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Adela Teubner


‘salvation’ & ‘the garland of heavenly flowers’



.

salvation

monday evening in gusty june // hovering in the millisecond where daylight cracks into dusk // i am

inside // my body stretched out over the couch // its springs singing creaky songs while i adjust my

back //


there is a crochet blanket draped across me — the one i bought at the south road vinnies — its weighty

pastel knots compressing my legs // and there is a cup of peppermint tea — extra honey spooned in —

waiting in the faded david bowie mug i got for my sixteenth birthday //


ropes of steam swirling gingerly through the air // dancing a pas de deux with mauve incense smoke //

like veins and arteries // pirouetting above the incense holder i bought from “happy herbs” as a

teenager // too bashful to just ask for the “vase” i wanted //


i listen to pharoah sanders // all cosmic-shimmery-glittery in the dwindling cool light // and i notice

that there is a chasm of glowy space where normally i’d feel too aware // of the comings and goings of

my blood to my heart // and i realise that i have not once thought of what my friends must be up to

right now // not once felt the crunchy gravel of jealousy and regret stir up all stiff and sick in my

stomach //


i realise // that i have stumbled across // a grotto of nag champa-scented candlelit joy // my skin // my

home // within the places where i have numbed myself // where i have tried to shut out the visceral

pain that has laid dormant in my core since before i was born //


i rejoice //

for i am light //

for the first time //

in the entirety of my life. //





























the garland of heavenly flowers
(after the fourteen dreams of mother trishala)


i inhale the garland of heavenly flowers

and i am hypnotised.

sweet red rose, little stars of jasmine, soft lily of the valley —

the bouquet edges me towards

an iridescent pleasure, burning and

expanding dizzyingly

with each breath.


i inhale the garden of heavenly flowers

and every single one of my cells

ascend toward the golden blazing sky.

i am dancing the most graceful

and graceless dance i have ever performed,

jetéing and pirouetting into

a molten, borderless bliss.


i inhale the garden of heavenly flowers

and my body stretches and shrinks and beckons

like an insatiable anemone,

throwing out tentacles to suck up

all of the orgasms in its midst.

my body spreads and sparkles like a lake,

flooding with unimaginable aliveness.

my body mutates into a lap-steel guitar note


hovering in the atmosphere;

then, it shapeshifts into a beam of sunlight

glowing through a hibiscus petal;

then, it becomes the soft buzzing feeling

of my cat’s fur against my hand.


i inhale the garland of heavenly flowers

and i soar like an ibis

beating her wings beyond the edge of the universe,


i inhale the garland of heavenly flowers

and i am speeding unknowingly

into the incomprehensible;

into the horrifying sublime.





About the Author 


Adela Teubner is an emerging writer, editor, and musician working on unceded Kaurna Yerta. She enjoys watching the sunlight dance along her local creek, listening to Big Thief, and wearing impractical vintage coats to the supermarket. Find her on Instagram a little too often at @tangerinetrees99.








Adela is featured in our issue 01 print . Get your copy here!