adaora

things i write for myself and others

[wanderingsins]

[soracities]

Emily Skaja, from "I Liked Myself Better as an Exquisite Skeleton", pub. The Offing [ID'd]

[lady-dedlock]

Even in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful persuasion. But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it.

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome

[389]

The Shadow, Lou Benesch watercolour, ink and coloured pencil on paper

[mournfulroses]

Franz Kafka, from a letter to Felice Bauer written in 1913, featured in Letters To Felice

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #25

The Trees Have Eyes

an itch behind ear fluff

rushing perspiration

hints at lurking malady

but the grass is sweet

in the swooped earth

between brittle pine branches

there will always be fear

there will always be

the crunched step

mistaken for unkindness

but don’t run away

because the grass is sweet

remember the grass is sweet

bite the mist

in search of something

greater

weave through

tendrils of better

and land

in the great wide open

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #24

i trust you i love you nevermind the hounds bite nevermind the undercurrent edging griefs stillness i trust you i love you do you remember the stench the briney pinpricks that brought tears to your eyes and still you begged to stay to carry on to endure i trust you i love you and silence mouthy curse protect what came first don’t forget the howling do you hear it i only hear you i trust you i love you the tack of throats clicking the squelch of damp eyes winking don’t let us go out foster the flame and in turn the truth our truth because i trust you and i love you and nevermind the future nevermind lack or the scarring from the teething we will make it to the end we will rest the flame on the other side and the ghosts my ghosts shall steady unsteady hands and if i reach the end will forgiveness come will you beckon me back and will you trust me and love me

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #23

My sky, my hope, my dream, my pope. Stand before the jury, beckon the alias tongue. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shove so hard. But it is not your time. For the first and last time, I will let go of your hand. But remember the callouses, engender the friction. Carve your own grooves and bayous. Jog me scarlet lucky, and I shall lay on your every whim. You only have to ask, you only have to be.

[mournfulroses]

Simone de Beauvoir, from a letter to Élisabeth Lacoin written in June 1929

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #22

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #21

blue like crooked teeth

under water

trace the path

of the grout with your big toe

and you'll find

a blunt edged smile

genteel ethos a

sunflower in a blue vase

pick out

the green stems

through wriggling translucency

trace the fuzz

against your cheek

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #20

sun bleached and better

the horizon wings its way

mounts the deep

and makes of the darkness

a springboard

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #19

purge the voices

and have respect for those who choose to believe

built from innocence

maintained as age consumes

does it still count?

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #18

admonish the cusp

embrace the expanse

transcribe the echo

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #17

above the churning shades of night, blanks of yellow like sheets of marigold

paint underneath the catch of dust

sticking caches of fuzzy bitterness

pillowy peaks ground me under pseudomorphic joy

cement,

tether

let fizzy feeling brine bring about a better day

[adaoraiswriting]

Poem #16

there is a tree in my backyard. 

I don’t remember being young, but I do remember laying in the grass, head turned to the side, ear adjacent to the earth.

there is a tree in my backyard,

 and at his base grass does not grow. i sit now and watch the great arching yawn of it. There exists an inverse, stretching beyond the base, beyond the perimeter of grass, blades like knights erected from the dirt. I wonder if the same breeze exists below. If there is music in his branches, on the wind. perhaps it all comes from within. sown through the bark, weaved into the xylem.

there is a tree in my backyard,

and mom wants to cut it. And to that i beg no, please no. And to that i say, if it goes so shall i. If it goes i will become my inverse, and dig down deep, forever searching for the music, the breeze.

[adaoraiswriting]

i have a problem with turning myself into a caricature, especially when i draw my body. i think though if i continue with that awareness, i'll stumble upon a healthier medium (and perhaps some self leniency) and they'll slowly but surely become something kinder.

and i wish bare bodies weren't so inherently sexualized !

skin and folds and scars and hair all tell a beautifully honest story of a person.