Equilibrium by Nicolette Wong

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For Julien Tatham Heroine The morning puts on a translucent blue coat, held for it by broken rays of sun. I draw loneliness on charcoal paper for her to unravel. Now unbounded, with a conquering violence, she bleeds open in my hand. *** Drawing The day is spent, unlucky in smoke and rain. On my path are silent lives breathing in cells: in buildings, rooms and compartments in the minds of strangers. Traces of her are blurring in my coat pocket—I cannot hold her. *** Equilibrium I shift in between the repercussions of her voice, cold and unyielding like the sleep of stone. An image of her multiples and rushes down memories: her handwriting on a cigarette box, my waking up to a room of mist, to a nip on her little morsel of flesh. *** Stones The story is scorching. Falling down ashen as the tip of the pencil breaks. It invades my present: a pair of tombstones in a faraway place, dew on wet grass, treading on softness until all is oblivion. It should be so easy to give up. *** Flame In the darkened room the flame penetrates and is gone.

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