Poet: Cassandra Troyan, Chicago, IL
Smalldoggies Poetry Feature #15: Cassandra Troyan, Chicago, IL
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We are in Debt to Retreating Light
Sometimes we open
our mouths to a voice that
is not divined;
I don’t know why.
These shapes confused
with longing,
their angles all
hungry.
Jaws of ennui,
it’s the parting sigh,
the absence wishing not
to be benign.
It wants to be malignant.
How something soft can hurt us.
The plushed flesh, bundled
lips overstuffed;
freshly plucked.
A sweet sodden bird
comes crashing down,
wings bent heavy and
honeystuck,
the weighted pluck.
We are always left with the thing facing us.
Exit the self without
endowed grace, the necessity
of time without place.
Ripped out our limb veins,
overgrown.
Love makes you grow.
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The Balance of Stuckness and Timing
There was that one time in that self-sustainable floating house in the Copenhagen harbor and I think you were playing Shubert and it was the golden hour so the light was low and bright and warm and we didn’t say anything while bobbing gently on residual waves and my Swedish friend Camilla was there too and she never has much to say either, always twisting her hair and picking at her ripped tights, but not in a bad way, and I thought how badly I wanted to sleep with you right then, not sure if it was out of complete attraction, your face was appealing, weighted eyes and a bent nose, but I think I more wanted to fuck you out of wanting to conquer the moment in a desperate act of ownership. Remembering your body in finite detail, I would truly never forget a single trace, even if it was engraved with regret; these markers of the levity of presence, indelible nudges towards grace.
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Trying To Be Held by a World Which No Longer Exists
What could this
moment want, this
being held, this viewing
of everything
simultaneously,
this unfolding of a stained
cross-country map.
How can we hold
each other with purpose
all at once?
The attention of frailty,
alerted
stark let’s meet
for the last time
on an island in
the Finnish
Archipelago in a
lie of solitude
caught in the ravishing of
each other, navigating
through movements
of cultural expectation
endless alcohol
winter cottage
a sauna we
enter that then enters
us the ice shields
collecting our flesh,
inspecting then
folding
discretely.
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In the House of My Regrets
I keep watching
as my electronic text message
gets fed into the mouth of a
mailbox again and
again and
again
and
again until
its sucked away
into the
ravenous hole.
The letter is gone
and its Sunday morning
and I am still gigantically
forgettable.
Full up but guzzling
on second story
beer bongs, and nothing
is more insane
than watching the
equivalent of 20 feet
enter into someone’s body,
and disappear.
The trauma of loss
is baffling, but
the swelling remains
thereafter.
We can never hide the bloat.
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Cassandra Troyan is an artist and writer who is a MFA candidate at the University of Chicago for Visual Arts. She has a chapbook written with her brother Cody Troyan, entitled, Big Bill and the Lonely Nation. She curates the reading and performance series EAR EATER in Chicago, IL and her work is currently or forthcoming in Bluestem, decomP, Everyday Genius, JMWW, H_NGM_N, New Wave Vomit, Pop Serial, and The Scrambler among other places.
More of her work can be read here: Cassandra Troyan