THESE SIRENS ARE SWIMMING ❋ Victoria Mbabazi
I don’t believe in love
at first sight but I can
know I will love someone
the second I see them
the key is the word yet
we are covered in blue
an illusion of clarity
you cannot hold water
in your hands it runs through
it runs clear it remembers
before it washes us clean
it holds before it fills
our lungs and I
have done everything
to not sit in it
I tried to grow legs
and run from us
I tried to let the fire
burn us slowly
but this was always
the solution to forget
the sky and all its colour
to lay my head underwater
to hit the sand I knew it
when I saw you I saw it
I kept seeing you visions
took over my dreams
it’s okay lay your head
next to mine darling
we are not capable
of drowning
___________________
Victoria Mbabazi’s work can be found in several literary magazines. Chapbook is available with Anstruther Press and FLIP is available with Knife Fork Book. Their full-length collection The Siren In the Twelfth House is coming out in Fall 2024 with Palimpsest Press. Their collection of personal essays and poetry Death To All Darlings is coming out with Fernwood Publishing in Fall 2025. They’re currently Canadian in Brooklyn, New York.