Read the latest from The Source!
Content warning: addiction

That sticky sweet smell lingers in the air, flickering and dissipating again and again, a smoke cloud burning with the memory of your gentle fingers cradling glass after glass after glass. It is a fire that never burns out. Those glasses, those half-washed, fully poured glasses were your greatest love. You found them impossible to resist; relentlessly tempting, they seduced you with their golden-brown complexion, making your heart race and forcing hot blood to tickle your veins. They made tingles crawl up your spine, made the hairs on the back of your neck quiver with a sensation only equitable with feeling alive.

They let you forget.

The first time was understandable. The second, forgivable. But the third, fourth, fifth, sixth…? You leant on those glasses like they were the oxygen keeping you alive. With every breath, a little part of you would burn away – the heat from those love affairs boiled and bubbled away inside of you, pushing you further and further away from the you we all knew. From the you that we all loved.

You would stumble home, your crutch buckling under the weight of your guilt and self-hatred because you knew it was wrong. You desperately tried to hide all evidence of your illicit affairs with the golden girls. But it was futile – those golden-brown drops seeped into your skin and engulfed you, making your hair, your skin, your sweat, sour with their putrid aftertaste.

That sickeningly sweet, sticky smell tormented you, constantly luring you back into the embrace of your golden-brown lovers again and again and again until you were left lying alone, helpless, that sticky sweet smell no longer emanating from your breath.

Your heart no longer pumping hot blood through your veins.

Years have passed since that sticky sweet smell stung our eyes and made us sick with sadness. Years have passed since your warm, gentle fingers were replaced with a cold stone slab, memorialising our love for you as if you were a saint and we were your followers. Years have passed since your greatest love took you away from the ones who loved you most.

Yet, after all those years, the aftertaste of your addiction still hangs in the air. Because now, that sticky sweet smell lingers in the memory of your wife, the nightmares of your daughter, the breath of your son. A fire that never burnt out.

Maybe those half-cleaned, fully poured, golden glasses shouldn’t have been your greatest love.

Maybe you should have chosen us.

It’s a crazy little thing, love.

Analysis by the writer

This piece is about addiction, specifically alcoholism. It is something my father struggled with and something that I wanted to try to delve into from the perspective of what it must have been like for him, but also how it affected those who were close to him.

The reference to ‘sticky sweet’ comes from how I used to see beer. It was something I hated, especially its smell, because it reminded me of my father’s struggles and specifically how dangerous alcohol could be when someone was dependent on it. For years I refused to drink alcohol, due to a fear that it was almost a magical entity which would consume you and turn you into an alcoholic even after just one sip. Thankfully, I have come to realise that this is not the case, and that it can be used responsibly, but I do still believe that it changes a person and turns them into someone that they aren’t, whether this is bad or good. Hence, in the reference to drinks being “relentlessly tempting”, “seducing” and “impossible to resist”, I was imagining how alcohol must be perceived to someone with an addiction, as something wholly consuming and which made them feel alive, keeping them coming back for more even when it was ultimately hurting them and those around them. I wanted to show alcohol’s transformative effect; I imagine it almost as a possession, that alcohol, once it has gotten its grip on you, drags you deeper down with it, and farther away from the person you are and those you love. It makes you hurt them even when you don’t want or mean to, whether that be emotionally or physically.

Addiction is different for everyone. There is no universal reason as to why someone develops an addiction, but I believe it often stems from a struggle with something that you don’t know how to deal with. Thus, the line “they let you forget” is a reference to this, because in my father’s case, I believe much of his dependency on alcohol came from things from his past that haunted him, and he couldn’t quite get over. He had a hard life, and though he sought help he was not able to get it, leading him further down this rabbit hole.

My father was not a bad man, he was kind, loving and very special. He would do anything for those he loved and tried to make lasting memories with us all when he could. By referencing how the smell of alcohol tormented him, I wanted to make a point of the fact that he was just as much a victim of his addiction as the people around him were, to ensure that the memory of him was not tainted by his struggle with addiction. There is always a tendency to glorify a person after they have passed away, to respect them, however, I tried to make sure that both the good and bad parts were represented in this writing, so he was remembered for the person he was, not solely by the good or the bad.

It was ultimately my father’s drinking which caused him to pass away, leaving behind a loving family and friends, none of whom were able to say goodbye. But in this, I wanted to remind myself and my family of the good memories we had while he was here. He was a gentle giant, who gave loving hugs in which he was so insistent on not hurting anyone that his fingers would only skim the surface of your skin. He read books to his children and wrote cards despite his long-term struggle with dyslexia. He loved music, one of his favourite songs being “A Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen, which he never ceased to get up and sing on karaoke night. Of course, the last line is an homage to this, leaving the piece on a more positive note that those who knew him would recognise and appreciate, reminding them to think of the good times even through the bad.

Read the latest from The Source on the theme of Mind.

I walk through the woods and I realise it once again. I realise that we can never quite see happiness ahead of us on the road. It’s always a cold glance in the rear-view mirror, or somewhere off-road, miles out of reach. But I yearn to sit beside happiness, he as my passenger or better yet my driver. I want him surrounding me, enveloping me, within me so that we cast only a single shadow.

I walk, though, and anything that comes to mind makes my face scrunch into obscure shapes, my eyes burn around thick and matted lashes. Any light around me is immediately extinguished. Even the good is bad, and somehow, the positive only a reminder of the negative, the cold merely a reminder of the flame that once was. Is this it? An inexorable cycle of ignorance and regret?

