Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back writer and poet A.J. Parker of Arizona with three powerful confessional style poems that recall Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton while incorporating modern understanding of trauma and neurodivergence.
In “Delphi,” A.J. speaks with clarity, dark humor, and unexpected tenderness about surviving cancer. She invites us to witness the strange disorientation of being alive after nearly slipping away and the quiet, complicated gratitude that follows. There is an intimacy with death and a curiosity that seem audacious to those who have not brushed against their own mortality.
“Because what if death/ would’ve been a bad bedfellow,/ but what if she was the love of your life?”
The second poem, “bath bomb,” was one of the finalists for our Audacity poetry contest. It gives voice to a punishing inner monologue generated by trauma, but also to a self-awareness that recognizes the inherited pathology that comes from internalized abuse.
“pinned down like a werewolf,/ but you don’t need the full moon to turn./ a woman who doesn’t trust her body/ is capable of anything”
This understanding doesn’t provide relief, but it restores the speaker’s humanity.
The final poem, “It’s funny to think about” is a meditation on bad luck, delivered with dark humor that cuts through any sentimentality that might otherwise surface.
“When I was born, God set a bag of bones/ on my parents’ front doorstep and said, “Here.”/ They only half put me together./ Now, if the lights are too bright,/ you can see my smiling skeleton/ through half-assed stitches.”
Weaving humor with tenderness and brutal candor, A.J. leads us through the shadows, some of which we recognize from our own darkness. Her work handles complex and taboo subjects with remarkable grace, offering an audacious honesty that lays humanity bare.
Read A.J.’s vulnerable and illuminating poetry in Synkroniciti’s Audacity issue, Vol. 8, No. 1, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
A.J. Parker grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, then spent some time on the East Coast trying to make up for all that water she lost. Her work has been published in over ten literary journals, including The Quarter Press, Feminist Food Journal, and Watershed Review. She has a short story published in After Dinner Conversation. You can find her at updateswithaj.substack.com.