Anomaly
A Curated Collaboration by Kamelia Ani and Alicia CookBringing to life excerpts from Alicia Cook’s book Anomaly.
Kamelia Ani is a creative living in New Jersey.
I adore love stories— the ones that happen fast but slowly, like stars exploding.
That's the thing about civil wars, they're always more personal. That's the thing about closed doors, they're always more confessional. That's the thing about hearts like yours, they’re just so damn merciful.
Before I met you my mind and my heart were at odds all the time. Then you floated in on a dandelion wish and ever since knowing you exist, I just want to sit, count your eyelashes.
I have caught up in late trains and upsets and life tests.
We confuse passion and pain, turn each other into liars. We become colliding trains; no survivors, no survivors.
They say the train runs best on the track, but what if it’s going in the wrong direction? I bought these seats but I’d do anything to barter. I got a liar in my ear making me question if I would drown, but turns out, I can breathe underwater.
It is hard not to reminisce in a world like this. But we were just kids and I can’t live here anymore.
I’ve never been synonymous with keeping promises, but this is different.
I sit alone on a bench in Independence Park. My regret and loneliness keep me company as children make believe the sprinkler is a harp; the unknowing orchestrators of my symphony.
I leave with such ease, you’d swear my bones are hollow. When the daily bread don’t cut it, I trespass on tomorrow. I can’t see your face, and your voice I won’t recall. Because the dead keep breathing, only when you let them talk.
Oh, you make me feel young again. Got me talking in tongues, amen. You’re new air in my lungs, intense.
Now that your lips have been on mine I wonder how they will feel other places. If this is what a fall from grace is, God, let me keep falling— because I’m all in.
