Cynthia lives in Virginia, and has two young daughters. She holds a post-master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing from The University of Virginia and is a trained psychotherapist and Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. Her professional and personal experiences inform much of her poetry, which she began sharing publicly in August 2018. Cynthia has been writing since she was eight, and has always been an avid reader. She is a curator/live reader for two feature platform pages on IG- Door To Our Souls and A Panoply of Poetry. She is passionate about mental health issues, particularly sexual abuse/assault and domestic violence. She strives to lift up others, and to raise her daughters to be strong women. Cynthia has been published in two poetry anthologies, with a third anthology publication coming later this year.
You can find her on Instagram @seasoundsc, or @doortooursouls and @a.panoplyofpoetry
WHEN MARS WAS OURS
Cynthia Hallynn
Do you remember the space in time/ time in space
When Mars was ours?
It may have been only weeks or days,
Perhaps it was merely hours…
Increments of time become confusing
When light year conversion you’re using
No matter, time seemed to pass so gradually,
When Mars was ours…
Already red, our carmine passion adding hue subtly
When first we lingered there, consumed by desire
And do you recall the poem you wrote for me…
Well before our celestial journey?
About soaring to Saturn, riding its rings
And then circling moons ‘til reaching ecstasy?
I still wonder how you foresaw those things,
Words I read as metaphors, mere fantasy…
Yet, it all came true
The poem, far more than that, too
Though how remains known only to you
I’ve given up asking
Persuading
Compelling…
I’ve simply accepted
For a time, you took Mars, made it ours
You traversed me amongst planets
Strings of shimmering stars
Even multiple moons
Did you meticulously plan it?
Did it just happen?
Some kind of miracle?
Maybe all just a dream, a lie, a scheme
Just a story fed to a susceptible mind
Desperate to believe…
No, couldn’t be
I remember it all, so clearly
We hopscotched the cosmos, from Mars to Jupiter-
The nickname I’d hence give to you
Taken from a Tori Amos song
About needing a friend to turn to
And not knowing where you belong
But that wasn’t so relevant
At least, not at that moment
As we leapt on to Saturn
Where, with tiny tongue turns
You created rings of your own
Just as foretold by the words of your poem
Then, before allowing full culmination,
You insisted I forestall expectation-
So, I called you ‘Jupiter ‘,
And we made our way back to Mars…
While it was still ours
You swirled me around two of its moons…
Prometheus and Pandora, the pair you selected
Around and round we twirled, ‘til I fell in a swoon
But before I fully fell, into your arms I was collected
Once certain I was safe- a new dance to a new tune
Softly, you whispered this was just as you’d predicted
Reminding me of the poem, as we circled our moons
When Mars was still ours
You fulfilled your poetic prophesy
Soaring me toward ecstasy amongst swollen stars
Fulfilling promises completely
Draped in opulent moonlight, no longer from afar
How long were we there?
A day? A week?
A month? A year?
But a moment? Perhaps an hour?
Honestly, I don’t care
And besides, there’s really no way to measure
No way to compare
The passage of time there versus here
All I do know
In my heart, my soul
Then, you were mine, and I was yours
You brought me closer to Heaven
Than most living beings ever have been
And while there, gave to me a deathless death
In the form of a small sin
But that was then-
Back when Mars was ours…
When we had it all in the palm of our hands
When it seemed possible we were written in the stars
Before we returned to Earth, just short of crash- lands
