Syllables by Ally Malinenko

Syllables
by Ally Malinenko

There are others who have died,
and I realize that even when I talk to myself
-- about you.

Or when someone says your name,
which sounds strange coming out of their mouth.
Like a foreign word.

Because I’m used to it only being spoken
by the voice I use in my head.

Which is different from the voice I use out loud.

Even when loved ones form the syllables that
make up the word that I called you, I am taken aback to hear it.

In the dream I had last night
the planets came crashing to earth.

They broke free with a sharp twang
from the wire strings that held them
suspended in the sky

and they smashed down around us,
like boulders left by a glacier.

And the dark night sky turned pink and purple
like a bruise.
A smear against the stars.
And I cowered in fear.
No one believed me. They kept staring at their TV.

They said it was just a television show.
But it wasn’t.
It was real death.
It was a tidalwave of frozen tears.
It was her drowning.

It was a god, reborn, pink and weaning
lonely up in all that blackness
and he was never going to look down at us.
And we were never going to look up at him.

Author bio:

Ally Malinenko has had her poems published by Alembic, Blind Man’s Review, Small Brushes, Whiskey Island Magazine, The Unknown Writer, HeART, Mad Poets Society, Posey, Jack Magazine, Words-Myth, Pens on Fire, Sugar Mule, The New Yinzer, Delirio, Zygote in My Coffee, Orange Room Review, Why Vandalism?, Mad Swirl and Gutter Eloquence. She is also a contributing poet to Reading Ground Blogazine hosted by Breedingground.com. Her fiction has been published by the New Yinzer. Her first book of poems, entitled The Wanting Bone, was recently published by Six Gallery Press. She recently completed a novel for children and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two cats.