Selected Poetry by Avra Margariti

Photo Source: Pixabay

Hanging Fruits

There is a garden

and in it we hang as fruits from a tree

swollen pomegranates

grittysweet plums

peaches with their skin like the dawn

This tree is not one but many

a Franken-tree, if you will

a myriad different bough grafts twisting

and merging together

not strangling but staking

not a noose but a lifeline

from which we hang past wrongdoings

and self-righteousness

a bloodletting of nectar watering the sweet earth

with sour remorse

When it’s time for us to come down

the vines will twine into a stairway

the garden will explode in song

of lovers standing side by side

their hurts acquitted,

compressed into compost

to nourish hybrid roots.

Ruinous Beauty

Fissures traverse my stone thighs

my marble arms

my brick and mortar

a city crumbling, crushed

under time’s toxic tears

I may look dull in the sun

but under UV lights I flourish

my ruins fluorescent runes

writing and footstep echos

of those who once were

love notes on my walls

hearts pierced by arrows

bare bodies invisible to the naked eye

ravaged, ravenous

Warning signs flare

ray cats detecting radiation

it all looks rose pink to me

radioactive darling

your insides glowing neon pink

through your jellyfish chest

come on, come over

rain another wave of destruction down

you know I love my marble pillars

wet and sticky with acid storms

Blessed Is the Final Girl

Whose daddy, star-and-moonshine drunk, showed her

How to fire a gun even if she almost lost a hand

Several times in the process

Whose mommy, breathing smoke like a graying dragon,

taught her to run and hide

where a killer’s

body and ego could not fit

Whose BFFs, beaded bracelets and colorful retainers,

died in the woods

way back in middle school

three lost girls’ souls in a trench coat

bequeathing her the will to survive

This final girl is the one most likely to make it out alive.

Perhaps she’ll get out

on her own two feet;

perhaps on a stretcher;

perhaps she’ll crawl

through rainslick mud

or roommates’ remains.

But she will get out nonetheless,

middle finger

raised, blood embedded under the nail

like a blooming rose of spite.

Like Moths or Lovers

We put dried lavender in the pockets

of old sweaters

love confession woven

in each warp thread

simmering hate in the weft.

The powdery-winged moths

inside the wardrobe

grow to starved husks longing for the taste of

something soft.

We air out musty armoire drawers

to keep the old lover ghosts at bay.

Their bodies brittle, dainty

as bleached phalanges, chipped teacups, or tear-swollen lace.

Their shadows keep

coming back for more

attaching themselves to what’s no longer here.

We dine on liquorice cough syrup and masochistic memory pâté

on crackers, crumbling on linen sheets.

We go to bed with bloated stomachs

and twitching fingertips.

Avra Margariti is a queer Social Work undergrad from Greece. She enjoys storytelling in all its forms and writes about diverse identities and experiences. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Daily Science Fiction, The Forge Literary, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Argot Magazine, The Arcanist, and other venues. You can find her on twitter @avramargariti.