Elegy

Tags

arts, literature, poems, poetry, spilled ink, writing

Whatever threads that bind us together dissevered
years ago and yet every night, I run
the ends through my fingers, scrutinize them,
tie the wrenched strands into knots—

as if this can somehow keep you away from me,
or keep you out, or keep myself from wanting you.

There must be a way to show you I am changed,
I am different now. I am not the girl
who found you through phone lines last fall,
not the girl who gave you my body so
willingly this winter—

as if there’s anything I could do to make a difference,
as if I have anything to say but the blood on this page.

I am writing elegies, I am indulging on funeral meat,
I am lusting after ghosts long dead and gone.

Continents

Tags

literature, poems, poetry, writing

How strange it is now, to look at you and remember

loving you so hard it made me sick. I used to curl up next to you

and push my face into the crook between your neck and shoulder

and wish I could unzip your skin, wish I could crawl inside you

because I just wanted all of you, all the time. Now we sit on

opposite sides of the couch and don’t really have anything to talk

about and I’m sorry, you know? How could we have known it

would end up this way–– that we would drift apart like ancient

continents, like unanchored boats on a rough sea.

Wanderland 2013: A Moment of Sweet Disposition

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dougymanagi, neontrees, sweetdisposition, tempertrap, wanderingdakiniinwanderland, wanderland2013, wanderlandmusicfestival, writing

Temper Trap closed their set with Sweet Disposition yesterday, May 18 at Wanderland Music Festival. I remember edging my way slowly forward through the crowd, both to get a better view and to seek refuge on the grills before the stage (I was standing for almost nine hours and I needed some support, thanks grills!) I was with my sister, drunk and half-stoned and completely fried, midnight, under the beautiful moon after days without sleeping, living off wine and hummus.

“The second half is where you guys sing,” Dougy said. He sang it: “A moment of love. A dream. A laugh,” and the hundreds of people chorused it back at him. “You start out quiet and then just keep adding volume to it, okay? We’ll just keep building and building.” And eventually, he told us, “You just yell. You just scream as hard and as loud as you can and we’ll try to break the roof off this stage, or something.”

Our voices ascend and rose and he was just tearing on his guitar and then we were yelling, all of us, screaming it at the top of our lungs A MOMENT OF LOVE. A DREAM. A LAUGH. A KISS. A CRY. OUR RIGHTS. OUR WRONGS and it seemed so clear as it soared and soared and filled the air, thousands of voices and I could feel myself filling with bliss, choking on it. 100 degrees in that open field and yet actual goosebumps raised themselves on my skin; and I thought, this is a cathedral, this is God, this is our flesh and blood and all our tiny souls aching to hold onto whatever this is—

then the music faded to a close and still we sang,

won’t stop ’til it’s over

won’t stop ’til it’s over

won’t stop ’til it’s over

won’t stop to surrender.

Skyline

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arts, literature, poem, poetry, writing

You say you think of me at five a.m.,
and how should I tell you that I do the same-
that as the sun rises over Manhattan’s skyscrapers
I remember how I fell for you
so hard I scraped my knees
I walked all winter with blood trickling down my shins
picking the gravel from my flesh and bones
thinking of nothing but your sweet lips on my skin.

Sundaze

Tags

beirut, Civil War, literature, poem, poetry, red wine, saturday, summer, writing

In my head I am always seventeen

and it is always a brief scorching summer

in the city and I am always falling hastily in love

with the way some boy’s collarbone slants down his chest,

with skinned knees, with swimming in our underpants.

With sneaking out under star-swathed skies, with jumping into the pool,

with basement games of Beirut. I am

made of sunshine and soft, wet grass and pine

needles and Civil War cannons and I promise I will stay this way forever.

 

atlantic waters

Tags

literature, nyc, poems, spilled ink, spring, writing

Dusk fog wallows off the ocean and coats my neighborhood, descends into the valleys between the houses, flutters over the tidal flats next door. I have fallen right into the familiar beats and rhythms of this place, the cars rolling up and down my street, the trees arching over the pavement. Same as it ever was. I know this so well and it’s so tempting to get pulled into it. I could stay forever in this lull, in this thick and misty haze of early summer beauty. The whole city is emerald green from rain, the green that I dream about on cold winter nights, and the air always smells of fresh grass and wet soil.

I can already feel the sunshine filling all the hollowed-out holes that the city has worn out into me, with the Atlantic water washing all our sadnesses away.

urban brake/union

Tags

arts, literature, nyc, spilledink, writing

I live far more on the highways and streets and avenues than I do in any one town. I only count this city as my homebase because my belongings and job are here, and because eventually this is where I will have to return.

Still, I am pulled by some vague and fuzzy discontent: when I am in one town, I only want to be in another. When I am by the sea I want the city and when I am in the city I want trees and the suburbs and on and on. So i drive and drive this endless loop with a change of clothes in my backseat and try to remember where I am going and where I am from, even as all the avenues, highways and towns blend into one endless structure-lined asphalt jungle, bringing me to a place whose name I do not know.

chasing trains

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arts, lit, literature, manhattan, mta, newyork poetry, poems, Shortstory, spilledink, subway, writing

No matter when I wake up early or when I leave my place, I will be five minutes late on anything I have to attend to— as if time itself amplifies or compresses to fill whatever space is left. Certainly, this is out of my hands, clearly I cannot control the space-distance-time continuum, or the train schedule, or actually go to bed before 3 am so I don’t undersleep or oversleep. These things are all bizarrely impossible.

winter sun, blurry new york city

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arts, lit, literature, newyorkcity, nyc, poetry, short stories, spilledink, writing

I go to a vegan cafe I like on 5th Ave and sit on the vintage Formica chair and read my father’s ragged copy of Kerouac. The boys and girls behind the counter call me señorita as they hand me potato pierogies, mushroom soup, thick slices of challah with honey.

When I walk home my phone keeps ringing, and I am filled with thousands of plans, and I pass friends on the street and we smile at each other. The city is slowly taking me in its arms again.

sunset daze

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arts, lit, literature, manhattan, nyc, poem, Short story, spilledink, west side, writing

I lie just underneath my open window as the Atlantic breezes slowly tear off my skin and I hear the waves thumping sand with the constancy of a heartbeat as the tides enfold, wallow in and out and in and out. I think of my boys squandered from one coast to the other, and my friends falling asleep to the sound of New York sirens, hungover on a Sunday afternoon— all of us delighting in the comfort of our beds with our paramours or our favorite albums or both, if we’re incredibly lucky. Our feet are aching, too sore and blistered but our minds are adequately alright and our hearts are pure, pure gold.