

Jelena Petrović
I find myself to be a place.
A place ‘where the actual and the imaginary meet’. A place where I go to listen to metal music, the only one that helps me find peace. Where I go to read books and breathe (both of which I do painfully slowly). Where I go to ‘sit down and bleed out’ on the paper and maybe get a chance to write something down.
I am made of fire and water. Also, my birthday is in December.
Where to Now?
Raise your glass
In the name of everything
That’s sunk beneath the surface.
Raise your glass
To honor the fact
That you would swallow the embers
Of your victory
Only to destroy the evidence
Only to make it less significant
Because we all know how hard it is to be wrong.
Raise your glass
To all kinds of memories
That seeped through your skin
As you were sliding further into chaos.
Raise your glass
To all the dry lips
And the dry walls
And to the passing of time.
So reckless of you to think you can ever change that.
Raise your glass
To all the closed windows
And all the closed doors
And all the times you were forgetful
Of how it hurts to be wrong.
Raise your glass
For what the future might bring
For all that might resurface
And break your precious hourglass.
The soul remembers.
Avoid eye contact.
Propose a toast
To all the damned
Breathing down your neck
Begging for more time
Demanding resolve.
Propose a toast
To the dreams you renounced
To the vetoed places and names and people.
Leave it all deep in slumber.
Propose a toast
To you and your shadow
To sanity, to apathy
To the mantle that you wear when you pretend to be God.
Propose a toast
To the wounded
To their scars, to their lost battles
To their broken hands
Shattered worlds.
Propose a toast
To your kith and kin
To all that deem your desperate orders
Dangerously unpredictive.
Thank them; they still pay you reverence.
Propose a toast
To the insignificant.
Their pleas are the loudest.
This is where they all belong.
There are no remedies
For their lifelong regret.
Raise your glass and drown in sin.
Propose a toast and hope to win.
We’re gathered here and we will bow.
We pray for forgiveness – where to now?