Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome back Bulgarian poet, writer and visual artist Gabriela Manolova with “For Longing’s Sake,” a poem about falling in love with fantasy, enjoying the rush of possibility without committing to a flesh and blood relationship. For one who is not ready or who is healing from bad experience, this can feel much safer and can grant time to process desire before it can be hoped for and perhaps discovered. It can also become a haunting of sorts, an obsessive retreat from reality. “It’s amazing, sacred, pure/ a nightmare, painful torture/ of a romantic mind’s design/ I can’t help myself—/ I thrive in longing/ when belonging is unavailable.” Gabriela’s vulnerability and honesty in exposing this dialogue within herself is revealing, and she does so with such reassuring and comforting imagery, much of it rooted in nature. We have all fantasized about another at some point in our lives, sometimes as a prelude to a relationship, and know there is a vague danger there, but we seldom unpack what is going on inside of us. When we fantasize, we learn about ourselves rather than the object of our fantasy.
Read “For Longing’s Sake” in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, Vol. 6, No. 4, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Usually a prose girl, Gabriela Manolova turns to poetry whenever something too fleeting or painful to be fleshed out in novel-length demands to be expressed.
“I approach prose as problem-solving, an intentional, analytical exploration. Writing poetry is altogether different. Like running into a sharp edge in the dark—a line hits you, and suddenly, you’ve found something you didn’t even realize you were looking for. My work’s kept circling back to the same themes, pointing me to that which remains unresolved. Love, grief, identity—all the unavoidable things, really.”
When Gabriela isn’t poring over her manuscript, she’s bopping to jazz or hiking mountain trails—grounding her mind through movement and letting her feet take over for a change.
