Cobalt Issue 26 - Twisted Nostalgia

ISUE26:DEC202

IsabelaSouth

TheFalingWal
Thepastcrumbling
Beforethesetwoeyesofmine
Leavesbehindagift
Falsememoriesof
Memoriesfleetinglikesome
Fistfulsofsandthrown
Don’tgobacktherenow
There’snothingthereforyoubut
Justthedustofdreams
YusufKhwaja

Raahimah Saeed
for twisted nostalgia
TOP TIP:
For extra flavour, be sure
to have a Temper Tantrum, so
your parents have no choice
but to let you stay in the
park for longer!
INGREDIENTS
500g of Where’s Wally?
200g of Horrid Henry
100g of Biff, Chip and Kipper
300g of Peppa Pig
250g of Frozen
1 teaspoon of In the Night Garden
1 drop of The Cat in the Hat
METHOD
1. Firstly, look inside the fridge whilst closing it to try and see
the lights inside the fridge switch off.
2. Secondly, press all the colours down of a multicolour pen at once.
3. Next, don’t mention the ingredients you need for your Food Tech
lesson until the night before you need them!
4. As an optional step, you may want to put Hula Hoops on each
finger before eating them for extra flavour.
5. After this, refuse to eat the crusts of your
sandwich during lunch time.
6. Finally, when drawing your sun, make sure it’s
a yellow blob in the top corner of your page,
with lines coming out from it.
7. To garnish, don’t be afraid to stab your
rubber with your pencil at least ten times!

Spectacle Memoria
Nina G.
Tangled in thin cotton,
light of sheer illusion,
fire of a burning coffin,
here we mourn the sirens
of a hole burnt rotten, and
it happens so often.
Gallery display of all
that should be forgotten,
storm of confusion, anger
so begotten, all that is left
is a door in need of locking,
and it happens so often –
often left, often sobbing.
Serenades of candied
union weep in my ear,
they weep, sigh, beg
knocking so that my
body tenses and shakes,
apprehends and breaks
at an aged window frame
that is talking so faintly, yet,
still tickles this object of
a mind, this processor
of time, and it
happens so often –
should be left
should be forgotten

ToxicNostalgia
Anon.
Toxicnostalgia,youseekmehalfaslumber
Yourfadedfaceshoneyedwhisper
OfapastmorepresentthanIcanbe
Intheinbetweenhoursofmydrudgery
Reworkingthesameoldmemories
Strippedofreality,preciousfakes
Stilseekingagrand-standspeech
Andneverendingapplausefrom each
Everyoneandtheirpaintedfaces
Glowing,tearbrimmedadoringgazes
Mockingtriviality,laughableescape
Twistingaleyways,deadendmistake
Holeringhowlingtomatothrowing
Hotshame,eyesaverting,reverting
Andit'sbacktodeskclutchingand
EgonSchiele-likecontortions
Surfaceinthepresent,applebobbed
Clutchingshipwreckeddriftwood
Beachedontheshoreofthepresent
Toxicnostalgia,hauntme,doitagain

W I L L O W
Shreya Krishnan
Warped.
Wilted.
White.
Witty.
Woozy.
Wild.
Weakened.
Wizen.
Witch.
Tearing into a million cells all at once.
Thorns gnarling at my fingertips.
Tiered gown brushing through the crevices of her toes.
Love knew no other language.
Laughter that reverberated through these walls.
Lights gnashed on her visage.
Power, pain, pauper.
Penny for my thoughts.
Perinone, she stole from me.
"Till death do us part" is the statement that rings through every marriage, in
the hope that it will be fulfilled. Yet, in this verse, a man regrets that he was
not fortunate enough to last with his wife, Willow. Looking back on his
marriage, he remembers little details of his marriage day, the minute details
that made him fall in love with her all over again, and the marriage
eventually breaking away. My interpretation of “Twisted Nostalgia” is laced
with a certain spookiness that makes him look back upon the marriage in a
detrimental rather than sentimental way.

E M I L I A G R O W N E Y
BLAG
ARMANI
You destroyed my tulips
I can no longer see them
Desecrated by the cigs you
Extinguish
Do I choose another
Or would you ruin those too?
Desperate attempts to grasp me
But you make all my trinkets ash
I love nothing,
There’s some comfort in that
Knowing we don’t share the same
Sentiments
But I can’t look away
Your whammy calamity
A mirage of closure
You peeled away your
Petrochemical treasures
But the dye has run
It clings to your olive skin like tar
You’ve changed clothes so many
times
As everything that touches you
becomes
Soiled
Fossilised are your omissions
You can’t eradicate the fragments
But you keep telling people they’re
Armani
Your fascination with necks
The jury will find romantic
But your kisses are suffocating
Splotches of ink transferring on to
Me
It would be okay, but I have run
out
Of tan paint
Maybe the kaleidoscopic clusters
Suited me more
I should accept they made me
Interesting
Like a church’s stained glass
But there’s nothing repentive
about
You
My sermons are splinted shards
Because the disciples sang only
Your praises

F A L L ' 2 2 I N
L O N D O N
Iqraa Photography

S A A R A H L Y A H M E D
CHILD
Memories are our fingerprints.
Sometimes we wear gloves, hiding
them.
An old woman sat in her chair,
She spoke to her daughter.
“When I was young, I was
happy.
Brown eyes gleaming,
As I stared at the sky.
The birds were tweeting,
As I laughed and cried.
Dancing in circles,
Stumbling over my feet,
The noises of cheers,
Made me smile through my teeth.”
The pills popped in the old
woman’s mouth.
Excited to retell her story,
But the sad thing was,
Her childhood was no glory.
Her daughter raised her brows,
As she held her hand tightly.
She knew the story.
When her mother was young, She
had tried to be happy.
Tears down her eyes streaming,
As she stared at the sky.
The birds were tweeting,
As she screamed and cried.
Running in circles,
Stumbling over her feet,
The noises of shouts,
Made her too scared to speak.
She was a child in a war,
A trauma felt through generations.
No war anymore,
But still not healed through age
and patience.
She had convinced herself a
different past,
To heal through twisted memories.
A fly in a trap,
A trap of dishonesty.

