Souvenir

A Journal

Morgantown West Virginia, 26505 United States

"I'm going to come back to West Virginia when this is over. There's something ancient and deeply-rooted in my soul. I like to think that I have left my ghost up one of those hollows, and I'll never really be able to leave for good until I find it. And I don't want to look for it, because I might find it and have to leave".----Breece D'J Pancake, in a letter to his mother. 

AM Ringwalt 

 

mediterranean

 

dance down the wedding aisle singing god’s gonna cut you down. dance 
down the wedding aisle like a battleship. veil made of tea leaves. dress 
made of metal from the base of the battleship. dress made of skin from 
the body you pull forward. body made of lava that dried centuries ago. 
body, volcano screaming enter me. halo spinning in outer space. paint 
the white silk gold. paint the goldwhite gold. veil made of tea leaves. 
tea leaves soaked in the mediterranean. tea leaves thrown from a temple 
on a cliff into the sea. tea leaves hot from the sun on the shore. all the 
evil on you: removed. all the evil on you: burned by the lava that dried 
centuries ago. why wouldn’t this be an egyptian burial. why wouldn’t 
you go into love as you would a tomb. why wouldn’t you practice 
recitations with the sphinx.

 

AM Ringwalt is a writer and musician (Anne Malin) currently studying in Boston, Massachusetts. Her words have most recently appeared in The Adroit Journal, Whole Beast Rag and DUM DUM Zine: Punks and Scholars. "Like Cleopatra," Ringwalt's debut poetry chapbook, was released this summer by Dancing Girl Press. 

My favorite non-book souvenir is a blue floral dress from a vintage clothing store in Savannah, Georgia. I call it my "pilgrim-sailor" dress because I don't know how else to properly convey its awesomeness. The purchase coincided with my discovery of a vinyl pressing of Yung Joc's "It's Goin' Down," though, so hopefully that paints a better picture.