Two Pieces by Alistair Gaunt

By Alistair Gaunt

Surge

First published in The Eyre

The wintry wind bites my skin like a prey feasting on an animal—I tell you to touch me here and there and here, mouth me in the places where the moon has yet to touch. I look at the vastness of the sky and ask Asteria if the celestials have always aligned with the freckles on your skin. Here and there and here, even when the stars could no longer fathom themselves into constellations, I would still find a way to name them after you. Murmur your deepest desires in the dimness of the night, tell me what madness is like. Arcturus fills your tongue with a kiss and chokes you with a desperate prayer: tell me what it is like to devour the one you love.

In the morning, the sun awakens at the sound of your breathless whisper. Here and there and here, the bed dips and my heart aches with the weight of you. My bruised and shaking hands peel a freshly-picked tangerine; the pulp seethes into my wounds, each segment separated with gritted teeth. For you, I will claw and gnash my way through all this grief.

Let me breathe in your sorrows, open you whole, bite into your flesh and bones and make you mine. Here and there and here, the ghost in the mirror has finally stopped haunting. Its shadow takes in the shape of you—always there, lingering. Through the looking glass, Alice tells me love is violence. But my dear, I worry it is gentleness masked under lustful devotion.

Liberation

1

A lie for a lie. The truth bottled up and thrown into the deepest ocean; my secrets whispered in the wind––the confession of a love too sacred to share. A knife for a knife, with both ends aimed at my heart. An eye for an eye. The distance gnawed at my skin like a demon in possession. A tooth for a tooth. A cavity grew within me, devoured my flesh and bones until all that I was was skin––a mask molded in the shape of her.

2

The second love came in the shape of the ghost of the past. Her words curled in my tongue like a desperate prayer. I knelt at her feet, my shaking hands digging into her thigh. In her eyes, I saw nothing but the darkness of a warped future. She asked to spend the rest of her days with me; she loved like a bruised fist—like a loaded gun.

3

My last love surged in the middle of the storm. He came knocking at my door with hands made of fire—the warmth of a love that lights my cigarettes; a love that carries me from the bedroom to the kitchen; a love that demands to be felt, to be cradled in the palm of my hands. Gentleness is not the absence of the war, but the love that lets me hallow in my misery, then kisses my wounds long before the sun touches them. In the dawn, I confess: I envy the world that gets to have him, and only momentarily can I tell him I love him to the point of liberation.

Alistair Gaunt (they/he/she) is a Filipino queer non-binary poet born in Southern Philippines. She is a self-taught writer, with English being her third language. Their writing contemplates the queer experience, violent desires, peculiar dreams, death, grief, and catharsis. He has appeared in House of Poetry, Moonbow Magazine, and Tiger Leaping Review. When not writing poetry, she spends the rest of her free time painting, reading, making coffee, traveling, and watching sunsets collapse into dawn. He is currently a full time university student, taking up Bachelor of Science in Psychology. They may be contacted through alistairgauntwriting@gmail.com.