| SACRIFICE By Georgia Eugenides THE SUMMER I NEVER HADin the morning i search for myself everywhere, under ivory sheets that smell of cinnamon, between porcelain jars on the highest kitchen shelf and among blue, crossed out poems in my notebooki wonder if the things i said to you on that lofty balcony last September were more like my morning coffee or the atmosphere; if they washed swiftly through your teeth or if they seeped into your skin to be mused over for an eternitywhen we speak, i worry that my tongue will become a cigarette— my blasé words the evaporating smokein the afternoon, you search for yourself everywhere, under the leather seats on your daffodil-tinted school bus, between your constellation freckles and among the tangled wildflowers sprouting from your beating chestyou wonder if the things you said to me on windswept city streets were more like your orange blossom tea or the sidewalk in front of my house; if they filled my veins with the tired silence or if they felt the slap of my bare feet as i shot home before twelvewhen we speak, you worry that your words will become the homesick tide— pulled away from our lukewarm shore existing, and never existing SACRIFICEat the base of the chair lift, you refused to ride, (whispering, “i’m scared of heights,”into the folds of my ritzy sweater) and when we were together, we kept our feet firmly on the ground.i wrote your name at the top of a ferris wheel in a pink arrow heart as you stood on the frozen grass, and stared at your shoes like they were your favorite song.on the sidewalks of foreign streets, i spied a fleeting smile as you admitted that you didn’t want us to be temporary— that you didn’t want to us fizzle out like summer turning into fall.we couldn’t take the stairs and we couldn’t doze on my brownstone roof; i realized that sacrifice was necessary for perseverance and when you thought you would fall, i refrained from reaching for the sky.you spoke to me less and less for three whole years, and i began to worry that i made you as queasy as balconies did.i wonder if you ever glimpse my ghost between the coffee stained pages of our old letters, but i beam as i sit on my fire escape thirty-two stories up, suddenly aware of just how much i’ve missed the heights. CURRICULUMfrom the frigid winters in Chicago, i discovered the ability to mask heartbreak with snow.from the myriad people rushing across those cold concrete streets, i learned that if human beings were novels i would never have the privilege of being read.and from the seasons that turned the city solid white, then dotted it with green, i realized that those delicate wildflowers in Lincoln Park would keep on growing even if you refused to. VICIOUS CYCLEi. you opened your mouth as if you were about to speak, as if you were about to confess that i was the shoreline and you were the wavering current— reaching for me and then running away, but the syllables tangled; the words got caught in your throat like pills and you forced them down without water.ii. before the end i realized it’s the temporary things that hurt the most. (a tight hug about to unfold. a bouquet of flowers on the side of the road.)iii. when it was over we existed in the pause following uncontrollable laughter, in the momentary silence after deafening applause dies down, and in the fogged up car windows left behind by thunderstorms.iv. the embrace concluded and the roses shriveled up as you sipped your morning coffee alone in a quiet room. between the stillness of dawn and the amber glow from fading streetlights, you realized that i was the poemyou were always trying to write. About the Author:  Georgia Eugenides is an eighteen-year-old poet who grew up in Berlin, Germany; Chicago, IL and Princeton, NJ. Her first poem was published when she was nine years old. After spending the previous summer interning at The Paris Review, she decided to submit some of her own work to various publications. |
