Venus
"Reaching for the Moon" by Sulyn Godsey
VENUS
by Miguel Guerreiro Lourenço
I believe that I have lived many lives before this one.
I have met her before, even if I wasn’t really me
and she was someone else. I am pretty sure,
we both fell in love all those other times.
In Pompeii I took up a chisel and carved
on a wall: If anyone does not believe in Venus,
they should gaze at my girlfriend. To this day
I believe that. I believe that like my hexed eyes,
I too have fallen in love with her yet again.
Myths grow from tales known and told,
throughout ages and souls and hell if I know,
if I haven’t bathed in the River Styx just so I
could hold her hand a second longer—
and I know that I drowned happily.
We were driving home and I told her about
an ex of mine that didn’t believe in Evolution.
She asked me if that didn’t throw me off
that dying horse and I said no, because I knew,
deep down, that I wouldn’t ride it long.
I know now like I knew back then, that all things
end and her, and us, and we, even if meant to be
will end too.
But I told her: I hope it’s from old age.
I hope this doesn’t break due to a stupid mistake,
but from brittle bones and back-breaking memories.
When my eyes are glazed from cataracts and my heart
skips too many beats, I want to hold her hand again,
not to be drowned by Hades’ moat but by Vesuvius’
gloating hell blaze.
I too sometimes burst. I too am a volcano,
erupting happiness and washing down whole
bunches of people with hot, oozing poetry
about that girl that I vandalized walls for.
I have fallen, drowned and burned for her,
but this love is neither suicide or murder.
It is true and never-ending, age-lasting.
Fuelled by a fool, a goddess and passion.
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Miguel Guerreiro Lourenço is a Portuguese writer, currently living and studying in the United Kingdom. A prolific poet, Miguel is influenced by many contemporary artists and slampoets and his love for music, namely hip-hop, when writing most of his pieces, especially in the flow and rhyme schemes. When inspiration is combined with his penchant for sensory details and metaphors, and the alignment of the planets, some of his work can be perceived to be... good... sometimes?
