Lia Varbanova

The Suburbs
 
We are now old enough to conceal.
Through cosmetic stores, aisles of lingerie,
We are destined to follow
The train tracks of the metropolis.
 
I have to run again.
Change my phone number, my zip code.
Buy a new license plate.
 
Did I tell you she’s on crystal meth?
And drinking herself to death?
I swallow. I take another shot. The lost words echo.
Remember when we couldn’t live
Without each other?
 
Remember when I danced to The Suburbs,
And not built lives of shame in them?
 
Vodka turns to gin.
Now, men give me flowers
I do not want in my hair
And hands I do not want on her body.
 
It is a veil, these strange boys
Pouring spirits down her throat.
Her drained laughter.
 
I am stranded in a city of closed eyes,
Praying to forget, hoping to remember.
And how love triumphs in this, I hope to learn.

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Lia Varbanova is a 19-year-old aspiring poet and recent high-school graduate, who has lived in Singapore for 10 years. Influenced by poets like Michael Ondaatje and Scherezade Siobhan, she writes poetry about identity in relation to the environments she has been exposed to.