cw; death

(...)

My mind still dips its paintbrush into wrong colors– for a moment, 
my mother’s voice sounds like someone else. For a moment, I expect 
ghosts to come out of the room whose vacancy I’ve occupied, 
time to rewind itself back to wh

the graveyard always hungers for more

There is a city both big and small enough to hold the entire
solar system in its hands, and there is a woman lovesick enough
to steal the universe and offer it to the man that she loves.

(...)

nine views (or how to eat the solar system for breakfast)

​at the break of dawn, as sunlight stretches slowly
over the coasts of your body, I begin to run.

(...)

the sculptor

In the city, I search for myself and cannot find her –

shoes tapping against cobblestone pavements and beads of
sweat like a crown atop my forehead, I forage street after
street, a cartographer with two handfuls of faulty maps.

(...)

false histories

iii. The first time I tried to impale the sky, I made the moon bleed.

(...)

moonpiercer

under a blanket of stars,
with your slightly parted lips,
cupid's bow aiming an arrow
towards thousands of universes

(...)

in slumber

You don’t realize how much you’ve craved to hear the words I’m proud of you until you’re sobbing into the palms of your hands over four words, twelve letters, a million things unspoken.

(...)

he tells you he's proud, and you believe it

I turn my head toward sunlight with closed eyes and try to burn the world away,
maybe try to set myself alight too,
hoping the crawling spring will grant me the small mercy of disappearing

before I settle for the calamity of summer.

(...)

staring at the sun (until I see the real you)

(...)

but the lilt of his voice 
as he unraveled 
line after line 
of her offbeat language 
was both saudade and tarab, both a pull and a push

linguaphile

(...)

there is something furious in the way a city falls asleep– 
how the colors rage from one shade to another
as if desperate for one more moment of thrill

a city, asleep

I threw out my shadows
wore a dress made out of
sunlight, startling the clouds into
hiding;
they wept as they went

(...)

luminescent

garden

page 75; cw: alcohol

(...)

I wonder if she ever noticed,
as her fingers threaded softly through my hair, 
how I stole glances at her in the mirror, 
hoping to see anything in there –
a glimpse of yearning, a spark, any kind of sign

fever daydreams

You call me a sunflower and run your hands up my stem,
tongue tasting sunshine off of my petals until dusk settles
over the bedroom; through the darkness, you illuminate
my glimmering body – caught in earthshine and shivers.

(...)

an idle wandering through the landscape of a silhouette

you were brooding
the first time I saw you–
under the clear skies.
you looked like
vengeance sent from the
heavens

(...)

dalliance

(...)

In the peak of summer, we bet against daylight to see who could stick around longer – tired skies paid our winnings in galaxies, hundreds of stars laughing at our stubbornness. 

a vignette of lost friendships

page 28

(...)

you’re a double rainbow after a savage storm,
sunshine breaking through a wall of clouds.
you’re a blanket draped over my shoulders
in the claws of winter, keeping me warm

solace

page 27

(...)

I shouted into the universe
until my voice went hoarse
and the universe sent me
     still starry skies,
     new words,
     and the desire to f!y,
but no longer to escape

august 13th

(...)

and so hours pass in this silent calm– 
he looks on as another day dies, 
Helios climbing back into the divine;

sunlight incarnate

(...)

I’m not good for you– 
a woman gone mad 
from trying to find galaxies 
and painting the sky red with starfire 

Tamara Bašić

Selected work