by Aura Martin
I’m becoming collateral damage. I’m eclipsed by my own anxiety.
We hold hands for the last time. It’s good seeing you is what I said instead of, some days I miss you like hell. The lines of your hand curled against mine & the stains of old ink curled against yours. You can’t blame me for my affection. Tell me you don’t wake up in the dark suddenly hungry for the press of my mouth on yours.
Sometimes I dream I love someone else but the idea of you is still pressed in me like an old, dried flower. Tell me you close your eyes and do not think of me. It’s someday for me now, beginning again on the first page of someone else’s life.
(In order of appearance, this cento borrows lines from: Deonte Osayande (“Anxiety,” Issue 9); Shome Dasgupta (“River Streams,” Issue 14); Rich Larson (“Last Night I Dreamed You,” Issue 14); Noreen Ocampo (“Flight,” Issue 14); Christy Anna Jones (“Elephant,” Issue 9); Nichole Snyder (“lie to me and we’ll pretend words aren’t blows we can’t take back,” Issue 9); Lindsey Bellosa (“Marriage,” Issue 9); Nichole Snyder (“lie to me and we’ll pretend words aren’t blows we can’t take back,” Issue 9); Rich Larson (“Last Night I Dreamed You,” Issue 14); Natalya Sukhonos (“To begin again,” Issue 9)).
We hold hands for the last time. It’s good seeing you is what I said instead of, some days I miss you like hell. The lines of your hand curled against mine & the stains of old ink curled against yours. You can’t blame me for my affection. Tell me you don’t wake up in the dark suddenly hungry for the press of my mouth on yours.
Sometimes I dream I love someone else but the idea of you is still pressed in me like an old, dried flower. Tell me you close your eyes and do not think of me. It’s someday for me now, beginning again on the first page of someone else’s life.
(In order of appearance, this cento borrows lines from: Deonte Osayande (“Anxiety,” Issue 9); Shome Dasgupta (“River Streams,” Issue 14); Rich Larson (“Last Night I Dreamed You,” Issue 14); Noreen Ocampo (“Flight,” Issue 14); Christy Anna Jones (“Elephant,” Issue 9); Nichole Snyder (“lie to me and we’ll pretend words aren’t blows we can’t take back,” Issue 9); Lindsey Bellosa (“Marriage,” Issue 9); Nichole Snyder (“lie to me and we’ll pretend words aren’t blows we can’t take back,” Issue 9); Rich Larson (“Last Night I Dreamed You,” Issue 14); Natalya Sukhonos (“To begin again,” Issue 9)).
Aura Martin is a writer from Missouri. She is the author of the chapbook, Those Embroidered Suns (Lazy Adventurer Publishing, 2020) and the micro-chapbook, Thumbprint Lizards (Maverick Duck Press, 2019). Aura’s work has appeared in EX/POST MAGAZINE, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, perhappened mag, and elsewhere. In Aura’s free time, she likes to run, take road trips, and interview writers. Find her on Twitter @instamartin17.
Emerge Literary Journal 