By Julian Matthews
Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
In my mind, all my memories of you are in italics.
That is to say, leaning to the right, defying gravity.
As if they were all Michael Jacksons in Smooth Criminal.
Held up by trick heels on stage.
Awaiting punctuation: a dash, a colon,
or a period to deliberately freeze frame
this sentence of my life.
Then continue their slowdance
across an imagined past.
Memories are never served straight up.
They are diluted by a crooked bartender.
Take them in double-shots, neat without ice–
down ‘em quick, lean forward and move on.
If you lean back, let them linger, dwell,
they throttle the throat, choke you as if in mid-drown,
eyes clog up, and you can’t breathe.
If you allow them to fester, take hold, seize the heart,
parenthesize your life, you lose it.
Memories of you always end in ellipsis.
A trail of three dots, incomplete
like three fading heartbeats…
Not the three on the top right corner
of a window to click on.
There is no sub-menu in this interface,
nothing pops down, no dialogue.
Only this infernal monologue.
The actor in me on a darkened stage.
A single overhead, conical light
and an audience of one.
You.
Until I forget my lines, get up and exit
moonwalking, stage left. Bent double
like a question mark. Two tracks of flipped
quote marks, reversing up cheeks into tear ducts
in slo-mo.
You pause, confused, slow clap,
then leave.
Again…
First published in Blot literary magazine, Issue 1, edited by Fin Hall, Scotland.
