JONATHAN ENDURANCE

All I Crave is Intrinsic Peace


when i say my body is a parquet
littered with bones, i mean everything
i once knew is dead & what remains
is the fire you left behind.
 
in the garden, i mistake the redness
of roses for your breath—which
means i hallucinate about our pastime--
& when i touch the lilies by their necks
i realize how much of a shadow
you have become.
 
your absence: a flickering candle light
whose ray burns best in the darkest of day
which means i carry your absence like
a language left untranslated.
 
grief is an ageless animal. it’s months
since the ocean swept your remains
to shore, & here i am waiting
for the rain to wash off the bloodstains.
 
this body: an ignorant child to the touch
of grief. a crossroad between loss and fear.
 
i stretch my voice across continents
which means i am growing wings again.
which means i am not afraid to cross
borders with my grief, to wear your absence
like it’s the last thing you left behind.



​222 The Paris-American

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Jonathan Endurance holds a B.A. in English and Literature. His unpublished poem won UNESCO Sponsored Prize for the 14th edition of Castello di Duino Poetry Competition, ITALY (2018). He was a finalist in the National Call for Poems about Peace and Conflict Transformation by Wick Poetry Center (Kent State University). He was also a semi-finalist in the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize (2020). His unpublished manuscript (House of Cain) also clinched the finalist spot in the Ramblr Quarantine Chapbook Contest (2020). His poems have appeared or forthcoming in Rattle, Into the Void (We Are Antifa Anthology), One, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Alegrarse, FIVE:2:ONE, The Cardiff Review, The Ellis Review, Brittle Paper, and elsewhere. Say hello on Twitter @joepoet_

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