2k14.10
Back to Earth
Fall into old patterns
Swallowed in rhythms
Post-midnight breathing
And the first rain
Makes a whirlpool in my brain
Inhaling familiarity
Dispersing saturation
Hard candy ecstasy
It was
A dream
A dream
It was
Just a dream
It was late autumn and this time of year usually left her feeling a bit shaky for no specific reason. Her heart, lungs and head are all heavier come November and she could never really explain it. She picked up her book, and looked out the window; she finally has a desk with a view; a good view and a vintage writing desk and jazz in the background.
“I don’t know how to begin to explain this,” she thinks, “but I feel the need to let it out.” And so she begins writing it all on a sheet of paper that she would most probably throw away, or put in a time capsule for her to revisit in ten years. That is always a good idea.
The first time I saw this man, we were on a farm somewhere not very far from home – but for him, it was a land so foreign. I don’t remember how we were introduced, I was busy and tired but I remember taking his number right before leaving, I remember telling him that we’ll be best friends since we both smoke and I thought to myself “something usually happens when I say that,” but then I thought “don’t be silly.” And that was that.
I remember wanting to go back with him in the car…then, a week or so later, we started to become friends. This is when we started talking a lot and laughing and giggling and going out for lunch. One day, he carried me like a doll and spun me round and round and round.
I hugged him once and he kissed my arm. For his birthday, I baked a cake and we watched a film. It was a sad film and he put his arms around me and I lay my head on his shoulder – comfortably. There was so much comfort between us, but like all good things, it was time for one of us to leave. He never was to me and I never was to him. I sometimes think about how it would have been but tell myself that it’s okay now the way it is.
Dear Future Self,
I write you this today to remind you. Hoping you would remember the details from my very short letter, if you ever have children, tell them your stories; teach them something. Tell them not to be scared to exist. Tell them to shout and yell and stomp, tell them to exist loudly – they are here, tell them not to be shy about it. They owe people nothing. Tell them; tell them because you owe it to them.
Dear Future Self,
If in ten years you wonder how he is, call him and ask how he is, he was your good friend, and he was there for you.
Love,
You from a few years ago
She looks out the window - as she always does after waking up, after finishing a meal or right after writing something – and it was raining. This was the first rain of the season and she sighed. A sign of a heavy heart, she thought, but her heart wasn’t heavy. It is just that, during the time of year, the sun burnt differently, the light shone differently, and the air, the air felt different in her lungs. A bit purer, maybe? She was never sure, but what she was sure of was that it made her want to take a deep breath, leaving her under the impression that she wasn’t breathing properly. It made her want to stop, close her eyes and take a deep breath, but she knew, anyway, that never changed a thing. She had a tendency towards being a heavy-hearted person, what made her feel better about it was the inkling that these are the same people with kindred spirits.
She gets up slowly, absorbing the high ceilings and big windows in the room, she loved this room. Her eyes lit up as she thought of herself some ten years back, dreaming of finding a similar room to call hers and thought to herself:
Oh, life.
1.
I wrote three poems and two
prose about you in my sleep
but then I woke up and
couldn’t remember a word.
2.
You took a hammer
and obliterated all the walls
separating my organs.
When I asked you,you said
it was because you wanted to hear the steady lub-dub
of my heart muscle more clearly.
3.
When I ruffled your hair my hand
pulled back with
tufts of it. We pretended it never happened.
4.
You asked me to lean in;
you needed to wash the bitter aftertaste of the boiled cauliflower
you were forced to eat.
“Can’t a dying man get a decent gourmet meal around here?”
The sound of your restricted esophagus and
choked cough echoed off the walls and
reverberated
through me.
5.
You teased me about my
newly-shaved head, said the nurses would
think we have a bromance going on.
6.
My alarm didn’t go off and
Prince Charles, my dog
(you scoffed at his name)
had a fit and chewed
most of my clothes
the bathroom sink
wasn’t working.
7.
Your bed was empty today.
There are flowers exhaling what you one day will inhale after a laughter.
Or a heart break so big it’ll shatter you and then recollect you whole, and into a new kind of beautiful. And every single time that will happen, someone out there is writing a poem about it and calling it “a miracle”.
When you have some free time, and open the door for more than the person behind you, the smiles you receive will grow festivals in your heart. The kindness we sometimes find in strangers is probably why the sky is so colourful and alive at times.
There are books that reflect the colour of your eyes, how you move, every single inch of your skin, on rivers and mountains and gods. Gods.
Your being is sometimes written in a relation to gods.
i digress on cigarettes and stray cats and oh look there's the moon and my incense always burning and going to bed wearing matching socks and then waking up to find them gone (?) (like you?)
