200 CCs - June 2016

More documents

Recommendations

Info

When You’re on Fire by Adiba Jaigirdar The matchsticks in the broken drawer don’t tempt me now that you’re gone. We sat on my bed and shared scorch marks like stories of old boyfriends. The one between your thumb and forefinger? Two years ago. Darkened to a deep shade of brown on your already dark skin. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t dream about it with my eyelids half closed, imagining you beside me, imagining me running my fingers along that scorch mark. I like the one on your right shoulder the best. It’s nothing but a giant brown blob. There’s a strange beauty in it. Perhaps the most enticing thing about is the way you showed me, slowly rolling up the sleeves of your overly-long, baggy t-shirt. My scorch marks seem like nothing in comparison. Even now. Fire has lost its delight too, since you left. Like I never understood the spark, the heat, until you brushed your fingers along my collarbone. Those two months, sharing stories on my bed, our limbs entangled in each other carelessly; those were the days I was on fire. The matches, the bedroom, the lick of fire against my skin? Nothing without you in it. No spark. Adiba Jaigirdar is a twenty-two year old writer and poet. She is of Bangladeshi descent but Irish by nationality. She has graduated from University College Dublin with a BA double major in English and History, along with an MA in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Kent. She has previously been published in literary magazines such as About Place Journal, wordlegs and Outburst. You can find her on twitter at @adiba_j. 8
A Present for the Future by Rita Jansen “Better an empty house than a bad tenant,” Mum would say, shovelling the weekly dose of castor oil into me. “When the bowels are out of kilter, the brain turns to mush!” Over the years, many of Mum’s aphorisms made good sense, except for her take on my sixteenth birthday present from my granddad. “If you ask me, your granddad lost more than his right arm in the war,” she said. “Who in their right mind gives a gift like that to a young girl?” “Granddad’s not crazy,” I said in his defence, although, truthfully, it wasn’t something I would have chosen for myself. “He knows they’ll all be taken by the time I need it, and I got to choose the nicest one.” Both have passed on now. Mother died suddenly at the age of fifty-two and Granddad didn’t make it to my seventeenth birthday. His gift has remained untouched although I’ve kept an eye on it over the years. However, it won’t be long now until someone opens it on my behalf and lays me to rest in the best plot in Heaven’s Door Cemetery; Granddad’s gift to me. Rita was born in Drogheda, Ireland but left the Emerald Isle to work as a nursing sister in South Africa. She’s been fortunate to live in many interesting places, including Zimbabwe, finally settling down in a small fishing village on the South Coast of Natal. Now retired, she has the time to pursue a life-long desire to write about the many characters and situations encountered along life’s journey, which lie in wait, like hidden treasure in her memory box. 9
Page 1 and 2: Elizabeth Archer • Christina Dalc
Page 3 and 4: Contents The Draw: The Constant Exp
Page 5 and 6: Camp Tramp Stamp by Christina Dalch
Page 7: Midnight Hugs by Sandra Grills “M
Page 11 and 12: New Routine by Pamela Hobart Carter
Page 13 and 14: First Responder by J. Bradley by J.
Page 15 and 16: y George Wells Father’s Day is th

200 CCs - June 2016

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?