Apologia

An acknowledgement of demons.

[roe-faura]

june 10th, 2018 and i have little to no identity outside of: 21-year-old with a tolerable 8-month-old job and a 3-year-old spiritual crisis. 

[roe-faura]

narcissus 

it could have been a love song 

if i tried hard enough but i didn’t,

of course i didn’t -- i did not love you,

not when i said i did, but wanted you

to love me so i could say, 

“no, sorry, it cannot be.”

you liked looking at me, didn’t you? 

a mirror and narcissus fall in love --

where is the punchline?

it has been years but i’m still picking you 

out from underneath my skin; i don’t know

what hurts more, the impact or the withdrawal?

each time i find a piece of you 

i take a peek -- i can’t help it -- and

hear you say “you’re beautiful”. 

i wish i could swallow glass, love.

did you wish you were me? 

or should i have been a mirror, too?                                                                                                                    a mirror

                                                                               it could have been a love song

                                                                           if i didn’t look too much, but i did, 

                                                                          of course i did -- i did not love you

                                                                                 but i liked the way you looked

                                                                                               (at me, too, i hoped).

                                                                      how you pirouetted, how you smiled.

                                                                           you never looked at me, did you?

                                                                        a mirror and narcissus fall in love - 

                                                                              who cannot see the punchline?

                                                          it has been years but i haven’t escaped you;

                                                   what hurts more, the explosion or the aftermath?

                                                             but each time you find a piece of me i say 

                                                                              “you’re beautiful,” i can’t help it,

                                                     even though i wish i had broken more violently 

                                                        to wound you the deep, unreachable wounds

                                                   when you say you wish you could swallow glass 

                                                                                  do you want me back, inside,

                                                                      or do you only want to hear it again?

[lifeinpoetry]

I knew God was a man

because he put a baby in Mary

without her permission.

— Tyree Daye, from “Neuse River,” River Hymns

[yesterdaysprint]

[51don]

August 30, 1932

[pigmenting]

I’ll hold all your terrific ugly.

Franny Choi, from “Reasons It’s Important to Rest” in Floating, Brilliant, Gone (via pigmenting)

[gayrockstars]

do you ever hear a song and think, i wanna make stuff that feels like this

[communicants]

Mahmoud Darwish, In the Presence of Absence

[oliviacirce]

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, Please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she Did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, Sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used— She stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and Would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and Found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering Questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag— And was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers— Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands— Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped —has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be.  (via oliviacirce)

[roe-faura]

i’ve forgotten how to write.

[tinyghosthands]

Suzanne Buffam

[roe-faura]

Who do you think of?

i think of imaginary friends and ghosts of past and present

[roe-faura]

death by harmonies

[roe-faura]

i keep getting distracted by 

i can’t finish my sentences, can’t complete my 

[just-shower-thoughts]

I didn’t exist in your world until you started reading this sentence of mine

[roe-faura]

nov 9, 2016, 10:42 p.m.

ya so it’s 2016, i’m writing about women’s liberation under socialism in a vague there-is-no-chance-we-can-do-that-now way while thinking about sleep, because sleep is nice, while calculating how much sleep i could still get if i slept right this minute and woke up at, say, 2:30 (like fuck if i could), because i have an exam tomorrow and i haven’t read a thing, two papers including this one, two papers i’ll think about on the train to school. i just declared i would go beast mode in the next semester because this is the one i threw away. what a waste.andistillrememberhowyousaid“fuck”overthephonewheni’veforgottenprettymucheverythingelse  i’m not really getting any writing done goodbye goodbye. the internet is giving us too much freedom to be stupid.

[sommerlanding]

anonymously tell me what time it is and what you’re thinking about

[viperslang]

A sentence like a nerve, throbbing on the riverbank.

Bhanu Kapil (via arabellesicardi)