Poetry
poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence ~ Audre Lorde
Our Unheard Screams
Do you know that plants can be in pain too?
Do you know that they scream and send out distress signals?
Do you know that they too, like us, can feel?
It was true.
But I wasn't talking only about plants.
I was also talking about you,
and me.
About us who have learnt to cry in silence.
About us who have learnt how to bite our tongue for the sake of maintaining peace.
About us who have learnt to dig our nails to our palms than to claw at other's faces.
About us who have learnt to hold the anger within us and silently burn ourselves from within than to sear at another's skin.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of screaming for help but get nothing but a sore throat.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of explaining yourself but still, get nothing but blame.
Tell me,
have you grown tired yet?
Tired of bending over backwards to please, yet still expected to do more.
I am.
I am, in fact, tired.
Let's plan our way out shall we?
Maybe we can build a little cottage somewhere in the forest.
Maybe we can live in peace, surrounded with the things we love.
Or maybe,
Let's stop and look around.
Try to listen to those cries.
To the cries that came from others who are just like us.
Let's try listening,
maybe one day someone will listen to us too.
by MG
Happiness Hurts
They say happiness feels like the warmth of daylight seeping in through your skin. Embracing your bones, and turning your heart into a mushy puddle of delight.
They say happiness is yellow.
Bubbly and bright.
They say happiness smells like cookies and cupcakes, and a plethora of flowers blooming between the butterflies in your stomach.
They say happiness is the laughter and smiles you share with your loved ones.
Lingering. Heartwarming.
If so…
Then I never knew this thing called happiness at all.
To me, happiness felt like a dream trapped in a distant screen.
Like the reflection of the moon upon the still water surface.
Visible.
Impossible to touch.
Like scraping a rock with your nails desperate to feel.
Close.
Impossible to accomplish.
You will only be left with blood and mangled fingers.
You will only be left with an aching heart and a hollow chest.
How wretched.
It was merely another thing outside my grasp.
Exist to tempt.
Impossible to get.
by MG
She is gone now
The sight of flour on skin, age spots form an archipelago across your arms. a clutter of dusty pictures and rosaries under your bed.
The sight
of flour on skin,
age spots
form an archipelago
across your arms.
a clutter
of dusty
pictures and
rosaries
under your bed.
Life, you’d sometimes think, hadn’t been that good to me.
Girdles that
squeezed
your fibroid
infested womb—
An old hallowed out
home to five
Barricaded
Against
Life.
You comb
your unruly
hair back;
look uncomfortable.
The look is not you.
I love it when you just
Let it be—
rather than tame it
And look like a scared
Old lady
Instead of the courageous
Heroine that you are.
You still store things
Away
In overflowing drawers
And cupboards
Afraid that one day
You will need
Something
& it will not be there:
What trauma
Gave birth to that?
You say,
I feel your mother
Is doing something
To me—
Like I can’t put my
Fingers on it –
Your hands, exasperated go up in the air
Only to slowly come down
And rest, at your side
Powerless.
We loved each other once.
The nights
I fell asleep
under the
symphony
of your snores:
Uncountable.
Sleeping,
side by side
A woman, and her grandchild.
You say,
Pointing to
A brand new
Press, you say,
Look at that
What my
daughter
Buy for me—
You know what she say?
She say,
when you die
I’m taking it back.
What kind of thing
Is that to say? And you
Schweups at the
callousness of your
Child.
You’ve got:
Two kitchens,
a Toilet
without a door,
social security
checks
deposited
In
Brooklyn.
We walk
down the street
and you smile at
a stranger,
and giggle like
a child...
But wait nah,
you say, stopping,
in a daze. I
thought that was
Nen-nen, but
nen-nen
die long
time now...
What is happening to me, you ask?
& no matter how
hard I try,
I can not answer:
Alzheimers.
Miles in my skin
These are mine – they are the breadth of the world and the length of my life.
These are mine – they are the breadth of the world and the length of my life.
It is the arcade tickets in blue that now look brown,
And the movie stubs, creased and torn in two
That let me know I was ever there with you.
I have created space in every wallet, every room
To make sure your things were never absent
To cherish our time spent.
Until ‘you’ meant someone new
And I would cry when I found I could create new spaces to fill,
Reminding me of the strength my hands had
To build new drawers and keep moving forward.
