Anya/Oliver
Anya/Oliver (she/they) is a writer, poet, crafter, and creator from a small town in the Southern United States. After studying in New York, they moved abroad to wed their partner and now live in Venice, Italy, with two huge cats. Anya’s chronic illness shapes her art the way the moon shapes the tides: it is constant, it can be predictable, in some ways, perhaps, it is beautiful. For Oliver, identity is a strange concept that is always moving and is more connected to the body than the self. Their work is often inspired by and in spite of their religious upbringing.
All I am
These are the only moments I have with you
stolen whispers against the bitter night windows,
the look of your hair in the cloudy moonlight as you pass by
your eyes, weeping, tired and harsh in hospital white
I watch you cry
from the mirror
clandestine and holy tears make rosaries down your face and neck.
I brush under your eyes
and count the drops
as they run across my finger tips
you are silent in prayer
but your lips trace words foreign to me
memories I have forgotten
and when I look back
I wonder who you are.
Drought Shock
25 and 19
years stacked inside—
those kiddie cups multicolored
the old veins of a tree
I wish I was the pine
now, knowing from six years
ago how to survive
the drought
not the pine
of six years ago
still living
through thirst, trachea thin
esophagus dry
the shock of needles
browning, falling,
gone.
I want to be the pine
with memories
not the pine reliving
the drought every summer.
I want to be the pine
who forgets everything
but the lesson.
I want to be the pine
that lives with everyone
else living too.
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