Letters To A Girl They Called Monkey

Words I wrote for a Girl they called Monkey live here.

[letterstomonkey]

A Girl They Called Monkey

When I was in second grade, a kid called me monkey. He looked at my square face and paid his compliments to the chef, my Persian father, by comparing it to a monkey. He pointed at my big, round ears, taking up far too much space for the shortness of my face, and threw all the other good things my mom gave me away, when he called me monkey.

And so the girl who collected headbands to keep her hair out of her way, tried to find new means to hide the squareness of her lines, and the Dumbo-like ears that bookended her face.

She saw a girl in the grocery story purposefully pull a few strands around her face like a frame, concealing rough edges, appearing mature, while keeping her hair tame. But when little monkey me tried it, my mom pointed out that it looked strange, hid the corners of my eyes that wrinkle when they smile, and my ears that love to listen, taking up space, unafraid and unashamed.

This monkey wanted to climb the monkey bars without her hair falling astray, so behind her ears her hair will stay, from second grade, up to this day.

I write letters to the girl who longed to be loved, yearned to be heard, and prayed to be understood. She searched in a million wrong places, yet made it here, like I always knew she would.

So call her monkey, call her lovely, call her anytime you wish. Call her and she will read you poetry, because that is her gift.

[letterstomonkey]

I will build us a bridge and I’ll lie there in wait

For you to beckon me through those golden, pearl gates;

I’ll take from the wreckage of your bathroom cabinets

Drawn to your messes and engulfed by your habits,

With painted-on faith and reckless abandon

Where I cannot find you, my love lost will stand in.

I will build us a bridge and I’ll lie there in wait

For my letters returned with an agreed upon date;

Sustaining the foundation are grand piano keys

Who serenade in symphonies when I fall to my knees

Indulging in memory feels like maladaptive sin

But you’re a famous flower and forever have your stem;

You are the setting sun, embodied love without possession.

[letterstomonkey]

My Mother: Conductor of Symphonies

My mother: Conductor of Symphonies

Instrumentally arming her infantries

Perfecting her pitch of astringency,

Listeners from every vicinity fall

Victim to audible imagery

My mother: Magistrate of Musical Sin

Condemning our faults before we begin

Assigning solos to all but her kin

One beats a drum and one plucks mandolin

Staying on time, to mother’s chagrin

My mother: Conductor of Contingency

Orchestrating divinely timed cacophony

Cursed with a child of incessant soliloquy

Who plays in pursuit of their synchronicity

Despite every note pointing to their futility

[letterstomonkey]

Bones

She speaks with her bones, for that’s all the girl knows

Cause who else could she blame for this life she once chose?

Louder she grows with all roads taken lower,

Shroud her fist throws, curating foreclosure;

Draining my blood to consecrate the decline

Of you from my life, so I’ll drown in the line

I drew on your supine face out of wine

For when I needed you, but you needed a spine.

A floral facade dawning freshly cut fables,

Invisible fences gild our dinner tables–

Can muddled mirages roped off in memoriam

Outlive my personified, truth-rusted decorum?

If you re-write my monologue, I print your postmortem.

You scream with Scheele’s green, and I proudly adorn them

But your words, once absorbed, crucify this Victorian. 

[letterstomonkey]

No Chaser

Naturally,

I forgot to buy one thing at the grocery store.

I remembered the paper plates and

Soup cans brimming with hate, but

I forgot to buy love at the store as

I swore it sat atop the microwave,

Watching me drive away;

Watching as I drive you away watch me

Professionally, swallowing our agony with

No chaser

You couldn’t help but flee the scene in the

Opposite direction, leaving with

No chaser

You couldn’t afford one look back, one

Indication you wished you could turn back and

Chase her.

[letterstomonkey]

Bedridden

In my mind, I am bedridden

Chained to a frame ‘cause I couldn’t 

Just

Keep my

Turbulence hidden

Furthermore, I can’t be trusted

What I touch all turns to rust and

Where I step, the dirts disgusted

By my aura, blood-encrusted

Clutched and coddled, like a mother

Who can’t wrap her head around her

Stillborn baby, so she holds a

Lifeless body, ‘til she throws up.

My rebuttals send streams of

Blood from out both ears

Clawing eyelids in my sleep

I’m desolate, no life seen here.

Dust collects upon my lips

My throat must be designed for silence, I

Donate my thoughts to science as

My body screams defiance–

But my body never got a say.

The air I breathe is an impossible pill

To swallow, a promise of a darker 

Tomorrow, I am always in that

House where no amount of 

Skin cut open can save me

No amount of cries for help can

Beckon a god who did not raise me

Yet I kept dropping to my knees

Threatening anyone who dare

Listen, to let this

Be the last of me, and still

Today , it is no different.

