Sunlight / Villanelle
words by Liah Chung and Aliza Susatijo
I Never Was One for Sunlight
by Liah Chung
It’s so calm and dark down here. I am cooled. I am refreshed. Here, in the dampness of my shame, I am at peace.
Yet just as I am drifting into unconsciousness, someone speaks behind me. I am unsure what they are saying, but I know that I am scared. So I close my eyes, and I dig my head back into the toilet, and I tell myself I am alone, in this lonely, solemn place where all the bad things we bring into the world are so easily flushed away.
When I wake, I am laughing. I run through a field lit with green and gold, spraying puffs of grass into the breeze. My mother runs ahead of me, kicking the same grassy feathers. Her step has a lightness to it that I’ve never seen before. But when she turns around, her face is full of fear, and she becomes someone I can recognize. She is panicked. Run, she says. And so I do. I look behind me, searching for him, but I feel a sudden yanking in the opposite direction. I turn to find myself holding a kite, and it swings me swiftly into the air. My hands grip the spool, and I float higher, legs dangling and hands sweating. I feel like I’m flying!
Clouds slink past, their droplets of water kissing my face like the sweet, wet lapping of a dog. Eager and unconditionally in love.
Below me, my mother slips into the trees. The mountain becomes a dot.
Birds whistle past, pulsing powerful wings and singing unknowable songs. A cacophony of music. A screeching of sound.
The sun is so close I can feel its warmth. She wraps me in her arms and kisses my forehead, and for one stupid moment, I believe that I am beautiful.
A voice, sharp and biting. It is a sound that cuts.
Suddenly, the current of the winds shifts. My sweaty hands suddenly lose their grip, and I fall back towards Earth. I brace myself for the impact—fists locked, eyes tight, body tense—but seconds later find that someone is holding me.
He shakes his head, smiles, and says, It’s a good thing you came back.
Shaking with adrenaline, I breathe a sigh of relief. That was a close call.
In and out, he says. In and out. Deep breaths always make me feel better. Remember, the only thing you can control is your breath.
We lay in the field, my head to his stomach. Soft body between hard ground.
I watch the clouds above, thinking of the puppies that I held so closely just a few moments before. The sunlight feels colder down here. Is there no way to return safely?
He offers me water, so clear and so refreshing it tastes like ice cream.
Ice cream, sick and sweet. It’s supposed to be a treat, but it just makes me feel cold.
Wind rustles my hair, and my back tickles from the gentle movement.
My hair, fisted behind me, as my head descends into darkness.
I shudder from the familiar sensation.
Keep your eyes open. Something about this mountain is unnerving.
I wrap the jacket tighter around me. It’s too big, but it is my only defense against the elements.
His clothes, filled with his distinct scent, gray and earthy and frightening. It’s suffocating.
No—that scent is my fear, not his fault. In and out. In and out. We are both worth more than my imagination. Where is my mind taking me? This mountain knows too much.
Nearby, a young couple, the only other people here, flies a kite. The woman wears a small engagement ring. Bright, shiny, and overwhelmingly reflective. I have a sudden urge to run over and hug them, to squeeze their hands in an iron lock and ask them to never let me go.
As if their joy could ever be mine. As if it was ever that easy.
Instead, I clutch my own necklace, a ruby heart on a silver chain. It still bleeds from our last argument. In and out.
His calloused hand takes mine, and I clutch its warmth against the wind.
His hand, so familiar, so present throughout my life. It is a pocket, keeping me safe against the chill of the rest of the world. It is a lantern, one I cling to through the ups and downs of childhood. It… is a fist, something that hurts just as much as it holds.
Let’s go back to the car, he says.
Yes, let’s go back to the car. It’s cold out here, and I want shelter from these hateful, beating winds. Let’s go back to the car.
His car, clean and smooth. A hotdog car. It looks as if it was bought just yesterday: clean floors, no stains, shiny dashboard. As perfect and untainted as he wishes his children were. The dashboard, smooth and dark, patterned with an invisible handprint. One. Two! THREE! In and out. In and out. Haunted… by memories that aren’t mine but that I picture and fear as if they were.
No, not fear. I am reading too much fiction; I am letting my mind overcome my heart. I know who my father is, and I cannot fear him.
I sit in the car, and I stare out the window, passing through the beautiful world. Watching the beautiful world pass by me. Pass me by. It’s like everything in my life can move on but me. Stop.
I struggle to breathe in the thin air of the mountain. So cold and bitter. So dirty and dry.
In and out. In and out. I try to ground my breathing, but it’s too much to control. So many things to keep track of, so many rules to follow, and still nothing within my power. Drink water—drink ice cream. Breathe, but don’t smell. Close your eyes, and open your arms. Go home, and pretend that’s where your heart is. Be happy, and never let yourself feel another emotion. Choose your family, but know that there was never another option. Drown inside a toilet bowl, and tell yourself you want to be there. You know no other way to love. You have no other way to survive.
In and out. In and OUT. I want OUT.
This mountain knows me too well. It turns all my secrets into sensations, until there is no other option but to feel everything, to be entirely in touch with the pain in my head and the bruises under my bones.
Yes, let’s go back to the car. It’s safer when the only world you can see is your own, when your feet are touching the ground, and when your dreams are always within reach.
I clutch his hand, and I say goodbye to the mountain. I never was one for sunlight.
Villanelle
by Aliza Susatijo
Watch as the cascading light dips below the brink, watch as it lingers
Throw away the woven cords and tilted cap, a future so solemn
Stay here until the moss creeps up your fingers
A multitude—a lifetime—of memories sift through your mind in filters
Amidst the ruddy brick, the sweeping lawn, the lights glinting from each column
Watch as the cascading light dips below the brink, watch as it lingers
Could you leave any swifter?
When they still chip at the marble, shaping you into a blossom
Stay here until the moss creeps up your fingers
Stay because you know you will miss her
Until the carefully cemented bricks turn to fossil
Watch as the cascading light dips below the brink, watch as it lingers
As you walk down the steps and past old homes, all the night a hazy blur
Tie yourself to these bones, forsake all that is novel
Stay here until the moss creeps up your fingers
Yet the city, with its cacophony of noise, will always have a certain allure
Would turning towards change really be so awful?
Watch as the cascading light dips below the brink, watch as it lingers
Stay here until the moss creeps up your fingers
