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Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2019
I hardly journey there anymore.

Those ruins are far and distant,
Far and distant, and black and grey.
Relics are moon rocks in the frozen landscape.

The grand façade of the pantheon has
Crumbled into sand. I could crush it all into
Dust beneath my heel.

The mind itself is an eye, a camera obscura,
Lit not by the moon—
That old pinged marble—

Over whose surface I skim in my tiny submarine.
The lunar scene fills my vision,
Film noir.

I spy the cold garden. In the heart of it
Gleams the litter of my chicken bones.
My cowardice the wicked reminder,

Consequence of the role I performed
For the impassive audience. I underwent
A sea change in the theatre of their minds.

On some other plane
Holy voyeurs peer through spyglass,
Seeking to undress the celestial paramour.

Such delicious vacancy—
**** statue in an arena of eyes,
Gristle picked clean by vultures.

The air is ****** dry. Cold stars
Abound in the black sky.
Smeared ink the lingering impression,

Smudged thumbprint.
Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2019
Does memory deserve such a platter?
Cellophane instead of silver, but still
An impressive tower.

Such weight it bears—
Exhibit of blue curiosities
Resting on shoulders,

Original honeycombs.
The honeyeater feasts
On what has made a meal of me.

Grand rooms echo with silence.
Love turned to hate
So often without comment.

A history of broken hearts lies beneath
Street level. Away from sun’s glare
I buried them.

It is a tomb I walk in, tour guide
To myself. It is an ossuary hidden deep
Underground. It is the Catacombs of Paris.

Here moldering in the dark repose
A stack of secret skulls and bones—
Those gleeful arsonists.

In the end, even they succumbed
To the fires they set,
Burning down chapels without regret.

The city rumbles overhead, oblivious.
Everyone is absorbed with their own busyness.
No one pauses to wonder outside the still museum.

The cool façade belies the treasures hidden within.
They forget the history we share.
No visitor ascends the stair.

Inside, all is quiet.
The sole curator walks among the artifacts—
The rare objects, a Gordian knot,

The personas we once wore:
The naked emperor, the femme fatale,
The honeycunt.
Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2019
Drowned world
in a miasma of plastic.
I turn to love
is not just a flash
in the pan. I am moody walls
and stone borders,
eyes on the horizon,
the quickening ****** sunset.
I try to believe in some heaven
that I am here.
I should pay more attention.
I should bloom like a flower
underneath your sun,
rewarding you
with an infinite unfurling of petals.
The night need not crush.
It may reveal its stars.
The child brides’ shrieks
do not always
denote pain.
Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2019
Peel back the layers
of my rural purgatory.

Figure out
the critical junctures
of where I once stood,
with this one,
now on TV, and this one,
surfing in Hawaii.

I was a **** girl, spreading
my legs for sailors, and
getting crucified for it.

I am guilty
of still imagining
our beautiful possibilities.

Death may yet
claim him, and my ****
are still round
and firm.
Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2019
There are worse places,
little girl. Worse hells.
This isn’t one of them.
There are depths you haven’t yet seen,
where the dive alone
would **** you.
The sea monster of my depths,
curled still, and waiting,
waiting for me.
I imagine his hand on my ***.
I imagine all the trespasses
I would never let happen
(never again).
There is the scene of the crime—
I’ll be there once again—
I’ll take a photograph of it
again—
where he knew,
despite the hand that he let caress
its way downward, despite
his fingers that fumbled
towards ecstasy,
he knew—
he knew
that he never should have touched me.
The conversation about consent should have started a long time ago.
Erin Suurkoivu Oct 2019
Break me into chasm
then let the love pour in—
flower into deep well—
stem the umbilicus
of what you could say
you knew of me—

the privilege of living
inside your own head—
and me,
something made of sand,
a wink—

something of one
of many lives ago,
though how well
you knew me—
as did he—
how well they saw me—
and maybe no one did.

We were lovers
in a past life.
And now
I am obscure as
lost Atlantis, origin
of the fairy tale—
fragile
as gossamer and
the Holy Grail.
This poem came about after seeing somebody I used to know on Facebook making a comment on a mutual friend's wall.
Erin Suurkoivu Oct 2019
Where does it hurt today?

My teeth/sinuses,
Sciatic nerve,
*****, perineum,
*******?

But not my heart
(no, no more my heart).
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