Author: Olavia Kite

Silence, like a blank paper, gives way to a faint trace of whispers. My swift steps into the station. I’m boarding the victory train—an escape from nonexistence. Her music is coming with me, diving into the white, digging hope out of the void. Looking for you. Her watercolor voice paints a deep turquoise river for me to follow, and we glide under the light traversing the brush-like branches. She’s drawing an enormous stone bridge that could’ve held carriages and white wigs if it weren’t a product of this now that she’s talking about. A now long gone. She speaks of towns whose names I am bound not to remember, empty stations waiting for no one. Her voice is placing houses on the mountains, and I’d swear it’s just a painting if I didn’t see cars moving in the distance. You promised you would buy me Arabian sweets. You promised you would take me shopping for cheese. She sings about these promises—about a hand in the dark walking me through an impossible tunnel, about the blue sky and the tree against the window. She sings about a russet hill touching the horizon, and about you forgetting my name. I’m expectant. I wonder how you look like standing on the platform—but I cannot find out. I’ve listened to this song so many times, yet it always runs too short. In hopes for a faint glimpse of your face I play it over and over. Return to point zero. Dashing into the station. I’m riding that train forever: we will never meet again.

some people have congregated
around the right books

knitted eyebrows
hands holding chins

discussing about
the solidity of characters
the sharp social criticism
the fine storytelling skills
the themes of life and death and love
revisited.

some others are pondering
about the right album

slowly bobbing heads
huge earphones like a toreador’s hat

applauding how it
departs from earlier tradition
experiments with different genres
achieves a new sound
deserves its place
among this year’s revelations.

and me

I’m alone
on a crossroad

surrounded by water
and headless rice stalks

completely incapable of
analyzing
describing
naming
daring to conjecture what could be
the right afternoon light.

But don’t feel so bad,
I still think about
Your boobs from time to time.