[letterstomonkey]

Be Careful Who You Wish For

So she needed me cornered, distorting cell borders

With windows for walls propped upon brick and mortar

So she reaped what she sewed when she tossed the first stone,

Bunkered behind tired excuses from her phone

So she’s innocent, her hit list like ducks in a row,

Savoring their remnants and role-playing hero

So she scaled my skyscraper just to cower and moan,

Treating people like pawns in her path to the throne

So she blew rings of smoke out the castle window,

Insisting some savior would show up tomorrow

So she slipped up in silence, let the record be shown

That she slept through her opportunity to atone

So her loose lips have cost me the deed to my secrets,

My frozen island floats on to show all who’s weakest

So she got what she wanted, put on quite the show

Whomever goes up must come down, don’t you know? 

[letterstomonkey]

A Wish, A Promise

You wish that I could make you a promise,

I wish my words would live on past my lips;

Whispering white lies to cast aside comets,

But a wish and a promise– they never eclipse.

You wish that I could make you a promise,

My penance pledges to satiate sins;

Under the blood moon, whispers cast on us

Unveil an exhale– and so it begins.

You wish that I could make you a promise,

Protection from questioning your rarest gift;

Witness me worshiping only your goddess,

While everyone else has left the night shift.

You wish that I could make you a promise

In bubble wrapped, battle wound words;

The town you burnt down always will haunt us,

Memories rewritten cementing the hurt.

[letterstomonkey]

A Rainbow From Roots

A rainbow from roots, you and I could grow into

A novel or two, bearing juicy, ripe fruit

Pink, yellow, or blue- color me how you choose

And watch me grow into your flowerbed muse

A rainbow from roots, we follow the trail

Around blocks of blooming, lucid detail

If business keeps up, you and I should set sail

With flowers in hand, any way the winds hail

A rainbow from roots, I follow your two lips

With the black of my eyes, and if the shoe fits

I could stick around here, for the next harvest

You be the gardener, and I the guitarist

A rainbow from roots, I settle in the dust

From the off-beaten path, beaming wanderlust

Writing you into my blooming, spring chorus,

Held by the rainbows you cultivate for us.

-Inspired by "Flower Fields in Holland" by Vincent Van Gogh

[letterstomonkey]

Breakfast or Lunch

I love you like breakfast while loathing you like lunch;

Craving clarity with my first bite of today, a blend

of your strawberries melted in my honey, granola crunch

Residual and golden, how you and the morning transcend.

A swift, morning apple is my foundation for the day,

As a tight grip on your gaze starts me off the beaten path.

Surrounded by fine art, yet my hands beg me to portray

Your hands cupping coffee, as steam rises from the birdbath.

So scatter my remains about the whole backyard by noon,

As if I am your coffee grounds– a mess made just for you.

Slowly sip my ashes, while you reminisce on the moon

How I held you close like she did, until breakfast time was through.

How I love you like my whole life preceding you was blind,

So I welcome you to stay for lunch, should you feel so inclined.

[letterstomonkey]

Mahogany

Picture me inside Mahogany for this moment:

Mahogany, on the count of Three

Mahogany, compress my restless knees

Mahogany, fold inward my Skeleton

Mahogany, I meet here my friend, again

Mahogany, hugging my chin tucked in

Mahogany, how my head Bowed in lament

Mahogany, hear me through leery Amen

Mahogany, shield me from wolf in sheepskin

Mahogany, my ankles protrude in my seat

Mahogany, I rest my breast plates at your feet 

Mahogany, alchemize my Vulnerability

Mahogany, make light of naive liability

Mahogany, my hiding spot, burnt sienna colored

Mahogany, breathlessly, I’m locked inside your cupboard

Mahogany, whatever happened to me—

Keep me safe and keep it covered.

[letterstomonkey]

Writing saved my life.

Thank you all for TWO YEARS of your gracious encouragement, sincere feedback, and of course, thank you always for reading me!

I’m so grateful for the supportive community of writers and creators on Tumblr that have inspired me to grow my creative garden into something much bigger than I knew I was capable of.

[letterstomonkey]

Iced Out

As ice freezes sheets over surfacing history,

So an ice pick leaves shards of bargaining secrecy.

