TAPESTRY
By Natasha Zarine

Incarnarated
Clutching the rolls of you
Drip latent constellations
Enchained by taboo.
But when I howl of pleasure
I never think of you.

Raping myself, I caress
Every tingling motion
Feeling what will not exist.
Like a harp, I pluck
Myself to devour every
Shred of guilt, disgust
Folded in my very nature.

I claw the dank inside
Knowing you never will
Dirt burns my bedtime sheets
My soul an orphan still.

Loathing Lover

Let’s face it, lay it on thick:
You arrogant, stuck-up, loathsome prick.
Tuberculosis is far sweeter than you
Oh my hideous dear, how I loathe loving you.

How I hate using that old cliché
That ‘you took my breath away’
How I can’t deny that you did
Locate my desire and open the lid.

This trite form of poetry so yet captures the glint
That left my head lobotomised, made my heart flint.
Sure. I felt light, unaware of the fit
Of terror, anguish, passion
Belying flirtation and wit.

I could say he was a god, a beau, a chéri
A muse like Edgar’s Annabelle Lee
Yet self control was perverted by some adolescent bloke
Acne ridden, poor dress sense, an aficionado of the dirty joke
As hopeful I was of whom to please
This was the guy who left me stumbling to my knees.

Obsession turns into obsession.
Tumours made me kill Mr Right.
Garrotted him straight, for want of a bad boy fight.
A goody-two shoes little Cinderella
Ultimately enjoys the ugly brother.
A saccharine, fulfilled love lies in vain to the fiestier.

The innocent soul turns to venom inbred
My lust for bodily intrusions to rip off my head.
Elevated by anger, jealousy and dread
The path to romance has been grossly misled.

For him, I’ll be ‘that girl’, whose blood would alight
When their lips did collide in that Trojan fight
He did like her, sure.
She was pretty alright.
Funny, nice – the wrong for the right.

Penetrated by Satan, his body did plough through
What was once me, the less hateful girl I knew.
My orgasmic-sized hurt just loves to loathe you.

La Petite Mort

I had a little death and you died too
Pleasure swallowed my spine and now I know
The aching shrine is no longer you.
Staring in vapid listlessness
At sorry goodbyes, heartfelt messages, I see
Generic personality and my unique decency.
Your breath, suffering a pregnancy that
Swung me to the ground
Surged into a wind
That I now clench in my fists and throw
Into the lightened sky.
Cawing breaks
And distance thunders applause at receiving
A long- awaited package.
‘I love you’ never felt so sweet
Until it was empty, purged from me.

I had a little death when I sighed in bed
And the last ecstasy drop of you
(Or maybe just the thought of you)
Fatally fainted.
What you were really has leaked from memory
Was there a scent in your hair, how far did you loom?

Like a dead ancestor, I recall how
Our chests stroked and faces sucked the ability
For me to look beyond, only vaguely.
Enclosed in a box, I didn’t realise you crawled out
Until you tossed away the key
I made fangs, weeping, nostalgia
But it’s acceptance that killed me, then shook me free.

Acceptance ripples waves and separates
Chlorine from truth, blood from cells
I wanted multiplication but satisfaction is division
Do we not know that smiling is when lips part?

I trembled to be thrown on a stone-cold table
Punishment for two bodies, when only one yearned to meet
But now I know that the greatest way to penetrate you
Is marching day by day, stabbing your ego with my own feet.

I like how you believe you will mawl this universe
Wipe trauma with begging clones
Affection to you is just a barrage of unpaid loans
But Latin is unnecessary
To twist your neck, grow an arm inside your heart
And punch an ‘Et tu Brute’
Into your cataracts convictions.
The emperor is now me.

Why bother to conquer land long eroded, not by time but by infertile soil
That I didn’t initially notice
Even though grains cackle arrogance, the clean blade reality
That you are nothing, useless
Or maybe just normal
Is enough to breathe.

Welcome to this world, reborn
Not by love
Not by promise
But by the arising knowledge that lay dormant
That you are you
I am me
And that this is all the story will be.
Clockwise and progressively, I turn the key.

Hearth
Chiming in the corridor, there are sighs
Of what was or might have been instead of parallel lives.
Dizzily I explore exhalations of your darkened, deadened breath
Inviting me to fall tangled, plunge deep inside my breast.

There was a cloud that day, or maybe sun
I can’t remember because the memories are so raw
Of the steel coffee shop door
The English heavy air
And the nuzzling warmth of just being there.

You were so cheesy. I guess, you winked dreams
Which you have since swum and although I doubted
You could excel, wondered the injustice at how, it’s confidence
A thirst for recklessness, I lick in your minerals now.

Biting pomegranate lips, flippers magnetised like compasses clocked at North
A literature intruder unlocks sights
That I only unscrambled after curtains of nights.

Like a maze, I venture two roads down
To acknowledge your presence,
How you laced life to throttle it with a crash, extracted my charms.
I discovered adulthood in your arms
Bursting prehistoric rationale of how I used to seek
Understanding of how two people meet.

I’m sorry that sweet butter at Morrison’s or an orange skirt’s glow
Couldn’t soften the blow
Of muted longings that frame my mind.
Crooked legs, I crouch in shades of blue
I mutter it only takes wanting
To remember you.

We are not spiritual, just empty spaces
For webs that etch infinite footprints of hope…
I smile knowingly at this rancid fantasy
Yet when you stray with me in the under earth decayed
Finally I will know, we always stayed.

Tapestry

You stare at my scars, I see art.
Crevasses of longing, terror darts
Which have shot expectations
And desires for healing
Mutating into becoming better.

My skin is a tapestry of you
Sown onto me.
The needle aches in places
I didn’t even know existed
But at least I now have threads
Of scarlet red and peacock blue
Which playfully mingle with my veins
To form an ingrained me and you.

My skin was honey innocence but now it’s orient deep
Blood trying to float amongst the tidal waves
Of Saturdays sinking sofas of
The flesh of you and me.

Sour kisses tinged my sheen
Into a quench for pleasure
But its very mundanity and routine
Allowed beige lips, in equal measure.

A tapestry is unique but I understand   
That most art-makers possess a band
Of ideas and so it was to be
That you took inspiration somewhere else
Leaving an unfinished art form in me.

About the Author:

Natasha Zarine  just graduated high school in Guildford, United Kingdom and is hoping to enrol this upcoming year for a BA Spanish and ab initio Russian at University College London; She is enthusiastic about the prospect of exploring Hispanic and Russian literature.