Some things I lost on my travels and I am even glad,
(Not having them makes me remember more)
To not carry much with me when I explore.
But tucked away, under thorns and brambles, as often as I can,
I look under them to see if I can find anything more to know about you.
Though you are galaxies away and I no longer see them in your eyes,
It is the moon that recalls our last goodbyes.
And it is a pity I have nothing else to remember that by.
by Hannah
“we’re not alone”
4.10.22
[ i experience ]
a restless synesthesia of sensations
my soul its own dimension
of loosely woven associations
And
nuance
sometimes i think i pay a little too much attention
my jaw perpetually clenched
strained by the daily omission
of ineffable prose
so today i embrace my sensitive observations
indulging in the union of all things
i notice what’s not necessarily there
i talk around and not through
i challenge claims of irrelevance
and forever hold
that “far-fetched” is a cowards favorite word
because yesterday i felt seafoam green
And
this room smells like winter
And
my skin squirms like earthworms
when i see bumpy trees
and that’s the only way i know how to put it
my love language is longform
i let my teeth tear away at the succulent flesh of a cherry
and savor it as i would a lover
picking their brain before reaching their core
the juice dripping down my lips as it fountains from their hips
a delicious mess
i don’t just take note
i see the universe in you
i think in words
i speak in pictures
i feel sounds like textures rippling through my veins
i walk backwards and run forwards
And
i am never satisfied
i am the consequence of an infatuation
prolonged
by a silver tongue
and resulting miscommunications
so it is in my nature not to be straightforward
pheromones released and a love drunk mistake
bore me:
a curse from the cosmos
an /enigma/
to the masses ;
[ [ a living, breathing retrograde
] ]
- A.
Making Up With the Sun
We need to make up with the sun,
Did I do something wrong?
When we talk about the daylight hours that we are robbed of
on our commute home
Is that why I feel so alone?
The coloured houses share in my sympathy.
They look back at me
They know how I want to go so desperately
To see them
To be filled with the same energy
When life is in grayscale
I come back in Picasso’s colour
(Sharp yet soft
A blend of sorts)
Bright and lovely.
Paintings and you always go together.
Merging like oil paints in the caveats of my memory
How I want to be there so desperately
On top of the molar hills of sickly-sweet greenery
How life felt like a 1920’s Weimar movie
A golden era
I think, as I walk back from the station.
Unable to mention how I feel.
Lips tightened; sealed.
Just like your grasp
Loosely tight
Supposedly comforting in the speckled evening light.
Where was I?
Back to this conversation which reminds me of you.
How I predict that you would agree
That the phrase sounds interesting
‘Making up with the sun’
Making up with you
How desperately I wish things didn’t end
When they had just begun.
by Pippa Hill
A Godless Girl
I say my name in a whisper
As I see no point in proclaiming it loudly.
There is not a ring of pride doused in my tone.
For I am far from the woman I was named after.
The first taste of church in my mouth turned sour
When I was taught into submission.
The Sunday school teachers
Claim God’s existence as
if they personally had tea with him.
They felt his presence spiritually
and were left spellbound
by his love.
I searched frantically
for the feeling
to overcome me
in salvation.
I dig in the deepest
part of myself
But not a single piece
of that quartz
could be found.
I was taught our hearts
were destined to be cursed into stone
If we didn’t rent out a space
for him to live inside it.
I know nothing of this
“miraculous” stranger
For we have never
been truly acquainted.
How can he truly love me unconditionally
If I must follow a list of rules almost precisely—
while placing my true self through
the process of extinction?
It sounds rather conditional to me.
Is anyone a true believer
if they pick
what applies as truth?
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Slather it in that one verse
from Revelations
And call it a night.
I can clarify I am not participating
In the immoral.
My guilt is in the form
of maggots swarming
an apple.
It ate me alive
as I starved for the approval
of my peers.
Is favouritism worth a single
ounce of mental torture
If I can no longer relish in what brings
the light to my eyes?
I’ve severed my ties with a man
I will never meet.
For I choose myself
to believe in.
The Maestro's Whims
Let’s just be friends instead, we said
As if we might simply
Pause our dance–
Before the strings could swell
And the lights were dimmed
(After which time we’d be too far in
To stop)
And we’d be stuck with each other.
Like all of them.
