Madeline Zilelian

Madeline Zilelian
is a native New Yorker whose writing is deeply influenced by her Armenian Heritage and healing trauma. A Developmental Coach focusing on integrating spilt ego states and shadow and co-founder of a healing center by day, amateur comedian by night. She earned her MFA in Fiction and Poetry from Antioch University of Los Angeles. Madeline has been a nomad for over a year traveling from one country to another, led by nothing other than her own desires to inspire her voice and life within the craft of poetry and fiction.

 

Luke-warm

     “If you are in love with someone, you
      can have the person live inside your head.”
               Paulo Coelho.                   

You are not here,
I close my eyes hearing
our song streaming
from the of birds
calling to each other.
I stroke the twisted
grass next to me
while I read
the book in my lap
You are not here,
I pretend the grass is
your wavy hair
I pretend the book is
your head is in my lap
You are not here,
I pretend that
our bodies are
pressed up against
each other,
I pretend that
there will never be
a time that we are not
pressed up against
each other.
You are not here,
I enter the world when
I breathe you out, returning
you, following you, until
you come back into me.
There is no life without
breath and no breath
without you.
You are not here,
And you’ve been here
the entire time.
The space between us
like the silence between
notes that holds
the key to all music.

 

Mark(ed)

I’d forgotten what it was
like to feel, anything.
And now I am Marked.
Mark of joy so high I could
die falling for you. Mark
of the Emerald Isle thriving
by fresh water tears. I quiver
when you reach for an arrow.
Your aim, deadly if not accurate,
couldn’t you Mark me another

way?  You pound me until the old
paths of pain are replaced by this
new Mark. This diamond grid,
the only diamond you will ever give.
I’m a bag of metal bones
drawn to your magnetic
smile. Why do your teeth
have to be so sharp? Ok, Cupid,
I surrender. It’s just meat.
Tenderize my heart.

For Pat 

Being with you
is like reading
my favorite book
for the first time,
but you have no
last page. I kiss you
like cover of a bible
during mass, grateful
for all that is waiting
inside. You turn me
on as easily as turning
pages in a book.
Your nighttime reading,
peeling pages as slowly
as you peel off my nighttime
clothes. You read my frown
lines, make run on sentences
of my laugh lines, tangling
yourself in my life line.
I wait, ready for you
to bookmark every inch
of me.