[Gina]
SECTION TWO: sickeningly sweet
I find myself rushing back, longing only for the escape from all of this / Were these glasses of multiple perspectives the true contents of Pandora's box/ and if so am I any better off for opening it / The short days & long nights always drain me / I can not keep up the stamina to continuously engage.
I suppose when it is cold you always come to appreciate home / when you finally reach your destination / and take shelter from the bitter outside world / warmth is something more of a commodity / as we find ourselves unable to merely survive if left exposed outside / however can we simply insulate ourselves in such coating / without any appreciation at all for the tradition / that comes in the form of these layers.
I always loved the old-timey cherry candies / the ones with the hard chewy feel to them / almost sickening saccharine sweet in an extra covering of granulated sugar / you always said they were a treat for grandparents / the truth is they were kind of my favourite / I never intended to come off as conventional / maybe I am just scared.
I can swallow this for the time being / I can hold my breath until spring / The longer we participate / even if we do not agree / the more invested we will be / once I’ve built anything / I’ll have more on the line if I concede / This time of year always reminds me / of how old I am getting / when did I suddenly become / something other than young.
I have to make a decision / what is it I am willing to do / soon time will no longer / be on my side / I cannot deny it / yet I am unable / to justify it either / I suppose this is the season / for hibernation and stillness / do you care for me at all / layers and traditions and customs / old timey cherry candies / coated in sugar and sickeningly sweet.
[Jo]
SECTION THREE: bitter-sweet
Seeking truths in the layers of melting ice.
I am mostly tired. Breathless words scrawled across a page, faltering between fairy tale and fact, but who can tell the difference these days? I steady myself against a street light, shocking blue shimmying the cloudless night sky. My fringe falls flat. I sigh. There is silence. Most everything will melt. The gullible, the serious, the interned among us all know this to be true.
A car is useless; on these ice-bound streets, I skate, skating past ice buildings, so tall they are disappearing into the sky, dazzling glass castles, ice windows luring the gaze of every passerby into empty rooms, emptied of life. But look—in my wake, a powdered pink sugar mist appears. Oh! What a wonderful sight. Skating, skating, round and round, rows of glasshouses, I am spinning into a whirlpool of glittering moving lights.
I can hear through the melting walls, behind the locked glass desires unfulfilled, imaginary lives wandering blindly with no sense of belonging, mouths opening and closing trying to create beauty, to create a space, a different life, a home. Trapped in history and stories of long ago. I chip off pieces of ice and give it to the fox with the diamante collar, iridescent teeth crush the ice, and I collect it in a jug with the sugar and keep it for later.
I entered a glass tower, the door left ajar. Waterfalls from the melting roof forming a pool, a stream to float, swim—perhaps a morning dip. I am drinking my own made-up version of sour cherry crush—aromatic, spicy and a bitter-sweet aftertaste. A recipe I adapted from Grandma. Sipping sour cherry crush soothes me. I let it wash through my mouth, down my aged throat. Sour cherry crush, sweet cherry crush—scented, blended—any cherry crush! My sister spat it out the first time—coffee was her drink, just like our North Italian mother, and a cigarette in her other hand. She imagined me as a time waster.
I pour another sour cherry crush. I feel my heart skip a beat. Fear, delight, wonder. They made my heart tremble. I think of my sister—we had never been close until recently, we ran from each other, our histories, our stories—banishing, blotting out, replacing with random sparkles, twirls and glitter—eventually dissolving into grey, undecorated walls. Always the sensible one. We never really saw each other—but, now that she has gone, I want to unfold the stories, I want to read them, and decorate the empty glass spaces with them.
I’m too tired for any of it—at this very moment, I am too tired to invite her back into my life—I descended into a hole in the ice wall, gathering silence around me, my heart skipped a beat as I sensed a familiar song. A song Mother sang to my sister and me in the winter months—I wonder like I used to wonder whether it will be enough.
Special Edition. Contributers’ Compilation
Painting by. Julius Olsson (The Setting Sun)