Madelaine Lucas, "Thirst for Salt"

I have felt your tenderness turn on me like a knife and my softness wielded against me in gut-wrenching acts of cruelty. Do I turn inwards and let my muscles atrophy?

In fear of what they have done to me, I make myself small and I push myself from the coastline — towards the sea in my solitary vessel.

If you won't love me, I will love myself.

My loneliness will be my guide.

Madelaine Lucas, "Thirst for Salt"

I'm always reaching for you; longing in some closed part of me for the rupture of your touch; the lightning strike of catching your eye across the room.

Under the canopy of eucalypt — dusty blue-green leaves, whispering as they sway, sprawling limbs like twisting rivers, meandering towards the sun — I still find a sense of wonder enough to pray.

I felt everything in me light up towards him, like facing sunlight at the end of Winter.

Madelaine Lucas, "Thirst for Salt"

Glorious rooms filled with warm, honey-coloured light. That's where I witnessed his magic; the genius of his sleight of hand. He dazzled in the light and I moved in the shadows, always close behind, waiting for instruction like a domesticated pet. I made the mistake of thinking that his light could hold me too.

Madelaine Lucas, "Thirst for Salt"

The arms of the earth have closed now. It is holding its breath for the Summer light. In Winter we will hold our cards close to our chests, and in Spring we will bloom again.

Memories move through my body like a song on a quiet breeze, faint and swaying with the curtains on a summer afternoon. All gold and and a tinge of sadness.

Let me hold the wound you've been walking with, from city to city, on a leash like a dog. You never look at it directly. You see it in shadows, reflections, shop windows; forever in your periphery, following you home. As I stroke your hair, I try to stroke mine. I comfort the self I see in you. I take your dog and I feed it, pat it; speak to it softly, coax it inside, until it sleeps on the couch and eats out of the palm of my hand. I have never experienced the depths of my compassion, but maybe I can show it to you now. Maybe I can show it to myself.

I bear witness to my own pain, locked in a tower overlooking my meandering wilderness. I am solitary by nature; I do not feel grief for the loss of the other, but at times I do feel a certain estrangement from myself.

Ngarrindjeri Ruwe

In the early light, when the hours of the day start to peel off the dress of night, I can almost believe in God again.

Towards sunlight, growing too tall. Who I was is only a shadow.

Spring I.

Death has buried itself in the earth, rich and fragrant, decaying in a sound sleep to feed the buds of Spring. The dirt, soft with rain, gathers around it in a close embrace, thanking it for what it has given.