ISSUE V
Kyla Guimaraes
Self-Portrait as Aziraphale
Good Omens (1990)
Some days I manage to forget
what it means to prioritize obligation
and yet my life is bound by promise
all the same. Discorporation floods
my vision. I ask God how to love.
He does not respond. I breathe
in His tradition and breathe out my longing.
It’s difficult getting lonely when I’m still
in my body, surrounded by words.
Best friends ask for more than I can give.
I am held captive by my own stuttering tongue,
warm and loose inside of my mouth,
lollygagging, unable to form proper syllables
out of a need for constants, consonants.
I love everything I’m not supposed to.
We dine at the Ritz. I remember
what it means to let loose; how the bathtub
filled with holy water mirrored the outline
of my body better than the headlights
of your 1926 Bentley ever could. I relearn
what it means to be calm; how to keep
the bathwater still and my ankle socks dry.
I wear off-white cotton jackets and avoid temptation
at all costs. In your dark glasses I see my polished
reflection. God asks me to choose
between my best friend and duty.
You ask me why not both.
I don’t know how to explain
that miracles are not enough
to fix the parts of my brain that can only think
in good and bad. You go too quickly for me,
but I could speed up, if I really tried.
I don’t stay the night. I become a fortune teller
right before the world ends.
Elegy for the Letter "V"
Like a bird flying beheaded, or just
far enough away for its face to veer
into smooth blue blur. Like an ocean,
and in that ocean, a man, far out. His only
company his vibrating pulse. The birds
overhead reflected in the shuddering
waves. The rain stumbling in, still
hungry. The difference between losing
and loving is one letter. I, on the shore,
am ready to slide into the lapping tides to watch
the birds from your vantage point. I have never
felt so alive as when I’m missing
something I barely know;
when I’m slipping into salt spray,
eager to learn the sound of this shape
I cannot live without. Above, headless birds
feed despite their missing beaks.
You, the bird, soar with smoke cradling
your head. You, all of the things
I can not bear to love in completion.
You, the man. The clouds are closing in.
The rain eating away loneliness. In the water
your arms are splayed open and outwards.
I see you everywhere: the number seven,
layovers, square roots. All of these things
that embody your open invitation of praying
the emptiness inwards. How you become
both greater and lesser than yourself.
It is easier to see you when you’re waning
away—head bobbing beneath the water
until you seem more bird than man.
I step into the sagging waves
in hopes of locating you before you sink.
The “v” of living is waterlogged with all
of your loss. The birds are as unfamiliar
to me as your face. I seek out emptiness,
arms searching for everything
that is present until I can name what is
not. You in the water—sinking. Today
the flock arrives hungry. They will eat
with missing mouths. I will join you
in the water, and look up from underneath
the weight of this blue reprise. The birds
overhead will dive in to join us; to feed.
For now, let’s pretend we are not dying
on emptied mouths. That we’ll become impossible
birds. That nothing needs to change.
In the water, let living feel open and easy.
There is so much of it still left to undo.
Kyla Guimaraes is a writer and high school senior from New York City. Her work can be found in SUNHOUSE Literary, The Penn Review, HAD, Dishsoap Quarterly, and elsewhere. Kyla is an alum of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, a co-managing editor at Eucalyptus Lit, and a poetry reader at Okay Donkey. In addition to writing, Kyla likes puns and standing outside in the rain.