poems by kyle julian
Kyle with his cat, Stinky Tuna
Kyle Julian is a 25-year-old writer based in Northern California. Kyle self-published The Taste of Insomnia in 2020. He opened Discount Venom Antiques & Oddities the same year. Kyle graduated from University of Puget Sound with a bachelors in Communication Studies in 2021.
The Decaying Garden of Eden
by Kyle Julian
I pray for your happiness
And the well-being of whoever you’re draining it from
I hope that life brings many more smiles
To your cruel lipsBut I also hope that in the future
When you lie through your teeth
And wipe their tears with a loving face
They don’t believe you when you say
You lied because you loved themI hope they don’t pick up their own pieces
That you smashed on the floor
And hand them lovingly back to you
As the fool who trusts the serpentFor Eve’s serpent was beautiful
And brought promises of great things
A life of freedom, with no restraints
And only the most delicious of fruitBut my life was no Eden
And my God was not merciful
And all the fruit in the garden had grown rotten
Many years before you arrivedFor if it was Eve’s fault to betray God
Then it was mine to betray myself
And kiss your feet for being so selfless
To choose to stab me in the back
So I didn’t have to look at the knifeI praised you for the strength it must’ve taken
To lie to the person you cared for most
And forgave you ten-fold
For when you said losing me was your biggest fear
I believed youBut my life was no Eden
Rather a decaying forest
With a rotten Adam who I had killed years ago
And God’s booming voice
Had only rained down on me
To tell me to savor the mildewSo when the beautiful creature entered my prison
The trees began to bloom fresh life
Pale green foliage unfurled itself
And lifted me up
To a warmth of a sun that had never roseThe birds began to awake as sweet hummingbirds
With fast fluttering wings
And joyful chirps
That drowned out the vultures’ callStreams began to trickle
After a century of drought
And fish began to spawn in rivers
Much to the disbelief
Of my long ravenous eyesSo when the strength entered my body
After years of accepting its failure
I began to build a home for us with my bare hands
Right above where Adam laid to restBricks were laid and foundations strengthened
And my beautiful serpent slept peacefully by the fire
I picked the fruit as it was never-ending
And brought it home for her to feast on
And I slept at night because I knew in the morning
That the sun would rise once againEvery day I built our home
With a breath of life swelling in my soul
All her promises feeding my lungs
And I swung the axe down with the joy of opportunityI walked alone in our garden of Eden
And shed tears of happiness
For all the beauty I had never seen
I thanked the worms who turned the fresh soil
And soared through the air on the back of a phoenixAnd everyday I returned to our home to tell the tales
To my serpent sleeping by the fireplace
She listened carefully and rejoiced with me
And I thanked my once merciless God
For finally blessing me with a beautiful lifeThe day I came home and my serpent was gone
There was a rotten Adam
Knocking beneath the foundation
And a deep horror rose inside of me
As I stepped outside of our home
And found myself in the decaying forest once againI ran my fingers along the walls of my prison
Hoping to find a crack
Praying for a sign of a life
A fish, a minnow
Or any sign of the beautiful serpentBut the serpent had left
And taken all of my garden with her
The greens I watered and tended to
Had been uprooted
And stuffed hastily into a bagThe fish had been gutted and sucked dry
And the birds struck from the air with stones
Not even the worms had been spared
As the earth was cracked and hardened once moreI fell to the ground
And screamed to a God with no mercy
As the thunder cracked
And the rain began to pour once again
I rolled and groaned with a pain I had never known
My muscles withering and bones losing strength
And I crawled back to the home I had built
That was now emptyThere I laid on the foundation listening
To the knocks of rotten Adam
And the vultures’ feet prancing on the rooftops
I screamed for a mercy that I knew was long lost
And shook the floor with my pounding
Trying to silence Adam once againI laid there for centuries more
Hoping the serpent would return
And that I would someday soar
On the back of a phoenix once more
For centuries I laid lifeless
By the cold dampened fireplaceUntil one endless night I saw a sputtering of smoke
Rising from the ashes
And the tiniest restless ember began to glow
I watched from the corner of my wide tearful eye
My neck too weakened to lift my headThe ember grew ever so slightly into a glowing pile
A twitching and writhing flame
And I began to turn my head to watch
As something emerged from the wreckageBefore my broken soul appeared a small withered bird
Barely able to open it bulging eyes
And I watched the ugly fellow in confusion
His wings outstretching into a pattern
I recognized from long ago
The wings of a phoenixI still did not budge from my place on the floor
But rather watched the phoenix carefully
As he fed on the ashes
And throughout the following months
He grew from a stumbling hatchling
Into something much strongerWhen his wings had grown strong enough
To beat the air beneath him
He pushed himself up into the air
And flew to my place on the floor
Gripped in his claw was an old key
And he placed it in my sunken hand
And flew out of the doorframe
Of what remained of our homeI laid alone in confusion
And pondered the meaning of the old key
For I had never known there to be a way
Out of this prisonUntil I remembered my beautiful serpent
Who slept by the fireplace
Listening carefully to my dreams
Of building a garden of Eden
And I realized she had not been sleeping peacefully
But rather guarding and planningGuarding the old key
That had been hidden at the bottom of the ashes
Waiting for the day she could escape
And take all the life I had grown with herAnd the phoenix had carried me home
Not to share my tales of joy with her
But in hope that I would find
The old key before she did
And to escape from this place with my emberSo I invited rotten Adam up from the basement
And we feasted on a prancing vulture
And I patched the wounds I had given him
And apologized for burying him in that graveAnd after we finished our feast
Rotten Adam led me to the gate
Of the decaying garden
Which I had somehow never seen before
And he pointed to a large iron lock
And then to a phoenix just beyond his reach
A long way outside the gates of this prison
Treading the air with his strong wings
Waiting for me to follow him