A Memory; A Pillar

There’s a cavern where she stood;
A bombed out crater, irradiated.
If I enter that circumference, I know
I’ll choke on grief, like some personal Chernobyl.
Suffocate on memories as translucent as dead skin,
Small things—small moments—that fill up the lungs,
Cut them up,
Like glass.

I had her. She held me. I know this,
From stories whispered by relatives
Her old friends, gripping my hand, to commiserate by the escalator
In frigid, sterile shopping malls.
From old photographs, sepia-toned,
that sit on neglected bookshelves
In a room
in an apartment
that’s cordoned off;
In a cavern, echoing.

A rainy day. A coughing fit.
She blinked, became a ghost,
Became a brass plaque on a columbarium;
Became a crater; a cavern;
A noose,
Something to hang ourselves with.
A mirror, a fly stuck in amber,
A photo at the beach, turning,
Holding my sister’s hand,
Turning
Into
Salt.

By: Christopher Villanueva Blackett

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Chris Villanueva Blackett is a native New Yorker, born to Filipino and English immigrants. After losing his mother in infancy, he was raised by his father, who instilled in him a deep appreciation for the escape that books provide—his childhood bedroom doubled as a library filled with Isaac Asimov, Terry Pratchett, and dog-eared science-fiction paperbacks.

Chris studied English Literature at Tufts University before teaching for several years in East Harlem through Teach for America. He later earned a dual MBA/MPA from NYU and now works in the EdTech sector, where he serves as a corporate cog by day while running a semi-successful education newsletter on the side.

He currently lives in New York City with his wife and their two dogs.