Chell Navarro is a poet, zine maker and waitress. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Media Arts from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Navarro founded Savage Torpor Poetry and Press (2018.) She lives in Kansas City, Mo with her beloved familiars: dogs Patchouli and Alice, and Sappho the cat.
Solitude Tastes Like Opium --Adam Zagajewski cloved in waiting a forbidden blue rose to cup a bite of poppies tears into iron sleep awakes such velvet ardor midnight: a den with no moon my Assyrian dream floats on trails of smoke so lucid quite what flying must be fluent myrrhtars exquisite flowering Asia lulls me towards alone I arrive home & taste some spoonful of another self & laud the bitter bouquet Nexus of a Mythomaniac --from Autoportrait by Edouard Levé Solitude keeps me consistent. Is that lie really true? Go see if I’m over there. I feel like an impostor whose obscene novelty disgusts me. My amorous states bring two types of betrayal, simultaneous lies. I would like to have myself hypnotized. When I look out a window I feel no nostalgia for childhood or Bach or a spring snow storm. I cannot perceive the delay in mirrors or the last time it was yesterday. The last time it was yesterday, I could not perceive a delay in mirrors or my childhood, or Bach, or a spring snow storm. And when I close the window, I feel no nostalgia. No longing to lie. I like myself hypnotized. Betrayal brings two types of betrayal. Simultaneous novelty disgusts me. My amorous states, like an imposter, obscene. Go see if I’m over there. Solitude is persistent. Constantly my lies ring true.