“My own key slotted in your door”, “Survival” and “On life’s meaningful pauses”

My own key slotted in your door

I am unforgettable because I left,

under the honeyed eyes of the sun,

one lazy morning, after endlessly measuring

every inch of you, basked in slumber.


I shall be forever forgotten

in all the sundry stances of the days

to come and go senseless,

burdenlike.


I would have grown forgetful, had I stayed,

of the liquid memory of us,

and this way of yours of clinging to the life

of it, flowing from one side of me into you

and back- unravelling the shortcomings.

Survival

My body is water,

a floating city

of blood, bones and the failing flesh.

They journey together.

It craves flooding and bursting

its inland dams.

It pivots, sprints, hauls and plunges,

takes fire and ice

to restore its logic,

to trace the noise of strife

and hold its flow.

And if you ask me now

what happened to it-

love gave its sorrow a name

and drowned it.

On life’s meaningful pauses

We’re weightless

as we ride kites into the sunset

on bleeding fingertips around the string,

running the ins and outs of our verbal textures,

until there is no more life to waste on.


There is a neon bar inside the topology

of the flight, leading all wingless lovers

to make believe well-adjusted, invisible

hugs and torching gazes into the grammar

of being unseen.


Still, if I can hardly ever hold you inside

the spelling intricacy of me,

how can I breathe breathless into the air of you?

About the Author

Clara Burghelea

Clara Burghelea is Editor at Large of Village of Crickets and currently taking her MFA in Creative Writing at Adelphi University. Her poems have been published in print and online publications, including In-Flight Literary Magazine, Straylight Literary Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, Peacock Journal, Full of Crow Press, Quail Bell Magazine and Ambit Magazine.