Atlastconsiderations - Tumblr Posts

2003

Postcards from Saigon

yellowed pictures

pants rolled up to his knees

dark ray bans

thick rims

raindrops on lips

or raindrop lips

his eyes,

a different shade of brown

those that say

“buy me a beer

before I change my mind”,

dusty eyelids

a scar

lingering

under his eye

a dog-eared book

in his hand

where he wrote in the margins

These

are

the

lines

that

prove

that

my

existence

is

a

mistake

but you only read 

the pencil prophecy

after

you had kissed him  

after

he had taken

all of those

painkillers

after

he had written that letter

saying

“I too

was once loved,

but not by you”.

© Margaux Emmanuel 2018

17

they were all desperate

to light your cigarette

only seventeen years old

but lips leafed in gold

I stopped believing in god

the moment I saw you,

you sepia-toned haunted ghost

you keyed the words

of your own stolen bible

on the edge of my tongue

your eyes were a pool of dusk

where I saw shadow puppets

dancing on candlelight

rose-pricked skin

and I had only ever seen

the rosy dawn

that never dared to kiss me

at the end of the night

you’d be gone in the morning,

and I’d still feel you

against my skin

as if you had been

my very own 

living nightmare

as if you had said the things

you had never thought

never said

but that I had always longed

to hear. 

the sun was poorly tuned, still glimmered in the dark so I poured him a drink; post-curfew happiness

© Margaux Emmanuel

kabukicho

There was a bar fight in Kabukicho, a gunshot in my ears. Loud, deafening. Empty. An actor, a haunted ghost dragged his body onto the stage, the sticky night grabbing his ankles, a hole, freshly carved out by an imaginary bullet, gaping open in his chest. He trembled as he held a glass in his hand, as if he had wanted to drink to the possible, the impossible, his winces in pain hidden by his mask. All there was was him  and the smell of stale tobacco and streaks of red delving into his cheeks. He rattled the melting ice in his glass, reflecting the 80 watt red light venom of his eyes, where silhouettes were pressed against the sliding doors of his pupils, black shadows on which he has never seen the sun rise. The amber flicker of another life replaces his agate grace with sadness, stretches out time like a loose string. He’s playing the last act, chewing on the passersby’s skin like flavorless gum.

© Margaux Emmanuel