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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. 

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