Coal Mine Feathers
The Color of Y
Your hair, straw inside, but aglow within a summer ray. The memory of summers spent outside in chlorine hoses, water park meetups, and slip n slide splashes, sunlight bleaching whiter shine into the strands your mom cut in the kitchen.
Your birthplace, California, sandy beaches across the wheel of aqua waves. Here, the sun is different, unseen by my possessive eyes. It is body-boarding and In & Out and grandparents. I wished you’d found my landlocked yellows home instead: Rolling foothills scorched by windy droughts, golden dogs just down the street, perhaps (maybe) the honey in my own hair, the gold dust touching the green of my eyes.
I know, I know, brighter is oft better. Never settle for what’s left when you can go right into the sun. I was closer to a shadow anyway, a hint of browning, to stick around and nurture. I think I felt like a shrinking root around your overabundance of water. Drowned or parched, it was a deprivation.
Thing is, I still miss the shine of your canary yellow soul. I see the ‘Y’ in your name as often as the sprinklers in summer pretend the smell of public pools and affect the perfume of rainfall. I even see its complement in your ‘K’ that bridges mine and verifies that we were, in fact, authentic.
But I was never aster, as would have suited your color. No. I am like lavender or plums, less brave and subtle in my skin. And I think, more delicate than you ever could feel, like blackberry flesh. Or perhaps scales off a betta, drifting and invisible.
The light diminished when I knew you didn’t think of me more than twice a year. It died when I tested that theory and you never floated up with the slack. Canary in a coal mine, and you were certainly mine. At least it was a diffused sort of poison. Odorless, colorless, yes, but smeared across the states on a barely-there breeze and blown across a stranger’s face.
There, do you see me? Sitting inside a foothill sunbeam.
About the Creator
Mackenzie Davis
“When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint, don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint. And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.” Lewis Carroll
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Copyright Mackenzie Davis.
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Comments (30)
Brilliant read-it feels like turning a page back into childhood. Your way with words is really something! Loved this one.
Don't know how I missed this in October. Just beautiful
Brilliant!!! Melancholy and emotional!!! Sending hugs!!!❤️❤️💕
I know I've taken too long to come here but let me tell you that I come here often to bask in the light beam this poem is for me. I had a similar friendship dwindle down, now forever relegated to memory. So this one is special for me as I suppose it is for you as well. So while I can sit and break it down to a T, I am going to refrain from that, for it is too painful. But I would be remiss to not highlight some lines which stopped me in my tracks. "I was closer to a shadow anyway, a hint of browning, to stick around and nurture. I think I felt like a shrinking root around your overabundance of water. Drowned or parched, it was a deprivation." Nothing I've read before has captured this feeling of damaging lack of material mutual benefits in a relationship so carefully. Thank you for articulating it in a way that quenched my heart. "No. I am like lavender or plums, less brave and subtle in my skin" This crushed me. To be less brave and subtle in your skin is to bruise easily, is to be a lavender or a plum. The metaphor here is sublime and I cannot get it out of my head. "Canary in a coal mine, and you were certainly mine" NO WAY, holy fuck. Perfect Antanaclasis. This poem scratched an itch in my brain, in the most delightfully nostalgic way.
Congrats on Top Story and this burnished shift of light!
Whew this brought tears to my eyes. So beautifully written.
My goodness. The melancholy is off the scale here. So emotional. It is like you have dipped each word in sepia. A coal mine canary.... what a fantastic visual and emotional central metaphor! Awesome.
Wow... this was so passionate and elegantly written! I'm awestruck by this piece! Great work Mackenzie and congratulations on Top Story!
Wow. This definitely deserved a top story spot.
Congrats on the TS.
Congratulations on achieving top story status! 🥰❤️❤️❤️
Gorgeous. Just. Yeah. Gorgeous. ❤️❤️❤️
Romantic and longing but with a street Cred vibe. This is glittery good!
Stunning, absolutely stunning. Congrats on your Top Story, pal. Good to have the company up on the main page, sharing the spot with me, Mackenzie!
Every once and awhile, I read things on here that remind me I am but an amateur. this is one of those. great work.
Profound piece ♥️💯📝😉✌️👀
I see you, Mackenzie, as do so many others here, ascending to the very heights.
A burnished golden like the yellowing leaves, or the hair that you describe. Maybe it could be louder, but the tarnished and golden has a charm and power evocative of memory and autumn. Many flashes of specific memory, but inaccessible to my mind. Only adds to Charles Baudelaire did a volume, as did Stéphane Mallarmé. Mallarmé's poetry is something you would really like by the way, your writing reminds me of his at many moments.
Beautiful. More poetry than prose and evokes such longing and sadness.💙 Anneliese
This was beautiful Mackenzie I could feel the longing and perhaps a sense of loneliness? Lyrical and poignant Fantastically done and vividly imagined.
Sublime. Every word so carefully and poignantly carved—and I'm not at all surprised. I tend to forget way too often about the beauty out there in the world, around us. You remind me about it with your stories.
Beautiful, lyrical, and emotional. You didn’t just describe for the sake of it; it seems that the observations were pointed, that the decisions about what to describe were part of the story of this relationship. They highlighted the differences between them and the unequal commitment to each other. The shrinking root part, and the shadow—so poignant and evocative of the longing for someone within whose shadow we live. The diffused poison is such a powerful metaphor for the slow burn of diminishing self-esteem. Well done 👏
Wow, Mackenzie, just blown away. The imagery here is so vivid and beautiful, contrasting with the ups and downs of emotion, I loved it. This is the kind of poetry I can only dream of. Fantastic!
But I was never aster, as would have suited your color. This line, my gosh! It hit me so hard! This whole thing was so heartbreaking and relatable!
Absolutely stunning. It begins, and the reader can feel so safe and free in your hands. The imagery tastes and feels and refreshes, and then it leaves us succumbing to the loss and to the memories of sunshine. Also, I adore that your word placements are so artistically vibrant. Saying "the scales off a betta," instead of "fish" - it works so well. You paint with words, and the style is both inspiring and rejuvenating.