AXIAL TILT – Madina Malahayati Chumaera
eyes wide on the horizon. corona, meet
cornea: i introduce you to the searing
and the seeing. the heat is a constant,
pulsing and dying, and there is nowhere
safe from its gaze. you thought this
was going to be pleasant: the burning, no.
the halogen flickering out of existence,
never. we thought only a spark could ignite
something dark, but never the bright
extinguished. when i close my eyes
i only see a burning–the void devoured
whole–the unbelievable etched on its polars:
it swallows itself. you press your fingers
against my eyelids: we both know a prayer
when we see it. the eclipse hums
like a disaster on edge. i will never ask
for survival, yet my eyes are shaking. yet
we tremble in the face of unremembering.
Madina Malahayati Chumaera is an 18-year-old student in Greater Jakarta, Indonesia. She is interested in the intersection between the humanities and the sciences. Her book CONTACT LIGHT: the void inside and out was published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama in October 2017. She can be found on Twitter at @falsecatch and other places at malahayati.carrd.co/.