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[theinscrutableescapee]

audience participation

Last night. “A volunteer from the crowd?” murmured a croaky voice with a smile that bled through the dark. She stood up, a little too quickly, a little too ready to succumb to the sacrifice. That, she remembers. Let her smoke-filled lungs breathe under the blinding spotlight.

Now. The cherry pits leak red into the closed palms of her hands as she rattles the melting ice in her glass. An orange tree branch dipping into foamless waters, honey skin melting in the tide. She sits back onto the burnt grass, letting purple Chinese shadows dance on her closed eyelids. Time stretches out

Like

    the

      Loose

              String

of her fishnets from the night before. The same blinding light. The same vague shapeless shadows, taunting her from afar, gnawing at her bones. The same disaccord of light striping her eyes.

The stage light, the gunned golden lacquered sun of her southern childhood, was thudding against her cherry-stained, wine-stained cheeks. She opened its parlor doors and let the smoke of its colorless memories edge into her mind. Whistles in the dark. Bills itching her skin like burnt grass.

She could almost hear it again: A volunteer from the crowd? A chronic daydream that latches onto nightmares.

© Margaux Emmanuel

[theinscrutableescapee]

the sun was poorly tuned, still glimmered in the dark so I poured him a drink; post-curfew happiness

© Margaux Emmanuel

[theinscrutableescapee]

time, show me your hand let me flirt with your cards come on, let me pick one, just one, let me be surprised let the needle of your minutes, of your aces, pierce into my skin let them be the scars of my youth from when I had receipts in my pockets from nights I never lived from when I built castles with the sand of your hour glass from when I unbricked my school with sneers of contempt from when I saw beer in the foamy shores of the Euphrates from when I wrote arbitrary letters on the lampshade dust the simmering silence until the light turned on l o o k a t t h e c l o c k [look at the clock] but the time on the clock had stopped seconds minutes hours three damoclean swords had escaped to hang above my head I used to be so young, never too old never too bold but in three million seconds you’d lay your cards on the table and show me the way out I was never a player at this game the wild shuffled heartbeat of youth was the tremor of the metronome but now now you smile and I don’t know if you’re bluffing or not so please, time, show me your hand.

never too old

[theinscrutableescapee]

kabukicho

There was a bar fight in Kabukicho, a gunshot in my ears. Loud, deafening. Empty. An actor, a haunted ghost dragged his body onto the stage, the sticky night grabbing his ankles, a hole, freshly carved out by an imaginary bullet, gaping open in his chest. He trembled as he held a glass in his hand, as if he had wanted to drink to the possible, the impossible, his winces in pain hidden by his mask. All there was was him  and the smell of stale tobacco and streaks of red delving into his cheeks. He rattled the melting ice in his glass, reflecting the 80 watt red light venom of his eyes, where silhouettes were pressed against the sliding doors of his pupils, black shadows on which he has never seen the sun rise. The amber flicker of another life replaces his agate grace with sadness, stretches out time like a loose string. He’s playing the last act, chewing on the passersby’s skin like flavorless gum.

© Margaux Emmanuel

[theinscrutableescapee]

17

they were all desperate

to light your cigarette

only seventeen years old

but lips leafed in gold

I stopped believing in god

the moment I saw you,

you sepia-toned haunted ghost

you keyed the words

of your own stolen bible

on the edge of my tongue

your eyes were a pool of dusk

where I saw shadow puppets

dancing on candlelight

rose-pricked skin

and I had only ever seen

the rosy dawn

that never dared to kiss me

at the end of the night

you’d be gone in the morning,

and I’d still feel you

against my skin

as if you had been

my very own 

living nightmare

as if you had said the things

you had never thought

never said

but that I had always longed

to hear. 

[theinscrutableescapee]

poisoned apricots 

under the frozen floorboards

of a sick child’s heart 

[theinscrutableescapee]

2003

Postcards from Saigon

yellowed pictures

pants rolled up to his knees

dark ray bans

thick rims

raindrops on lips

or raindrop lips

his eyes,

a different shade of brown

those that say

“buy me a beer

before I change my mind”,

dusty eyelids

a scar

lingering

under his eye

a dog-eared book

in his hand

where he wrote in the margins

These

are

the

lines

that

prove

that

my

existence

is

a

mistake

but you only read 

the pencil prophecy

after

you had kissed him  

after

he had taken

all of those

painkillers

after

he had written that letter

saying

“I too

was once loved,

but not by you”.

© Margaux Emmanuel 2018

[theinscrutableescapee]

visiting hours are over

a melody from western japan

    sticks to the tears you begin to cry

“visiting hours are over”

    the curtains of your heart close

you sit on the stage

    and fold

origami feelings

    delicate

intricate

    intimate

weak

now

    you can take off your mask

and let yourself hum

    quietly

nervously

    and wait

to hear the same tune

    from the audience’s side

© Margaux Emmanuel