Two more struck by the Maestro’s whims.
by Navi
Old Perfume
First published in Gypsophila Art and Literary Magazine, Vol II, Issue II
Even still
Every instant is imbued with the
Essence of you
Like old perfume on
Shirts I peel off my floors
(Because laundry is too boring
To do on my own)
So that
Even a blade of grass
Will take me back
To who we were
That sweltering summer day
Of “Where do you want to eat?”
And “Don’t go just yet, please stay”
I can’t
Visit my favourite haunts now--
The haystacks hint at you
So I resolve to remain
Holed up in this room
Until this world is just that and not
Youyouyou-
Beside me in every long lineup
The source of every sharp quip
Your hand over mine with every
Pancake flip
Even still
by Navi
My Beloved, My Enemy.
Run.
To the ends of Earth, darling.
To the lands of the dead.
To the heavens or anywhere beyond the hereafter.
But,
not you,
not me,
can ever escape ourselves.
We are but our own worst enemies.
Lurking in the dark.
Exist but not.
Unseen but felt.
Never spoke but heard.
Kind yet cruel.
Oh my lover and my killer.
My salvation and my demise.
My best supporter, friend, and hater.
You are talented, they say.
But you are not, the little voice says.
You are beautiful, they say.
But you are not, the little voice says.
Who to believe?
Those who never understand us, or the one who always stays with us?
Those who only saw our facade, or the one who saw our wretched face?
Tame them and win, darling.
It's always the little voice over the voices of others.
Morph them, darling.
Control them.
Befriend them.
Cause they are you and you can get them to believe in you more than yourself ever would.
Cause they are your biggest supporter and one who would always be there even if no one else could.
Your beloved,
or your enemy.
The right to decide has always been yours to make.
by MG
sun
i.
mama said i can
never look straight up at you.
beauty like that hurts
the eyes. yet, you still kiss me
gently—no explanation.
ii.
you ask for nothing,
give just a little too much.
sometimes your kiss glows
bright pink, often the skin burns
right off. quien como la flor.
iii.
i think i want to
be adored like that: fully
and without shame. to
turn towards my lover as
flowers turn towards the dawn.
iv.
when i fantasize
about a particular
pair of eyes, your light
is ever present, caught in
the brown, the brows, the lashes.
v.
i’ve learned to bury
myself in daydreams like you
hide in clouds, finding
faces where there are none, lov–
ing the ambiguity.
vi.
all that substanceless
white, your fingers breaking through.
people mistake you
for god when you do that—warm,
piercing, kaleidoscope-like.
vii.
it must be lonely,
burning above it all, bright
against the pale blue,
caressing summer lovers,
knowing yours is in the dark.
viii.
at night, when you’re gone,
she appears. a ghost of your
glow, bone white. i miss
you then. your heat, that summer
when life felt cinematic.
ix.
and i tried to love
like you, so warm i’m not for–
gotten, not when i
sink into the horizon,
dragging my colors behind.
Afternoon delights.
I can have as many as i want if i’m good.
I smile at him sweetly as anyone would.
It’s only one a day, and i’ll burn the rest,
Every new touch lingers on the flesh.
I crave something new and sweet, I deserve a little treat.
Each strange face a cute meet and a foreign bed to sleep.
Delicious on my lips until it spoils my insides,
I always leave the remnants on my bedside,
So the next time I deprive myself i don’t forget
How to replace hunger with regret and a warm bed.
But i’m prettier between bedsheets than the confectionary isle,
And I promise not to do either for a long while.
(You can see where i’m going with this)
A hershey or a kiss? Both only moments of momentary bliss
That clings to my mouth and I suck in its foul taste.
It sinks to my stomach. He brings sweet treats to my place.
by Hannah
Love Poem
Divide and conquer
The agenda of a rotten world
but we are getting wiser and stronger
Day by day
Be the rose growing from the concrete
Don't allow anyone to deplete you
of your energy
Protect it
And live in synergy with like minded beings
It seems
something is changing
Autumn equinox, leaves are falling down
The future is orange: cozy,
beautiful and warm,
and I feel inspired to write another
Love poem
How come?
Well, instead of focusing on problems
attached to the outcome, we should flow
and think of ways to solve them.
