I found myself walking in a wilderness where people had once lived. The road I was on, once proudly paved with cobblestones, was overgrown with weeds. It was raining lightly, just enough that I could smell the languid threat of lightning. At a place that seemed halfway between where I’d come from and where I…
Author: Clio
under the gaslight
in the haze of the gaslight you crafted masks for me to wear and told me when to wear them you warned me to never take them off, to always hide myself, because the world is full of monsters there was one for when i was sad: an ugly face full of rage and violence…
melt the guns
the still of the night was split by the sound of a gun spilling its violence out into the darkness the lightning and thunder followed by a rainstorm of blood on the sidewalk was it a traffic stop gone wrong? was it revenge for a broken heart? was it the demarcation of territorial lines? was…
the return of the glass(people)
i remember the glass(people) who shimmered in the light their shattered shards coalesced under the hot sun i lost touch with the glass(people) and let their memory fade but they lingered and they linger and they will linger they were lost among the static a memory just around the corner of my consciousness waiting for…
I Never Metapoem
When I was young and learning how to write, I was taught that poems had rhythms tight. The words, the lines, the rules — they served as walls And that without these strictures all would fall. The rules, they said, were there to form a spine — The art was how the writer, so confined,…
The Citadel II
From the window of the citadel, high above the trees, they could see the village below. There was the house they had lived in as a child. There was the chimney, a wisp of smoke idling out in the still of the springtime air. There was the roof they had climbed on as a child….
somewhere in between
somewhere in between the evening and the dawn as the rain clouds settled in and the moon disappeared i saw your shadow i whispered your name i felt your presence for a moment everything was serene everything had stopped all my fears were quieted in that liminal haze somewhere in between the evening and the…
Mines of Mine
the garden of my soul is filled with land mines my mother dug each hole with care and laid the shell down my father covered them with dirt making sure that each was armed i do not have the map to my mine-filled garden i do not know how many mines are left to explode…
Swimming
i swam out beyond the buoys and kept swimming i closed my eyes so i would not see the shore slipping away from view and though my arms burned and though i knew you were long out of reach i kept swimming i had stood on the shore for far too long i had rested…
Breathe
breathe and don’t stop breathing push and don’t stop pushing fight and don’t stop fighting each time they win, they grow stronger they build new strategies they find more weaknesses in your defenses if you quit, they win again and they cannot win again so breathe and don’t stop breathing — Clio 04.05.21