Marija Mrvosevic

Lover Light

Written by Hannah Winspear-Schillings

Some say love is complacent a street lamp flickering dark gutters, rainswept pavement an old tree withering

My lover’s light is nascent turning dark skies dazzling the grass, a soft green crescent the drizzle heralding spring

Some say love is self-centred unhealthy, like a weed flowers cloyingly scented desire turned to greed

To my lover I surrendered humble in word and deed and like a painting rendered we picnicked beneath the trees

The kindly light my lover brings brightens the very soul of things

Written by Charlotte Waters & Lee Perkins

L

Do you remember those days, those long nights arm in arm?

They’d tied them behind us some slithering soaring in the cold moon chant, it was cold. And tendrils would take us, remember? Curl sway to the back wall of a cave until the first night you grabbed my arm, as we pushed with our legs and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew.

See me again, stop the tremors pitching to long nights. Where did you go?

But you would still give me the feeling though, wouldn’t you? When the timbers creak salt shuffles underfoot, under moonlight? When your solitude is solidarity with the promise of brine sweat rum?

I hope you would, because I sway on these upper lost decks and the Ithoril Sea could still take me as it took you, the shadows. Sceadu

Callouses from mast climbing each morning a new island that I can smell and see but not taste—were you cursed before? Are you cursed right now, the lingering as each corner trips you and pulls you back up, the rum bottle blow to the scurvy hammock.

There’s a feeling I get, the setting fire pulling me back to the first long night. But this old spirit is chipped for leaving, wishful leaving. Leaving, leaving, leaving.

Wishful summer, sand and boat moored. Does your family, that motley crew, come on vacation? I still watch for mine on the Gulf of Lune, my calls, screams whelping sobs plaster and drip against cliffs. They would still call you in the dead of night—nightshade’s under the moon now, where you wanted it, wishful wanting. From righteousness to cut throats to a cabin that I must sway myself, Alone.

But you would say it’s all a little whimsical. I see Roke from gangway, Edoras on the inland run. We set away around a Lamp-Post, back of cave drowning in a new light and I’d keep running. And you’d still be lost so I sway again that darker thrum never left, beams seething swaying splinters stuck on railings that I scuff kick and fall—

‘Projections’

C

Are you in there? Are you okay?

When you come upon the surface, its membrane chokes you awake—in increments, you drift downward, inward, return to yourself. The lamp casts a long arm of light across your roof, its centre carved out by tangled shadows. Your housemate’s voice, warm and booming, sets the wobbling room steady.

Its heat doesn’t quite reach you, but, like light, breaks and scatters outward from a point. You’re so far from land you’ve forgotten the feeling of grass underfoot, of a hand in your hand.

A series of knocks aggravates the still air, the shell of your body at rest. And then everything else leaks in—everything that, before, had been softened by the cupped palms, the quiet breath of your sleep. The itch of carpet against your cheek, the voices, the bright moonlight, all bundled together and newly naked. Its violence shifts your inertia. You rise toward the lamp, toward the promise of unbroken sleep—something catches your toe and you grab the nearest—

Set in perpetual motion, the shadows wave their many arms. They dance in tattered dresses, made from a fabric somewhere between vapour and liquid. Some wear long strings of beads.

You’ve known they were there all along, taking up space as pockets of darkness. They’ve only emerged because you’ve robbed them of something. Wandered, somnambulant, into their fellowship, only to cut a hole in the lattice of their prayers.

Come on, I’ve been waiting for so long.

Their features are smudged so you can’t match voice to mouth. Laughter ripples through their bodies like wind behind a curtain.

You reach out with a single arm. One by one, they follow. Their minds have been chiselled to match yours, long emptied of the promise of sun, of trees, of fruit. A ball of pity rises within your stomach. Their words roll into your throat, mocking, crying out for land, for a hand to hold. Wishful singing. Singing, singing—

The sand shifts under your palm, and just as soon, gives way to the coarse grip of carpet. You stumble upon something lined with plastic. Hair hanging and tangled with salt, you lean over.

I’m sorry. I’ll be there soon.