Lelani Benavides, “Fairylights / same person two sides”
A chain lies in the snow, and a woman sheds a tear
Searching for her small and rusted locket.
Her skin burns at the feel of pricking silver flakes
But the frosted daggers hold no mercy and pursue their fall.
Her hands go weak and numb, and her mind wanders lost.
Maybe she’d want to be forgotten.
Yet she feared the day the gold had forgot them
And pushed on as the frozen tear
Of somber clung to her skin like the lost
Winds of crumbled mountains which bury that frozen locket
Deeper as winter comes and lets the fall
Fade with foreign flakes.
But when at last that grey photograph flakes,
Could love fleet as her heart’s forgotten.
As her fingertips begin to fall
Her soul is one that tears
Just as the chipping locket
Might, until the freezing woman feels she’s lost.
But she can’t be lost
No matter the cold or darkened flakes;
She’ll search until the withered winds should confine and lock
That relic of metal unloved, until she’s forgotten
Herself as her own photos tear
And dread may flood her heart full,
Just as it did when the chain fell
From her neck, and just as it will when she sinks to loss
And wipes away the final tear
As if she doesn’t feel the burn. She knows she’s faking
The warmth until the cold should be forgotten
But the cold couldn’t reach her is she locks it
Shut, just as she would her favorite locket
She forced her eyes to hold the fall
And let her sorrows be forgotten
For if she lets herself get lost
The golden chain should prove love fake
And rip from her her lively tear
And might she find that broken locket as her footsteps lead her lost
She’ll join the snow with gold in hand and pray to silver snowflakes
As they melt into her skin, forgotten, as she did her tears.