A JOKE YOU'VE
HEARD BEFORE
F E L I X V A N O O R D T
An Englishman, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman all walked into a bar.
They lingered and stuttered until
they were offered
A cramped booth right next to the
door.
They shuffled and stumbled, laid
their uniforms bare
And tattered on the edge of each
chair.
And they strained as they sat, and
shrank into themselves,
Like rats who shelter 'neath
bookshelves.
Exhausted and shattered as they
were,
Each sound they heard made all of
them stir.
A mad drunkard's shouts made the
poor Scotsman cower,
His eyes shot down, his expression
turned sour
As he thought of men chained to
ivory towers
Whom medals were thrown at for
abusing power.
The Welshman froze as a car's
engine purred;
His chest had tightened, his vision
blurred.
He muttered a prayer but forgot
half the words,
He knew there was something
about a blackbird...
The Englishman stared at a small
group of friends,
And mourned the men he saw
meet their ends.
His mind was then dragged to
foreign lands
To see those he loved make final
stands.
The Irishman likewise relived that
day when
He saw how lead can break iron
bands.
Watched souls and souls escape
bodies again
Like pellets of sand in a small
child’s hands.

They sank in the silence
suspended between them.
It picked and clawed and pestered
the scars
Infested with ghosts that had
festered, encroached,
Like how mustard gas smothers,
polluting the stars.
The Irishman saw the other men
disturbed.
He urged to speak up and say
something, a word
Of assurance, perhaps, that would
not go unheard.
Instead, what he told them was a
joke.
The joke was a mess, unbelievably
dull, and slid off his tongue with
the grace and the charm
Of the guy on his own just a couple
booths down, with rum on his face
and his sick down his arm.
It was old, lame, unoriginal too. It
was a joke they'd heard before.
But maybe that's why they
laughed.
Maybe that's why the Scotsman
could find the strength for a wry
sort of smile.
And maybe that's why the
Welshman could scoff at the joke
so void of wit or style,
Or why the Englishman could look
his friend in the eye; he'd not done
that for a while.
Maybe the joke didn't need to be
one his audience would adore.
Perhaps it was enough for it to be
known, familiar, one that they'd
heard before.
His delivery skewed on a joke
which was doomed to lie down
and bitterly die.

They‛relaughingwithme
Smilesandglints
Eyessparklingwithhints
Theirvoicehumorous
Astheyjoininmyantics
Sitting,thinking
Eatingandwatching
Drifttosleepalone
Astheyplayontheslide
Kickingandscreaming
Yelingandpleading
Feelyourselfdream
Totheirsoundofcackling
Asthefacadebreaks
From thedropsofsweets
Theirscoffswakeme
outofsleeplessdreams
Sneersandglints
Eyesglaringwithhints
Theirvoicevicious
Therealizationhits
They‛relaughingatme
ElementaryLaughter
ByAlyssaTingle

Anoushay Dar.
don't move your feet
I remember him saying,
“don’t move your feet”
His walking stick firm in his hands,
Though not moving.
He said, “the devil plays beneath”
My legs don’t reach the floor,
I was only five.
I remember her saying,
“don’t move your feet”
We sat across the lake,
My toes dipped, raking in the water.
She said nothing but placed her hands firm on my thigh.
I was only twice of five.
I tell myself,
“don’t move your feet”
Something is playing from beneath.
I dangle, it pushes back and forth,
Like a child on a swing.
I am only sixteen.
I remember them saying,
“don’t move your feet”
And I knew why.
Yet, the movement doesn’t faze me,
The sensation of being able taunts me and
So, I move my feet for perhaps
The beneath to be free.

Tra My Insua-Luu
ESCAPE
ROOM
ART DURING LOCKDOWN

One Beautiful Evening,
One Beautiful Town,
One Beautiful Monster.
It was late February
In a tiny gallery, sun sitting low in the painted sky
After talking for too long with artists
We left
Importantly, I live near the sea
I miss the sea in many ways
The sand under my shoes, in my hair, socks, eyes, and teeth (crunch)
The brine water—it smells like rot often
Fog on the harbour, men taking leave, fishing boats alight with gulls, the shout for fresh seafood
I could keep on yearning, but no more than about this:
That evening we were screaming, laughing on an empty beach
And I thought to myself (and I told him, and he told me)
I would remember it well
The air whipped our faces like a scolding mother
We were lighter than feathers
Throwing flat stones
(Like in movies, we said)
There were hints of rain, ocean spittle
Some things, only sea folk know
And I only know him

Here, in a crowd of grass, dirt, trees, roads, buildings, farms, cars
Stretches of land - only land, flat, industrial, which unsettles me
It takes time to remember
My shadow is on the beach, in the waves
My heart is with him, somewhere
There were other times, on the beach
I saw men in cloaks, circled there, dusk
And strange lights over the ocean—Her eyes, Her mouth, Her promise
A year it lasted; the ocean called to me
Magnetised
And looking into those dark waters
I can tell you
It seemed inviting, for a while
Some things, only sea folk know
I suppose
Away from there
I remember it (the sea, the sand, the cold, the sky)
I remember him (his laugh, his jokes, his eyes, his touch)
I remember them (the burn, the chants, the dark, and Her)
Very well
Ben Barnett

WANTED
My Childhood
If found, return to owner
REWARD: $1000000
LAST SEEN: Over a decade ago

Where
did
the
time
go??