Glass World
Višnja Milidragović
Glass world squeaky, still
streaks of softened light.
Eye gunk, like pebbles, cutting
hot with backache, barefoot,
parched. Now
drinking.
With the bleach of morning sun,
I am moved to
wipe with Windex.
Morning colours are fuzzy,
wooly pixels,
cotton white
blanket, dried with yesterday’s binges:
Old coffee,
eyeliner
or chocolate, left unwashed.
Cavernous back,
slouching,
squinting.
Shaking.
Beige crumbs in
beige corduroy
STINK!
of crusty hangover.
Hands start dusting again.
Afternoon, on the couch again.
Swept to the edges like broken glass at a party.
Lungs,
packed vacuum sucking air, the gray mass of the room,
cushions, walls
panting. Too soft,
too heavy to shatter now.
Ball up to sleep
like a
mothball.
Last night, corner jam.
Toe stub. Wailing
anger avalanche speed, crumbling
world, then scrunched face, wet
in shadow trees from the window
I saw red: a flickering
bulb, the television sleeping
and a sharp pang of loneliness.
Creators
Višnja Milidragović
Višnja Milidragović is a (creative nonfiction) writer and wanderer at heart (even when her body is in stillness). Born in Yugoslavia (current-day Bosnia), she now finds home on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC). Her work investigates belonging, both spiritual and visceral, through prisms of place, name, and identity. Her creative nonfiction writing has been shortlisted for The Malahat Review’s contest (2023) and The Humber Literary Review/CNFC contest (2021). She is currently writing her first book-length memoir, with support from a Canada Council for the Arts grant for early-career artists. Glass World is her first poem to be published.