collective.

Aiya K. M.; Anumita K.; Jessica L. S.; Saad B.; Flex M. D.; Chloe P.; Walter P.; Joey D. V.; Chielsea J.C.

[thefigtreeproject]

lines to no one

i am fascinated by intimate places

ones where the walls are thick, and speak to you, and listen where the grass has grown wild and stings you as you hurry where the whispers in your mind are quieted, yes, places where your heartbreak guards the door and guides your hands

like a blind woman, i feel my way through smoke in intimate places in dimly lit places in secretive places until i solve the problem of Time my teeth have been clenched for too long the tension unbearable, like ropes across my chest i am fascinated by intimate places where morning light stretches, stretches, never breaking where we, laughing, melt the walls between us where i can summon you and taste you with  my shaking fingers, my heartbreak hands and we stretch, and we stretch, and we stretch. i can’t find them anymore, the intimate places i can’t find them anymore.

—AKM

[thefigtreeproject]

a town, my lover

i know only how to run  unless you ground me show me how to love instead i tied my promises to a redwood tree & i hate the parts of you that hold the parts of me

but i love the air you breathe the way you waste my time your precious gray ate up my precious little heart you love me then you taunt me turn my tears into an art

i know only how to run  and that you tried to teach me how to love instead i blew my promises out to the sea & i hate the parts of you— (though i love everything about you no one knows the bad things about you) —i hate everything about you that holds a part of me

[thefigtreeproject]

No one ever taught you courage sweet, sad child of Autumn You’ve learned and forgotten, over and over so each time you stand your fingers tremble, your breath shakes and heaves. Courage requires muscle memory.

No one ever taught you, love, what you want requires what you cannot do. Yet such is the way, such is the way sweet, sad, sheltered child who only knows how to run and run, and run.  —AKM

[thefigtreeproject]

Being haunted

The world of Almost tastes bitterly of nostalgia —here at the brink of an ending, anticipating some beginning unknown— As if I’ve felt this fear before, but in a different time, for different reasons I can almost remember your voice, an old-new memory Then I saw you at the same place, at a bad time Our eyes danced around each other as per our doctrine of avoidance, our perpetual dedication to Almost You walked by, and you Almost looked at me 

[thefigtreeproject]

(ii) BMW

we hold hands in your range rover cruising the coastline with the car of my father’s dreams and it’s so big i have to climb in, like i’m mounting a horse, i’m (social) climbing up, and up, and up, and who ever wanted such monstrous tires, this fancy stereo and beautiful leather seats? not me, not me

inside your BMW, class warfare wages on but it’s silent and you don’t know how poisonous gas seeps through the air vents — did you intend this? i am drunk, grinning, stupefied you drop bombs (on me and my father) and i take them with a sweet smile and a spread of my legs

—AKM March 2017

[thefigtreeproject]

(i) 5050 Emerald St

the walls are too thick when i walk, i feel every step from deep below     and I sit up more, stand like a queen     with the hairs on my arms standing up, too i am afraid of this perfect house and when i lie in your perfect bed wave my feet around like my body never learned to breathe nestle in a cloud in your arms i have left myself at the front door

then who is in your perfect kitchen? drinking wine and laughing not me, not me i’m standing in the rain, outside where i belong

—AKM March 2017

[thefigtreeproject]

The Library, Dec. 5 2016

[thefigtreeproject]

lines to instill calm—

i feel a fear inside of me i feel it grow- ing con- stantly i feel the way it moves in me the way you used to do

the way it scares and tears at me the aw- ful glares cast e- villy the way it gripes and gropes in me i wish to do to you

[thefigtreeproject]

You are my addiction An addiction I can't just quit I can't just drop Because just like a pill addiction Quitting you right away - All at once Would soon be me crippling, cold, grey Fallen? breathless? lifeless? I don't know. A slow, craving for more, But no Stop Slow and steady, remember. So in goes a pill, I let myself go. I talk to you for a bit. