Poetry by Marisa Adame

                Carolina Tarré CC



firelight

i was firelight when i met you.
atomic crimson gaped forth from my mouth.
my tongue
               had been bitten;
my tongue
               turned
                               ruby // rose // red.
our tongues
collided into catastrophe in the dead of night--

you were never good for me.

i snuck myself along your tongue,
atop your teeth,
inside the membrane of your mouth,
and touched your soul. it was

mesmerizing, a spectacle of firelight crackling
at the back of your throat--

but starlight worked its way into my ribcage
when you found yourself in the ER
                                                                           again.

my floating ribs stopped floating.
my skeleton solidified, and i became cold
all in the name of loving you.

the embers in your voicebox began to wither and die.
the firelight faded and i
became only starlight.

starlight: now too cold to home living species

my body has become
an atom of itself
                floating
on the memory of firelight,
trying to remember
how to swim back to shore.

​


gallery of endings


i highlight the foreshadowing found in the hollow cheekbones of a lover
wasted away by apathy and addiction. his dimples,
long-gone, are replaced
by other forms of depression.

i imagine him balding
as he wears himself down,
and the cycle of fighting that
                begins //
                and ends //
                                again //
                                and again.

i watch slices of disappointment cut through my stomach each time he reaches for a vice.


this unwanted company in our relationship
i predict will be our executioner.
we walk up to a gallows in tandem;
both quietly receive black hoods
but when all’s said and done, my feet are the only ones dancing
                                                                                                                                     on air.

i spend my nights perusing paintings of projected endings in my head.

he smiles in the moon’s soft gleam, and i tell him there is time.
no matter that i
                                 count the days

                                              like water drops

                                                            cascading

                                                                           in my lungs.

​


echo

no one knows the greek myth of Echo
whose namesake is forgotten
because no one tells the story
of the girl who fell in love with Narcissus.

she took on his words
and was met with such a deafening silence she
lost her ears // then her eyes // her freedom // sense of self-worth.

she spent so many years waiting for Narcissus to love her,
her body deteriorated in the forest.

i’ve heard this story before

of a man who loved himself above all things;
his name was--
my boyfriend tells me he was diagnosed with Narcissism.

the first drink i had wasn’t with him
but wanting his affection was my first reason to drink.
i had never before wanted to understand an alcoholic’s mind
until i wanted our minds intertwined.

he was heavy with liquor; heavy against my body,
pushing me into the walls. he was overwhelming
in his strangeness.

most nights, i wanted to walk out and back in hypothermia-ridden
collapsing onto my tile floor, gasping out my last breath in a laugh
like see how easy it was for me to break myself instead of you?
because i love you.

i’ve never felt more invisible than when he asked me for money for booze.
fixated on the liquid savior,
the reflection of himself in the heineken became his one true love.

i wonder if Echo ever thought the river's rippling was telling her to drown herself,
if she tried to drink the river dry in order for him to finally look at her.

there is a God and She has told me i’m an alcoholic waiting to bloom

i knew She was right when i caught myself
cleaning the puke from my mouth with the bottle of Bacardi in my hand.

my lover never noticed i was diving into the river of his addiction
hoping he would save me from drowning.

it felt like dying,
like suddenly becoming nonexistent,
so painless you never even noticed you were gone.
when he asked if i was okay, i never said i was dying.

i never even noticed i was gone.

a memory
a daydream.
an Echo of myself;

upon realizing that Narcissus couldn’t love her,
Echo stretched herself thin,
over-extended my sympathy
until i became a shadow of myself
forever echoing the words he had taught me:

                                                                              one more drink...



                                                                                     drink
        





                                                                                                                                      drink.

​

​
i am not Wizard

let's take a trip down memory lane,
with benzodiazepine street signs marking our way.

where did you learn that “Ambien” means goodbye?

the first time i held your hand,
i discovered pills will always sit between us. they sit
like once-lit cigarettes
littering the ground like gravel,
handfuls drawing attention
to the tension between our backgrounds//

i know
you must follow the amphetamine road
and find your way out on your own;
just know that i'll be there to kiss your wounds when you stumble
and the skin of your shins is split by broken glass
bottles polluting the ground, the remnants of good times gone by.

but i am not Wizard.

i am Wish Maker,
              wishing i could see you whole again.
i am Care Giver,
              drawing venom from your snakebites so they will not scar.
i am Reminder:
              you'll make it through.
Reminder:

              i love you.

i am not Fixer,
              you are.
i am not the reason to slay your demons,
              you are.
              you are
so much more than the pills
                                                slipping
                                               through your fingertips.

i am Reminder:
              you have made it this far.

​

Bio: Marisa Adame, Latinx storyteller/creative from Dallas, Texas, seeks to create work that balances as much as it deconstructs. Her work has appeared in Crab Fat Magazine, Red Savina Review, Hold the Line, Metaphor Magazine, and St. Sucia zine. Her chapbook manuscript, butterfly bombs, was a finalist for Thoughtcrime Press's Lorien Prize in 2017. You can find her on YouTube or Instagram (@marisasaysthings), and on her official Facebook page.

---