Letting them dissolve
Like something drawn on sand after the
sea foam kisses the shore
Ignore the noise and observe bad thoughts
Passing by like clouds in the sky
Choose love
Over fear, a smile rather than crying
I know, the night won't exist without the day
And vice versa
but I always suggest the lesser of
evils write the rest in verses
Adverse reactions? None
Instead of guns
Use love poems
Random rhythm rumbling, tumbling
entangled in the quantum field.
Words shield like an armor
Harbour, where you can rest And
find ways to express yourself Your
best interest is to overcome
unhappiness, say it from your chest
Hymn of freedom
Discipline and
optimism Let love be your
religion
Fighter, magnetised
After finding out about wholeness
Individualism is the medicine prescribed To
keep us away from community and union.
Be a safe place where your loved ones
can take off the armor.
Tell your man he's handsome
Don't always wait for him to tell you
Sentimentalism, romanticism, spiritualism
against scepticism, separatism and rationalism.
I'm not saying don't use your brain, but don't over analyse everything...
let it be.
In this troublesome capitalistic world
Write love poems instead of invoices.
See the beauty all around
Smell the flowers
Light some incense and pray
Wake up with the first light of the day Meditate
and make the world a better place
by Federica
Hot tongue
It’s the baby brown glitter eyes for me that shine as Frank O’Hara recites another love torn poetry on the tape/ On my wall , there’s a picture of you smiling, the one I clicked when I told you I love the rush , motorcycles and leather jacketed guys/ you thought I was saying the truth/ some days I wish I was/ I would rather love someone like you/ the ones who are quiet and not quiet/ the ones who give their all, pining like a teenage baby, watching from afar because they think they aren’t enough to drop by and say hi/ they are the ones, the crazy ones in my dictionary, my match on earth or some other celestial place, the ones who look very much like you/ who would rather watch Ladybird with me in bed than get drunk on whiskeys just because they can/ the ones who'll suffer in their loneliness, let the anguish run wild in their journals and surrender their fantasy of being the one for Fiona Apple like girls/ only to see them smile from afar/ but let’s be honest, I probably won’t even speak without feeling you around me/ I’m dramatic like that and too far gone for guys like you/ or just you/ the 16 year old me has yet to realise that/ as O'Hara says, i would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world/ I think that says a lot about how far my obsession goes for slow love/ for you/ where I let go of what all others look for/ I'd rather live in a broken chair at home with you than the motel bars that never have the quiet ones gazing from the afar
to the cleaning lady at benito juárez international airport
i had a grandmother who loved me once / maybe / i am searching for her everywhere / even before a flight / back home / to the house she died in / she is the ghost / i look for in the living / in your ginger coils / i see her white ones / the same plastic bucket / you hold aloft / to avoid the splash / sloshing its fullness / to the floor / your mop with thick, long locks / like melting snow & mud / & heavy as a head of hair / even the earrings / gold hooks hanging / from the lobes of your ears / remind me of her jewelry box / how she beckoned me / to her bedroom / every birthday / to gift a ring or necklace / from its velvet gums / i wore each one once / then lost them / or covered the gemstones in dust / i kept my mouth shut / even when my mother asked / looking up / i ask my father to translate / the spanish words threaded in white / down your spine / where it says / cleanliness is an act of discipline / (see: code of behavior / regiment / direction) / es una expresa de amor y respectó / (see: esteem / regard / admire) / i swallow it / & think of how i used to be loved / am i still grandmother’ed / if i only have one? / i want to believe it / rather than an act of servitude / of hurting heels / & bended back / eyes lowering when another / enters a room / perhaps it is neither / perhaps it is both / but if this is love / i picture your heart in the soap / a beating, bloody thing / cradled by bubbles & suds / your lungs sitting / on the spot you just mopped / shoe prints already appearing / a stand-in yellow sign calling cuidado / a warning both tender & sharp / like a soft slap on the wrist / how my grandmother growled it / when she saw me / running / sock-slipping on the floor in the dark / you smell like sundays at our house / like all of mexico / disinfectant & bleach / purple-bottled fabuloso foam / diluted with water / & thrown in buckets to the street / you come closer / smile with eyes / i can’t remember the color of / but i notice you’ve become blonde / in this light / she had the same hair once / & scoliosis from bending over too much / being the last to sit down / to eat / to pray / i don’t want to be a woman / always looking down at her feet / i wish i’d asked for your name / please / i hope you go home early today / treat yourself to a warm bath / scented with oils & fruit / soak your hips in the water / return to a spouse / willing to massage / the meat of your feet / i wish i’d told her so / before she left me / moving through the world mourning / & seeing the dead in every emptiness / maybe / i’m trying / to clean her out of me / free my mind of her memories / even though she’s made my heart a home / come / scrub away at this bruise / the aching / the burning / the blue.