A child approaches me. It is my father. His navy knee socks almost meet his grey school shorts, his bowl-cut hair shines above of a furrowed brow. He holds a conker in one hand, a marble in the other. He asks what is wrong with me, and would I like to play, and that mother says crying does no good. It is his very first try at living, his first attempt at something that might just take a lifetime to master.

Not long after, I see my mother. Her pigtails sit high on her head, separated by a perfect parting, and embellished with pearl-white ribbons, the finest Italian silk. She steps on the stones in the stream, ever so carefully, tightly gripping a stuffed animal in her tiny hand. When she sees me, she hugs me tightly, stretching little arms around my legs. Her paper-smooth forehead hardly reaches my right hip. I hug her back, tightly, as it too is my first try at living.

Analysis

The mind allows us to experience and feel what we might in another universe, another time, or another life. It can imagine things that are impossible in the real world, like meeting your parents as children, or meeting yourself as a toddler. This piece captures the power of the mind to take us through such impossibilities. How differently would you act day-to-day if you had experienced these encounters? How would you treat yourself if five-year-old you was in the mirror? Having relationships with people from different generations helps us put life into perspective. It gives us a reflection of what we once thought we knew, what we will have to learn, and what we might never understand.

Read the latest from The Source on the theme of relationships!

He likes red wine. Gets a bottle of it when he goes out to eat.
To share, of course, for the two when they meet.
A Crasto in the Winter. So warming.
A white in the Portuguese Summer: crisp, sweet, cooling.

Of course, I’ve never seen him drink wine.
Only the bedside water from that bottle of mine,
Gripped with moist fingers and glugged and glugged
Like the world’s least romantic hug.

I’ve never seen him pick a main, a dessert, a table by the window,
Only a room, a side of the bed, a place for us to go.
And, oh God, I’ve never seen him consume a morsel of food,
Just me, my time, my innocence, my mood.

She must know his taste like the back of her hand,
What he craves, what he can’t stand.
I know his taste too, but the one on his lips at night,
Notes of leather, cherry, pepper, spice.

No, I’ve never seen him drink wine, but I tasted it yesterday,
Forbidden fruit, the richest Cabernet.

Analysis

This poem puts darkness into the spotlight: the dark side of love; the dark shadow of a memory; and the darkest of secrets. Giving voice to an illicit narrative, Cabernet guides us through the cycle of love, lust, and heartbreak that rules any romantic affair. Wine, something delightful but ultimately intoxicating, works as a core symbolic image in the piece. The image seeps down from title to final word, illustrating the encompassing and cyclical nature of the speaker’s relationship. The double entendre of taste (preference) and taste (flavour) encapsulates the distinction between lover and mistress, yet ultimately, it is clear that the two are not so different.

Read the latest from The Source on the theme of identities.
Content warning: self-harm, homophobia.

She was 15 years old,
With empty eyes of sorrow and a hollow heart,
When those once fleeting feelings flooded the fortress
She’d built in her mind, and she couldn’t fight anymore,
And she realised that those who should adore
Her, no matter what, would abhor
Her, no matter what
She’d do to convince them,
That she was still herself, still the girl
They thought could do no wrong-
Except now her very existence was wrong
To them.

She looked at herself in the mirror
And what did she see, what did she see?
A monster cos that’s what they said people
Like her were- depraved, dirty,
And yet how could either of them know how she was hurting?

She never chose to feel like this,
Why would she choose to want to
Gouge out her guilty eyes
Every time she saw a beautiful girl?
Why would she choose to want to
Slash her skin and bleed out?
Every time she heard their brutal, biting words
Against those like her and

Why would she choose to want to
Suffocate slowly hiding her true self?
And whispering the truth into the invisible, silent safety
Of the dark in her room at night.
Why would she choose to want to
Disappear into that darkness herself?

Cos that would’ve been easier than
Knowing that their supposed love was as fragile
As a glass vase that she could topple over,
And she’d watch their eyes fill with fury
And their hearts harden with hate
And their disgust and contempt contort
Their faces, and then
She’d no longer be the girl that came from them
But a diseased, debauched devil woman
That they’d discard without a moment’s regret.

But she couldn’t help who she was,
She couldn’t hide the shimmering colours
Radiating from her that they tried to
Paint over in black without them even knowing.
And she realised that a love as weak as theirs
Was no love at all,
And it was them who were the monsters
If they thought one unchangeable aspect of her
Was enough to throw her away with loathing.

And why should she want to
Slash her skin when she finally felt safe in it?
Why should she want to
Disappear into darkness when she finally found
Some trickling light leading her to acceptance?

She’d never done anything wrong
By feeling the way she did,
She was just existing
And so she stopped resisting.

Analysis

AA writes about growing up in a strict, homophobic household whilst hiding her bisexuality, out of fear for repercussions.

With her repeated rhetorical questions, she begs the audience to delve into her inner dialogue in an attempt to understand her parent’s reasoning. If they believed that queerness was a choice, why was she unable to change? Why were her attempts painful rather than healing?

The title of the poem, ‘fragile love’, can refer to her love for women (which must be hidden and sheltered), her love for herself (which is tentative) and her parent’s love (which is conditional, and prone to break). However, the fragility of AA’s love has evolved at the end of the poem.

At the end of the poem, we reach the change in mindset of the protagonist- who accepts herself and realises there is nothing wrong with her. This is a statement, not a question: she no longer seeks for the acceptance or reassurance of others. She knows there is nothing wrong with her: it is fact, and it as factual as her ‘existence’. The period at the end of the poem is solid, strong, and clear: just as the question marks fade out, so does the fragility in her self-acceptance.

This poem is written under the pseudonym AA.