Caroline Rubin

Caroline Rubin is a poet from Naples, Florida whose poetry has been published in Parallax Online, Navigating the Maze Anthology, the Jewish Literary Journal, Surging Tide, and more. Her work has been recognized by the NCTE Achievement Awards in Writing and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. A graduate of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Caroline will be attending Harvard University in the Fall of 2023. Through her poetry, Caroline aims to explore the existential questions that keep her awake at night.

The Painting with Two Chairs

Once pink, her pearls recline listlessly on the dresser greying gently, aged by dust. I trace their dulled shine each pearl a body on the cusp of crumbling, starved for the brush of her humid neck. I frame the fears the untouched cannot confess the footprints of solitude pacing behind closed doors. It takes the lonely to recognize the lonely. I am home to no one not one figure paces through me. They call me untitled, two blue chairs suspended without light, seat of the empty. Sometimes when she looks at me, I am a mirror; there are two of us suspended without light. Yesterday, I saw the violet vase plummet towards the floor. I watched her pick its shards like wildflowers fingers one with broken skin. What is it like, to love wildly what must break in two? Fixed on the white wall, I do not shift or fall, or break. No one touches me, except to disturb the dust that layers upon my static skin.When at last she picks up the pearls, they perish like early mornings in the palms of her hands.

The Children of the Future Will Ask for Stories

And we will tell them the world was once infinite as we were once infinite. We will tell them how we loved this planet like children, burying plastic toys in the yard, and soon forgetting the shape they once were. And we will tell them the world was once a blank canvas stretched to the very edges of the universe. We will tell them how we wasted those sacred hours before dawn; until the lilac clouds wilted gray. We will tell them we once were gods. we broke promises like idols our palms stained with gold. We will tell them of the moments before dusk the strained breath of night. We will tell them of the fevered sky how our eyes reflected fated fires. But how will we tell them of the expanses of sapphire oceans and primordial forests? How will we tell them of the creatures we named Bison, Sparrow, and Panther to pronounce as our own? We must tell them how we carved our names into trees, like they were ours to bleed dry. They will ask us why? And we will be silent. But the children of the future will demand a story that is not destined to end. And we will tell them how we scrubbed gold off our hands replaced it with green. How we peered into the earth like a mirror- saw the creases on our foreheads reflected in groaning patches of finite land. We will tell them of the creatures we nursed back to health of the trees we bandaged and dressed. How we steadied the pulse of night broke its fever, lulled a burning sky, and let the air fill with new chirps, grunts, and growls. We will tell them how we harnessed those hours before dawn to kindle a light within ourselves. And the children of the future will write their own stories stories where hope bloomed where no one believed it could.

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