I can see the parting riptide
Ten helpless swimmers reaching for the sun
A journey is a lone soul without romance
Countless hands lurching from the abyss
The only tree for a thousand miles
Wilting under a cruel violet sky
Highways sinking into the mantle
Lava forms in the shape of a crescent
Will you be waiting for me
One thousand three hundred and sixty miles away?
Or will I reach into the sky, the lone soul
Rotting underneath ecstatic skin?
We align under youthful sunshine
We agree under a thousand trees
Is there something more here?
Will that ageless wraith disappear?
The stars are screaming out
For me to bypass digital emotion
I don’t see you or feel you
Yet I am flowering and towering
Scouring the nations to find you
Scrape the rust off this mechanical heart
The pulse of the city now runs through me
And the skyline screams your name
Time and time again
Poem by Connor Galliard
Image by Adam Strong
Connor Galliard is a 24-year-old gay man from the UK. He is a data analyst who has written poems for almost a decade. His poems focus on the internal struggles he faces with mental illness, romance, and self-reflection.
Backwards Trajectory 