αηĞᗴŁ 爪𝔞Ňιғ𝐞𝕊𝐭𝔬

laid flat I can bear the world,
hold a pool of tears, deliver the words.
trying to shoulder the burden
has become its own form of murder,
the girls in lilac ribbons
conducting postmortems
on the dream I once had.
and I, by the window, taking the veil,
pulled apart and half-mad.

and I, in the street, the world at my feet,
pouring these tears from cup to cup.

my curiosity has delivered me to the strip club
and the nunnery in equal measure –
anything to sever the pseudo-soul
from this sorrowful flesh,
sick with self-pity and pain.

O life of piss-soaked streets and honeymoon suites,
roadmaps to nowhere, sex on morphine,
womanisers and celibates splitting the blame,
the white light in the sky, the concept of fame.

I mean to die as I lived:
unwilling and vaguely ashamed,
only doing the thing
half-right and halfway.
by half-light, even the most sordid acts
seem purified, and I can lie in bed
for three hundred days and nights,
waiting for oblivion;

elsewhere, the heavy rock angels are singing
and the city lays latent
under the sweet smell of sweat,
the year bled empty of any distinct seasons.

there are too many good reasons
to turn up missing,
sexy dead-eyed photos of me
waltzing with the wind,
anointing the gravediggers.

but I’ve been trying to stay. I have to wring
every ounce of awful out of a good thing
before I can bear to be on my way.
I’m unfortunate, I know what all lovers know:
that holding someone too close
is the best way to let them go.

the trains rattle by like a symphony,
and the songbirds croon strains of Nina Simone.
I will lick this city off the world map
before I let it love me back, is it so wrong
to want to bleed some more? before I go
I want to know every bruise,
suck the sweetness out of every sore,
a body made of violent impressions.

I will know what only the angels know,
and walk this earth as though guaranteed
direct access to heaven.

Giselle Linder is an Australian-born artist currently based in Paris, France. Her most recent poetry collection, titled "Are You Having a Good Time Yet?", was released in 2025, and her writing can be found in various other publications such as Nowhere Girl Collective, Hyacinth Review, Wild Siren Magazine and Version Originale.