Wishful Thinking
Every time I hear love song
Blasting outside my window
I hope it's you
Finally
Coming back
To fight for me
But then I remember
That stuff only happens in movies
And none of them include
"I LOVE YOU"
Stitched across a homemade mask
Set to the backdrop
Of a global
Pamplemousse rose
by Lé
In heat.
It’s the heat that kills.
When I lie in bed and it seeps through me pooling in that inferno,
I forget what the flames eat first, and what evil lurks beneath,
Or within, but I hold my breath until it stills.
I wait and linger and plead, but the darkness wants everything to do with me.
It fills me until the cracks smooth over and I kick at covers.
When I was smaller, you would tell me to leap from the sheets,
Grab everything I could hold onto; now my hands work against me and I no longer use yours.
For a while I held on, cramming the space around me and then it turned to great waves,
No longer driftwood on the strange tides, but jetsam trashing my shores.
I loathed these walls and the ice that crept around me,
Teetering along edges and finding me weak.
When I can no longer reason, it is your name I speak,
Then the flames swell and flicker and part.
I descend further and stop to see your face from below
And remember how it felt long ago to sit by your side and burn
When I used to wait for sparks to take flame.
It is the embrace of time I only know so dear,
Yet I hope to see you come back around here.
by Hannah
euphoric love
this euphoric gaze
is infectious
until i’m stuck in a daze
of love for my people,
i’m in love with my people
basking in their love for me,
all of us riding euphoric waves
unafraid because this joy protects us
see,
we’re connecting with a higher self
a higher way of being and
dreaming
and feeling
and
this joy isn’t fleeing
no,
it’s sprouting new leaves as i speak
reaching for above
euphoric branches reaching news peaks
proving that this love
for my people
and my peoples love for me
will always see us exceed
limitations placed by another
our unity helping us to achieve
the very best
for our growth,
for our people
for our culture
and because of this i can trust
that with us
there is hope
for a future
full of peace,
full of love,
full of joy,
and that is enough.
Nina Simone Was a Force of Nature
Maybe that’s why everything she did
canceled out
the divine feminine
her call remained on silent
fans handed her
nature to pay her after shows
as if it showered her
in love, summer rain some-
thing she never experienced at home growing up, the mark of a true artist is they never intended
to be famous and then they get labeled crazy for loving
what they do, some do end
up, but she will never
not be crazy
talented in my charcoal eyes
bouquets and
cricket
claps
that sprinkled
incremented nourishment. Yes, seeds & overcrowding weeds her hands slaved in soil, black
on the surface and even further
down
the road her parents paved
for a family tree of burned bark, brown
wading through the saffron
dandelion fields, eating
sour fruits
of their labor, sickening
howls for money to hold
a love she never was around
growing
up to keep her
apartment from crumbling,
this is the ugly part offstage
where an audience partitions
artist from Art is the starving,
the daily news
feed, sees a person as purely an image
Venus fly trap she was predestined to
nurture the feminine thirst, undeniable
will to feed to quench, indeed,
she had the mother
load, pockets full of
blaring blackness glaring back at her
tar-coated trust almost so dark
becomes invisible paper
bag over face, cover like Claudia
Rankine’s black hoodie
figure against a stark
white background, back again
mistaken for a creature
no choice, Mississippi
Goddam, kick cans in
a crumbling city until it’s
rebuilt with revolution, footfalls
eery echoes the immaterial
that sustains
trashed pothole
streets, riddled with plastic
people, washed-out, watch out
she will point trigger fingers if you stand
in the way of her
first love, Bach
weathered concrete, vermon was the man
-made ever two-way in giving, supporting
the soles? She asked no
one in particular.
No cents at her feet, not even a dirty penny. We could waste time
by listing the basic living swept cunningly from her soles, those rich roots
command
to be secure, an Earth Song 2.0
instead of their strength ravaged
all she wanted was love from the ground
up.
by Maria