Artwork by Valentina Leoni

Choir boys always leave the party early,
A mouthful of bruised kisses,
And spilled drinks.
We come up at dawn and down in the daylight,
Telling our sisters we love each other in bathroom stalls.
You hold onto the arms of small skeletons,
And hope they’ll take you somewhere soft.
We mark our prayers with lipstick,
On the mirrors of a stranger’s hotel room,
And hope for clean heartbreak.
It will come tonight and we’ll be perfect,
In the light,
And all that is after.
Have faith in the spirits that haunt you,
And the spirits you’ll pour into,
All the open wounds,
In order to escape the truth,
Once more.

You’ll be old by the time you forget how it went,
The peeling laughter of the moon,
When the last lover departs,
And the sheets turn cold.
Sometimes you pirouette like spun glass,
A ballet dancer from a horror story.
Beautiful in the way all broken dreams are.
Untouchable.
Rare.
Desired.
Sometimes you lie on the kitchen tiles,
And cry for all you can’t get back.
Desolate.
Gone.
Less.

You always think you have longer than you have.
The goodbye is mumbled curses,
And regrets the weight of water.
You tell yourself you can try again,
We can simply re-trace our stumbled steps,
And return right back to the moment,
The skin splits,
The door closes,
The voice raises,
The sin blooms.
Forgive me father,
For I have forgotten all that it means,
To be excommunicated from the old romantics.
In your house there are many poisons,
And I know them all by taste.

Betrayal is an act of divine intervention.
Become the blood victim,
And learn the strength of the rope,
Before the fall.
Trust that the bar will always be open,
That the undertaker awakes on time,
That the sun will rise and illuminate,
All that you have destroyed.
You can find her face in the crowd if you turn,
Fast enough,
To hurt yourself.
The way you have always known how to.
Years pass and the perfume will still have you,
Excusing yourself from the table,
To cry and retch,
Under the tinted cocaine bathroom lights.
Lean right into the face of the stranger,
Who looks just like your dead lover,
And test your faith,
In the strength of your marble heart.

—

Evelyn Hollow is a Scottish writer, curator, and editor. She has been a resident author at Esoterica Zine for more than four years, was the recipient of the 2015 Lonely Planet Travel Writing Scholarship, and has taught writing classes at everywhere from universities to arts festivals. She has also been featured in exhibitions at ESAF and is the creator of The Baer Archive. She is a former psychology lecturer and holds a Master of Research degree in Paranormal Psychology.

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