Chivalry Isn’t Just Dead.

Hey y’all!

I’m absolutely terrible at posting things regularly, so a massive thank you to everyone who’s following me and bearing with my non-existent planning skills. I’ll try to post one a month at least from now on, but no promises cuz uni is crazy like that.

I’ve gotten published in a few places since I last posted, and I’ll link them below! It’s super exciting, and I hope you enjoy the poems.

amaranthine

Indigo

the ghosts in my home still haunt me

(there are also poems in InkMovement’s Edmonton Youth Anthology, Vol I, but they only print in paper so I can’t put the link here)

A friend of mine wants flowers for her room, she says. 

She wants to make it beautiful and vibrant and fresh, but

Blossoms fade and petals mold, she says,

Clutching her falsified flowers, 

Petals carefully crafted—

A forgery,

hundreds of days in the making in factories where they make 

          hundreds of petals that never die.

Immortality is the prize, beauty a side effect, and yet

How many of us choose both as a goal?

-

—Immortality comes with plastic petals (y.c.)

You fall asleep to the sound of your heart

Trying to break free from your chest

And wake to your thoughts trying desperately

To escape your brain.

What does it say about you when your own

organs

Want to escape your body?

— y.c.

I think we’re all broken, 

you whisper to the dark shimmering water lapping against the hull. 

I can see our reflections—

You, halved in white and 

Me, fading to black like an old film reel. 

Broken how? 

I don’t really need you to answer, not really. We’re cursed,

I know and you know, too, so you just laugh. 

Even that sounds like shattering glass. 

What is it about stars and streetlights and silent European nights 

          that tear us open to the core?

Cursed, you whisper, 

And suddenly thousands of years worth of history and ghosts and 

          fiends are clamouring for release beneath 

The liquid obsidian rocking the boat. 

Cursed, I whisper, but remind me:

Aren’t curses simply blessings from below?

.

— Cruise on the Danube (y.c.)

Quiet

She was quiet

        But not in a nice way

She was the silent storm

        The blow that came out of nowhere

        The one you never saw coming

She’s been through hell you can’t even imagine

        Her scars are a shield

        Her words are weapons

She can’t be controlled

        Tamed

She is the wild wind

        The rebel without a cause

        The broken fallen angel

She’s beautiful like an ocean in a tempest

        Like a phoenix rising from the ashes

She walks in the wake of battle and turns her head to the blood-red sky 

        And smiles.

She is quiet

        Not in a nice way

She is quiet the way 

        Lightning

Makes no sounds before it

        Strikes       

— Yushan C.

Love and despair are drawn from the same well.

I cannot always tell which is the poison,

And which is the cure.

— y.c.

I thawed, didn’t I?

Like winter ice in spring, 

Mountain run-off streaming into brooks and rivers. 

I felt the warmth of life—

Blossoms bloomed crimson violet vibrant blues. 

The sun was on my heart; I felt it melt, felt it give. 

Yet now, I stand staring into nothing searching for something; 

I stare at the placid blue surface around me, 

Not a ripple in sight.

This isn’t stoicism, 

This isn’t strength. 

This is calcifying into marble, is dying 

With your eyes wide open, 

Is stranding yourself on a lonesome little island and thinking it might

       not be so bad after all, disappearing.

I thawed, yes, but now 

I think all that was keeping me from sinking was the permafrost 

And now, that’s gone, too. 

(remind me: how did I ever mistake disappearing for flying?)  

-

—Spring Melt (y.c.)

this has 100% been talked about before but younger members of the lgbt community (especially on tumblr) NEED to understand that “gay panic” doesn’t mean “oh no i’m a teen panicking because i might be gay” it means “literal legal defense used in cases where a person has murdered someone upon finding out they were gay”

I became so much more delicate

when I was with you—

in body

in spirit

Some days,

a strong gust of wind could’ve scattered me

over the globe

like ashes in an ocean

You taped HANDLE WITH CARE on me and

ignored your own warning

And when I was shattered on the floor,

when I was left sewing together

what was left of my soul

Without you,

That’s when I woke up

and finally realized how much better I am

Without you

So t h a n k y o u

for teaching me

I don’t need anyone but

Me

— Yushan C.

I do not know how to go on 

With you, 

And I do not know how to go on 

Without you. 

This is our liminal space, our

Handcarved pocket of eternity. 

Always here and always leaving and maybe, 

in a hundred years or a few seconds, 

we will find our way out of this trap. 

.

—y.c.