I am thrilled to announce my second new collection of poems this year! Honey Eaters is special because, unlike most of my output so far, it is full of positive, upbeat, fun pieces about love, passion, and loyalty to my special someone, my husband. Despite his dislike for poetry, I did convince him to read a few (the fact he did so and said, “it was nice,” was more than I could hope for with his stubborn streak), and he has been very supportive of this project. I’m grateful, because poetry is my love language, my emotional outpouring, my identity.
It says something about the bond between a couple when one can have absolute apathy for a hobby the other is super passionate about, yet they not only stay together, but love each other every day more than the day before. I included an ironic poem about this dynamic between us that you can read below as a sneak preview. Keep in mind it does have sad undertones and includes profanity, as I imagined what it might be like if I died before he does. For happier poem previews, just click the Honey Eaters category tag at the bottom of this post.
Honey Eaters also contains a bonus section, Mint Honey, for those poems that are love-adjacent but won’t fit in any collection I have planned for the foreseeable future. Poems about break-ups, lust, light BDSM, and a few LGBTQIA poems based on a few of my favorite fictional OTPs and some of my own desires I have not been able to explore. Yes, he is aware. Yes, we’ve spoken about it. He understands. It’d be hard to stay together and in love if he didn’t.
Honey Eaters has been a long time coming, a feature it shares with my earlier 2023 collection The Soul Without a Summer. We started dating in 2011 and I started writing poetry full-time in 2016. The poems in Honey Eaters are organized in chronological order of date written, with the exception of the first poem, “Mellivora,” which immediately follows the definition of its namesake. “Sky on Fire,” “Warmth,” and “Sickle Moon Love” were the beginning, all written in 2017 as I began to branch away from writing about depression and isolation following my dad’s death and my high school graduation (aka leaving all my friends behind). I wanted to write about something happy. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to create as though I believed not all art stems from pain. Now, I do believe it.
Honey Eaters will be released on Thanksgiving (23rd November) 2023.
WHY NOT ALWAYS? You strain to see me in your dark fog. I strain to see you in this new light. Grackles scare the songbirds away and flap their wings furiously at your eyes until all those long lashes shed. I used to adore them. Can you still feel me at your feet sweeping them up so I might glue them to my cheeks in binary patterns like distorted snowflakes? Ghost fractals to match our composite love. You would think me so pretty with spirit tears like mascara boldening your detritus to spread toward ears no longer here. I yearn for you to see my adorned face more than you grieve me to return. You still get to breathe and see our friends and remember memories that I fight Him to keep. He says true peace is to leave you behind and think wholly of Him. Fuck Him. I want a longer life at least, if not you here with me. We were one only in moments. We could have made a new someone to symbolize our union, but it would not be us. It would be them. Not good enough. I want your hand in mine always. That’s all I ever wanted. Now I’m dead and your breath hurts me. I look for you, but every image is a hallucination even when I’m haunting. I can’t be sure I found you or if He is simply appeasing me as every diary entry is slowly erased despite the loud marker I carved across my skin. The chemicals leak into the soil as I dissolve; no way to preserve the lips you once kissed. Necrophilia is frowned upon in both realms, and I wouldn’t want you to suffer, knowing I can’t feel your touch. The scythe of Thanatos drips with venomous tears, yours and mine mixed: the one Matter that is Us leaves a legacy of poison for she that comes after me. As much as I need you by my side — I am so scared! even in Heaven — don’t lie on my grave and pine your life away. I’m supposed to say something like that, right? I’m supposed to be selfless and not wish for your heart to break so I can find you again and entwine your fingers in mine and no longer feel so fucking lost even though I was found the moment I passed over. Don’t move on. I want you to mourn the way I do, and the glimpses I see reveal my wish, for my ghost dwells within the bookshelf you stand beside. I can see you resist reading the last words I’ll ever speak. You weren’t interested when I was alive; you said you didn’t get why I painted with letters — now you do.
Saralyn Caine Poetry 