1, 2, 3… Aspirate!

Gentle readers, were you aware that ‘aspiration’ has two meanings?

Of course, ‘aspiration’ usually refers to hope or a strong desire to achieve something, but it also refers to the mundane yet necessary process of breathing in and out. We cannot have one thing without the other. You see, hope is absent when we’re no longer breathing. And breathing without hope is like being dead already.

As long as we’re still standing here breathing then let’s aspirate, yes? Let’s dare to reach for the impossible–even if just for a short time–for tomorrow’s a blank page that hasn’t been promised to us. So, shall we fill the blank page that sits here with us today? Right now? In this very hour? Yes. Let’s do that instead of waiting for tomorrow’s pages.

We’ve had a wonderful year at Unbolt. Tony joined the fold and filled up the space with words to complement Tati’s own. We featured some of our treasured readers own works. And we received quite a number of awards and writing challenges too!

To celebrate the amazing year that was, we at Unbolt have put together two pages dedicated to the awards and writing challenges we’ve received so far. Why have we done this? Because we want to share those awards and writing challenges with you, dear readers. It’s our way of saying thank you for your support. You mean a lot to us. We want you to know that we appreciate every single one of you! So, please, feel free to click through to the Choose Your Award! and Choose Your Challenge! pages, and have fun!

Oh, and may we also wish you a Happy New Year? Yes, a new start full of breathing and aspiration. Just what the doctor ordered!

Yours ever,
Tati & Tony

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2016

Dry-clean Only

Let’s see… it’s your soul.
It was delivered to you
at birth as a gift.
What? Why are you so surprised?
The usual birthday gift.

Has your grandmother
ever presented to you…
let us say… mittens?
All grandmothers love to knit
cute motley mittens, I know.

You got your present.
You adore your new mittens
(and your grandmother)
and treat them grandmotherly.
(Oh, what a great word I found!)

You wear them with care.
You scold yourself for foul spots.
You wash and sew up,
any stain and any hole…
Do you remember that day?

You think, Tomorrow!
You say, ‘It’s a seamy side…’
Fading in the wash,
shrinking, getting out of shape…
Small stuff. The mittens! Big deal!

Where are your mittens?
Now it’s a dirty duster.
It doesn’t fit even
for the second-hand strip mall,
not to speak of paradise…

Quite right, paradise!
What? Why are you so surprised?
You forgot, buddy!
I tell you about your soul.
These mittens are just a trope.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2015

Blooming

for my Purple Creature

Please, please, don’t think that
butterflies are silly with
a short memory

Please, please, don’t think that
they sit on this withered bush
without a purpose

No… They remember
its beauty. They remember
all colors and forms

How it bloomed before
a thunder-bolt that summer
Yes, they remember

They sit the same day
every year… it’s a present
The birthday present
The present from butterflies
for their depressed withered friend

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2015