighter”, he added, his voice cracking with emotion, justifying the question he had just asked.

She remembered the party. She was haunted by the smell of beer in her nostrils, by how his sweater brushed against her chin, by the foggy music’s unclear words that seeped into her skin and mind…

“No, they’re blue”, she answered, as she got up and walked away into the night.

© Margaux Emmanuel

punch-drunk

There were indistinct screams and catcalls coming from every angle of the dark abyss. They echoed up to her ears, but all she could hear was the thudding of her own thundering heart. The lights around her were bright, blinding. She felt the impression of an arm on her shoulder, water gushing down her throat, drops falling onto her bare stomach, mixed with the sweat.

“Come on, you gotta go the distance...”

“Tyler, she’s punch-drunk.”

Punch-drunk. “Punch-drunk”, she said, the words hazily forming on her lips.

“That upper-cut busted her ribs, the girl can’t even walk straight, let alone land one. She’s either gonna get knocked out or the judge’s gonna call it a technical.”

Knocked out clean.

A warm breeze blowing onto her face. Apartment buildings were towering around them, the sun red in the glass windows.

“So you see, he was all like punch-drunk and then he like threw a jab and then this uppercut that perfectly landed on his jaw. Like this look. And then BOOM he got knocked-out clean, it was the most beautiful thing I ever seen I tell ya.”, he said as he jumped down from the table he was standing on top of.  

“One day, I’ll teach ya how to box ya know.”

“Me? A boxer? Don’t be silly.”

She suddenly felt a sharp, twisting pain in her ribs.

A bell rings.

“Round six!”

“Come on, you gotta get back in there. Remember, she’s a swarmer so try to block her right…”

Her mother’s crying.

“He should have never practiced that sport. Your father always said that it’d end badly”.

Her face met the blood-covered floor.

“One! Two! Three! …”

“It’s over Tyler. For fuck’s sake!”

“Four! Five!”

“Sawyer...”, she said, tears lining her eyes.

“Six! Sev-“

She got up and rose both of her gloves.

© Margaux Emmanuel 

amber & hyacinths

The birthday card was slightly slanted. The front was a clumsy neon yellow with the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” written in multi-color capital letters. One of those cone-shaped birthday hats sat on the “B”.

In the shower, she would sometimes press a little stronger against razor blade, letting it delicately and, at first, painlessly, cut into her skin. She would just sit in the shower, letting the toast grow cold, blood trickling along her leg. A spider would creep along the steamy mirror, running across the soft blurry colors of her skin, as if it were ashamed to see her naked.

Her small breasts rubbed against her tight shirt.

She would open the fridge, only to be confronted with a four-day salad and an empty jar of jam. The kitchen countertop was sticky with filth, weeks worth of dishes were piled, a spoon sadly laying on a bowl’s sides, dipping in moldy milk, a fork still sticking in a store-bought quiche, a bottle of vodka stood, open, a never-ending source, empty ones were on the floor.

“Doing that will only make things worse”. That’s what the doctor would have said. 

“Fucking moron”, she muttered to herself. 

She sat down on the kitchen floor and lit a cigarette. She remembered a conversation she had at the port a few weeks, days or years ago with him. Not the doctor him, the other him. 

“Those things will kill you.”

“You eventually will anyway.”

She laughed by herself, inhaling a puff of smoke. That’s when he had given her the week late birthday card. She never kept birthday cards but his was wedged into the windowsill. It was difficult to believe that he would never write another birthday card for her again.

A tightness crawled into her chest, she felt it even in her yellowed fingertips. His name came into mind. Doctor Alban had said that she should get rid of the card.

“Did you ever desire her?”

“I think so”, he said, his stern tobacco-colored eyes were darkened by the night.  He was stretched on the bed, his bony ribs creating a bowl of darkened moonlight.

“As a memento mori, perhaps”

“She must’ve been beautiful”

I perceived his nodding in the dark. He stayed silent while staring at the ceiling.

“Very”, he finally said.

She knew that he still loved her.

The faucet was running. Maybe it had been running the whole time. Probably.

She got up to close it, her long, untidy nails uncomfortably enclosing around it. The metal left a cold impression onto her hand. She remembered.

His eyes weren’t brown. They didn’t deserve to have a color. They were all the crumpled paper poems, they were all that she had searched for in vain during her entire life without exactly knowing what. They were the sneers of incomprehension, they were an abandoned shivering cold desire, sticky with the poison of indifference. They were a neon yellow happy birthday card, with one of those cone-shaped birthday hats on the “B”.

© Margaux Emmanuel

Oh the day I'll stop thinking of people as a vessel for measuring my worth!

I am in the middle of that road where you discover that no matter if we love/like/admire/adore a person, it gives them no right or license to put us down. We should never let anybody feed onto our insecurities, even if that means loosing that anybody. Because people gone leave a space that can be filled later on. But once that love for oneself leaves, it leaves not a void, but an abyss.

They said I won't fit here being the person I am. I decided to change things. Now I own a corner where I not only fit, but happily live.

Do not walk away easily. Don't give up too soon. But when you do, make sure you erase your footsteps that you leave behind as you walk away. Make sure you forget the way of getting back from where you left. Make sure you don't put yourself through the same test again and again.

I am writing an enemies to lovers trope. The characters are me and myself.

The moon complained, like it always did, about how I spent my day mourning over the loss that may not fit into the definition of loss few days later.

I could only look on, guilty and mesmerized. A little defensive too. Mourning is my right. But a little too much mourning is probably radiating off to the moon, my most favourite guy on earth.

-Vanshika Singh