CALL ON THE VANISHING // Poem by Victoria Garcia

look at you. i see dark

then self

like i've crossed

a broiling. a cloud lined 

with brewing

while light inside 

the yukon gold

comes full boil,

wakes flesh,

and leaves

cruelty. all i can give 

is more of the same.

hunger to hunger

speak of

want with smote.

starlings fly up from the hunger

as dim-lit, wiry nothings—

caged hallucinations

razor sharp from flight.

fly over

with a torso no more

than light.

night comes near,

comes next 

in the sequence of events 

threaded through the black eye 

over afterlife.

a dirty starling

plummets

in the shape

of a burning rose,

and i feel responsible.

watching, waiting, asking

if the thorn is capture

cut into the snake 

as it divines

terror. stereotypical

i know. not the albino dream

of snake skin 

escaping an instance

like the white gown 

of god's presence 

pacing

in low-light.

Victoria Garcia is a poet and creative writer residing in Panama City Beach, Florida. She studied Creative Writing at The Institute of Art and Design at New England College. Her poetry has a surrealistic bent that captures the otherworldly and hallucinatory