est. 2022

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ISSUE 4: ETHER
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CAROLINE CHOU

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helios
Caroline Chou | Poetry
carve steepled fingers beneath my chin
in promise what do you want?
crescent moons etched along my cheekbones
a memory of ichor and the taste of summer like
bronze rusting on the tongue—
in dreams I dare to imagine existence
as immortality
perhaps
in another millenia this skin will feel mine again
I've seen so many suns spill from your lips
their cadence made careless with age
gilded beauty peeling up in slivers
dissolving trickling down honeyed wrists.
really? you ask
and in silver cycles
I return to my mortal mind
my pulse settling soft between the stars
a space between breaths to ask:
in the years you have lived, has daylight
ever truly warmed its touch?
I will chase the horizon a thousand times
and learn to harbor this shortened life
if you tell me it will someday.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN THE RENAISSANCE REVIEW
post-argument pantomime
Caroline Chou | Poetry
lights up on a 21st century kitchen.
lined up on one counter, three yellowed oranges,
skins bordering on green (just barely ripe),
a fourth one is tossed back and forth between my hands.
i am seated on the tile floor, back against the fridge.
Enter YOU. both of us wear porcelain masks.
mine is cracking at the edges. yours is not.
YOU: i’m sorry.
i peel my orange. it does not want to be peeled,
skin clinging hard to fruit. i dig my nails in.
a beat.
YOU: i’m sorry that you interpreted my words that way.
they are too sharp—pulp punctures,
acid spraying everywhere.
(neither of us are staying on script)
another beat.
(but some audience is watching,
and the show must go on.)
ME: (swallowing a sigh) it’s okay.
YOU exit the stage, and i’m left alone.
(performance after performance, this scene
does not get any easier. and its ending is always the same.)
fade to black.
last words of a fallen fairy
Caroline Chou | Poetry
bending over backwards into the green
& the wild, i am just a girl, violet dripped
into my eyes; find me six feet deep
in monkshood flowers, leaning into soil.
this land was steeped in gold & sage
but since drained of indigo shade, my body
left to kiss the sun & all its searing edges.
i feel its palm even now, pressed
against my wings. say i cried out. surely my
song is lost to the murmuring of dappled trees.
in another life, i’d shy away from
the burning bite of blossoms, but now,
all i do is part my lips with thirst
for lavender blue. all i do is swallow,
purple blooming on the tongue. all i do
is close my eyes & sink into the earth.
all i do is sigh, petals ground to bitter honey,
waiting for these flowers to hollow me whole.

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Caroline Chou (she/her) is a writer from Maryland with a love for leitmotifs and magical realism. Her work has been published in The Aurora Journal, Rising Phoenix Review, Aster Lit, and Blue Marble Review, among others. When she’s not writing, you'll likely find her reading fantasy, making playlists, or doodling everywhere she shouldn’t. Falling into fictional worlds is her favorite form of travel.

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