An ice pick bestowed under my pillow, breathlessly

Chasing the nightmares of tomorrow—

I awaken in a bubble of tornado rubble

Coughing up cauldrons of being in trouble,

I pick and I piece at safe keeping stories bound by

Numeric synchronicities, bought by

Skeleton keys overthrown in threes,

I am a misplaced houseguest wandering my stairwell alone

An ice pick placed in my pocket, I learned to

Aim for the eye of the flashbacks to stop it

Ice chips and ice cubes and torn soles of lorn shoes

An ice pick for nothing to do with me

A hole in the ground to uproot what bears fruit for me

A pick in the tree gushing honey veins ruthlessly

Leave me for roadkill with nothing to use of me

[letterstomonkey]

Baby's Breath

A white flower grown in diffidence

If I was human, today I’m not confident

A ring too tight for my finger,

I couldn’t let your name linger-

Won’t you trust my infallibility?

Won’t you trust my authority on my own

shortcomings, when I articulate

such disdain for sharing a driveway with my brain?

Words sound pretentious, precarious, a waste of time and consciousness when uttered by these lips, tossed from these fingertips

Cartoons playing on the tv

The remote sleeps next to me, the length of my forearm

I have the tv turned on

But I will keep it muted, in anticipation

Of nobody wanting to listen

[letterstomonkey]

Fun Home

When the fire department came into my home,

I did not know that boys could be so tall

My Mommy was the tallest

Until she was on the brown couch in the playroom

Where nobody would let me see her,

Somebody used the landline and called

911 because she stopped breathing, I think

I was standing on the arm rest of the couch in the living room

To gain a better view

of Mommy being carried across the threshold on a stretcher

Did I know that that was her first time being carried across

The threshold, because daddy didn’t love

Her until she stopped breathing the same?

Pneumonia and influenza

Were running circles around the town

that I was six inside

I painted a wooden picture frame light blue

Dipped ice cream cone shells in a dixie cup of glue

And I couldn’t handle the thought of losing you

Before I was old enough to believe that I hated you.

T.J. made me a turkey sandwich that

I stopped liking six months ago, but he was always a little behind

At learning my life

Mommy read a book called "The Help"

For months, and the dandelion

Paperback cover left paper trails across

Kitchen counters and coffee tables

Until Daddy bought the same book 

From Costco for Mother’s Day and

She cried in the shower for a long time after.

I picked her flowers from the neighbors hydrangeas and 

Put them in a vase along the windowsill in the kitchen 

My denim mini skirt hugged six-year-old hips while

Sixteen-year-old T.J. brushed my hair into a ponytail

He wouldn’t tell me anything

Mommy was too tired

T.J. never learned how to do my hair

But he figured it out when he met a girl that he loved 

More, it was never meant to be me

But he tried, before My Daddy chased him away

Down Rotunda, past the tree with a face

I am six years old and I listen to everything

It is a scary way of existing

I am learning my teachers don’t have the answers

To what is going on at home

And if my teachers do not know,

Then who do I ask? Or do I have to find out

Myself? What kind of game of hide and seek is this?

I know that, for me,

Mommy would get the pink rubber duck from CVS that lights up in the bathtub

And I remember that, because I wanted it more than anything,

And she said no. But she went back for it later and surprised me, and I 

Was never again so happy, because 

What is better than being remembered

Unintentionally?

[letterstomonkey]

Saturn

I am one with sidewalk chalk and I do not know 

How to skip stolen creek rocks

I am untangling their mess

And I sleep in piles of spaghetti noodles

Fallen hair and ink pen doodles

Fade into blue balloons behind sweaty palms that

Fade into backhanded slaps and pink lip balms

I am the self that knows not a self

I am second, yet

I am the self that is first and everybody else is quiet

They fall away into nothingness, all to watch me fall

To follow suit and It is okay, because

I am the self that is not here nor there

And I am the self that grows wisdom in her hair

And I am the self that observes thoughts and patterns

Curves and hurts and bursts of prayer

I am the self that is full of despair

The self that remembers everything, all the time,

And do I know what I wish to forget?

I am the self that aches to forget, that prays to come into some knowledge or quote

Some new niche some new shoes some new food 

Some girls do not like me and I am the girl that wants to understand everybody

I am the student who walks the teacher home

I am the socks that do not fit my feet right and I am the

Words that sink back down my throat at night

I am waterfalls, falling down is my forte 

I hold you in my hands and I pray not to let you fall through the cracks

Like sands

I hold you in my hands and I have something to pray for

[letterstomonkey]

Secrets

In a perfect world, I was born in secret and I

Die, tomorrow, in secret

My life is written before me; Complicit in shielding

The world from what pity my presence elicits,

Shovel under my intestines and

Bury my opinions about the Day that I’ve been given

Capture like a rabid dog my

Raw intuition, first thing

In the morning when I am as

Close as I’ll be to dreaming or

Sleep-talking,

Find me and listen as my lungs

Speak;

Exhale in synchronicity

These secrets that I keep