Chorus Blog: Play

(Sometimes it is hard to play)

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“for you, anyway”
by Liz Bergland

your skin
smelled like cinnamon.
tasted like salt.

your lashes
brushed against me
when you slammed your eyes shut.

their force 
knocked me to my knees,
layering bruises on bruises,

and that was the end of the game.

"and that was the end of the game."

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do hats have feelings, though?
by Alex Simand

what happens to all the championship hats they make for the eventual losing team on the off chance that they become the winning team but don’t? do they smolder, lonely and weeping, in a box tucked in the back of a hostile arena? do they feel the pinch of never having achieved their purpose? it must hurt to be branded a champion and then not, an entire limb of existence lopped off at the point of possibility and shipped off to Africa, where the colonial world sends all its half-made truths. it must sting in the way of gloves forever buried in the snow, forgotten to the seasons, lost among the dog shit that layers the city like an archeology site.

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and so we taught each other
​how to fly

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Panthor Dreams of Meadows
by Jane-Rebecca Cannarella

Panthor the purple panther always wished he got a say in the shit that Skeletor was doing, but he never did. Ripped from the wild as a cub, bridled and saddled and fashioned in green, Panthor only knew the service of evil. But at night he imagined green grasses that tasted like honey. In his sleep, he licked the corners of his jaws and smiled at the taste.

Every morning he despaired that his blanket was a course wool stranger instead of the friendly lambs he had befriended in his imagination the night before. 

Obedient to a fault, in another dark morning followed by a dark day, Panthor set off to war with Battle Cat: his exact duplicate. Skeletor had harnessed him too tightly and the saddle chaffed his velvety flocking while his fully articulated master sat a-trot—his shrill voice bellyaching orders for yet another poorly planned He-Man attack.

The ground erupted with bombs of dirt in another round of dispassionate brawls that left Panthor feeling empty while Skeletor shrieked “ONWARD ONWARD.” But these onwards never produced triumphs, and the battle was the same as all the clashes before. Disappointing.
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Retreating from the battlefield after Skeletor’s failure, Panthor could hear the victorious cries from He-Man and Battle Cat. He wondered why he was left to live in silence while his counterpart could shout with jubilation, it seems only some cats are good enough for speech. The army’s humiliated flight made a drumbeat out of the battlefield and someone shouted, “We’ll get him next time, your Evil Lord of Destruction,” but even that sounded hollow.   

Panthor secretly perched on a ledge in Snake Mountain once he was back home and drew a picture in crayon of the fantasy land from his sleep. Clouds like frosting and golden fields that moved like waves. A small family that looked like they would know how to give a good scratch under the chin, plus some fluffy lamb friends. A tiny cottage with a rug in front of the fire that Panthor knew would be great for midday naps, and pantries filled with cakes—his favorite food, or so he imagined they would be. Panthor looked at his drawing. He picked up a purple crayon and drew himself into the scene, hoping that some of the magic would make his wish to live there come true.

Before lights out, as Skeletor’s court made plans for another fight against He-Man—fighting is the duty of the aristocracy of Eternia and Skeletor’s favorite hobby—Panthor named each of the figures in his drawing, he kissed each one goodnight in lieu of being able to say it to them aloud. He hoped they could feel love through the paper.

On the course wool blanket, Panthor thought of Battle Cat and how he could talk. If Panthor could talk he would say that he didn’t want this life anymore, no war / no more fights with Battle Cat / no Skeletor. But he wondered if he actually could speak, would anyone listen? Counting the friends from his drawings like sheep before bedtime, Panthor knew he was not made for the dark side of Eternia.
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And that night, like all nights since he was a cub, Panthor dreamt of meadows.

And that night, like all nights since he was a cub, Panthor dreamt of meadows.

​* sad hockey image taken from here