Featured in the 2021 Winter Issue of Rambunctious
Sestina Sarah Feng, '22 Of all the world, you are the only thing I want to call mine. I’ve held the world, drank the sunsets, burning red, And danced on clouds, but you, lover, You remind me what life is, beautiful and delicate. You grew into my life, taking hostage of my heart like ivy, Stealing my thoughts, taking my last moments of peace. But what, lover, is a moment of peace, When my hand is held by the only thing that I can call mine? A secret, a door hidden with curtains of ivy, But to us, for me, a paradise, glittering red. For me, a place to hide, to put down my heart, delicate, So close to shattering, but safe in your hands, lover. I want to follow you into every storm, lover I want every wind to blow away every scrap of peace Leaving us with only our entwined hands, the delicate Balance of me becoming you, the combination of what is yours and what is mine. Your eyes are the sparks of every fire, dangerous, red, Your heart is stone, solid and steadfast, and I cling to you, the ivy. When I am reminded of ancient castles, crumbling under the ivy, When I have lost myself to you completely, what then will we have become, lover? Will we still be young, in love and at the same time destroyed, lingering in the pale red Of a dying sun, hoping for a semblance of the old peace That we found in each other, surrounded by the flotsam of the life that used to be mine And yours? Will we find a new life amid the ruin, or rebuild, brick upon brick, ever so delicate? For that is what life is and always will be: delicate, And ever changing, and I vie For a place in yours to call mine. I am consumed by you, lover, But are you consumed by me? Do you know peace Beyond our shared heartbeat, the anchor in a haze of red? Because loving you is running every red, Shattering everything I’ve ever known, every delicate Feeling or thought in wild pursuit of what will never give me peace, But promises to. My walls have fallen, lover, I am tangled in your roots of ivy And I am helpless. I have nothing left to give to you, lover, You have everything, you own me in totality, but what of you is mine? Somewhere, in the long nights spent drinking your red wine, I have been poisoned by your ivy. During lazy mornings in your bed, the delicate touch of your hands created me, a lover Of only one, eternally restless, searching for the peace I was promised, but can never be mine.