Souvenir

A Journal

"I'm going to come back to West Virginia when this is over. There's something ancient and deeply-rooted in my soul. I like to think that I have left my ghost up one of those hollows, and I'll never really be able to leave for good until I find it. And I don't want to look for it, because I might find it and have to leave".----Breece D'J Pancake, in a letter to his mother. 

Nic Alea

 

Salt #4

 

I ate saltwater first, strange syrup, 
washed it over clean gums from fallen teeth, 
I’m a mouth, or inside of one, 
the gorgeous earth rock melted,
can’t wait for it to blow again,
every twenty minutes volcanoes blast their core
and I applaud from the sidelines, 
is it a wicked thing to clap my hands over lava or destruction,
nature demands it and isn’t that a gift from god?

Last night I dreamt of
stacks of eucalyptus trunks
with their bodies burned from flames
and then I remembered bush fires and canyon fires
and the delicious taste of dry brush
and I tried to take a picture of the flames, 
blue heat etching into my cheeks, 
the photos, pure white, couldn’t catch the fire, 
cameras don’t work in dreams
even of dead farm land,
washed out white ghosts, an apparition, 
I think I saw it coming. 

 

 

Eggs

 

Eggs hit the house like white meteorites,
explode on the back door makes the dogs bark wild,

I am trying with fervor to accept the weather
and its evolution of the day, 

the teenage boys juggling chook eggs
howl back at the dogs, 

this time with beer bottles smashed up shit, 
train tracks rattle and the boys settle
lest their mothers call for them earlier than dusk.

Last summer I burned most of the fat on
my legs on the mouth of the sun, 

let me tell you again about the sun, 
it’s a hot ball of fire, yes, we know this, 

but what you don’t know is the weight of that sparking
flame ball against your shoulders, dripping you sideways,

it would be a lie to say I lost any of my body to the sun, 
all I really did was collapse in a bathtub,

pull the drain
and funnel out, 
cool and full of water. 

 


Nic Alea Author Photo.png

Resurrected photographs of an old sea side town, the sun through the window on my neck is so warm and isn't love the thing we throw into our packs to bring home? Is it love or is it sand that slips through our fingers, collected in a glass jar, it just sits on the shelf; no sea, no sun.

Nic Alea is a poet and fiction writer from California with a B.A. in Creative Writing. They hold a fellowship from the Lambda Literary Foundation and were voted one of SF Weekly’s 2014 “Best Writers without a Book.”Nic has performed at the National Queer Arts Festival and has work featured in journals such as Muzzle Magazine, the Paris American, The Legendary, Word Riot, and Write Bloody. Nic also writes for QueerMentalHealth.org and is working on their debut novel. Nic currently lives and writes in Melbourne, Australia.