“right through my fingers” by annie cyrus

POEMS BY AUDREY KIM

“Rain Child”

The rain comes down and I overflow, fears and feelings dripping down my skin like blood flowing from a head wound. Cloud vapor condenses, precipitates, penetrates puddles like bullets as the thunder holds my grief at gunpoint. I pound the air and atmosphere. I pummel it, I inhale mutilated oxygen, and exhale inverted flesh. I hurt; I harm myself; I stand willingly in the rain; I learn to become an umbrella. My mother thinks I enjoy the pressure as if standing at the cliff’s edge means I crave death. She doesn’t know I do it for survival. Mother, in breaking myself, I have become unbreakable. By the time those rejections roll in like high tide I will have drowned many times already and will know how to swim. If I cry and scream and feel worthless today, grief will feel as familiar as a friend when I fail to get into my dream school. Please don’t worry about me; I won’t develop immunity without catching a cold. So just — let me stand out here, in the rain. I promise I won’t live here forever. “Metaphor” POEMS BY ASHLEY KIM You are an off beat individual but I move with your motions like they’ve always been mine. How I long to unmake you, to pull at your strings and hold them in my hands! You are a cryptic dream, and would fall apart like one: Lovely, fleeting, and then far away. You are the green stretches of the Earth, the flower garlands of spring, the angel hair I long to braid; hum low on my neck, coy snakes of the Garden; I want to sink my teeth into your nature. You are a caricature of reality, the prophetic devil on my shoulder I can’t seem to shrug off; you always urge me to break free of the circles I walk in. I love your out of tune trumpet of a laugh and how your too bright eyes catch fire; The smell of smoke when you speak poems into your cigarette makes my eyes water; makes me go absolutely feral. And as if I could forget your hazardous smile, climbing up one corner and grasping at the edge of the other. Consider this a testament to how deeply I love you. Consider these roundabout metaphors the vessels of your praise.

“Promised Land”

She wakes with nothing short of haste No rule nor land too tall to breach Her life a song of conquering A short-lived thing of catching flame And though each day is nothing but a fight to be a lonely light She wakes each day with far-off dreams and dares not let her eyes lose sight

“Asymptote/Asystole”

I am tired. I string air from my lungs, dig for weeds in a dying garden, tear my fingernails on soil. I am drenched in cold life, sustained on shaking legs, fueled by a rusting heart. I lie in bitter warmth of night, chew at threads of yarn, chase shadows on the wall. Yes, I am tired.

“Right Through My Fingers” by Annie Cyrus // IG: @ann.yelhsa Medium: Copper electroformed hands, thrifted picture frames, embroidery thread, prescription pills and gold paint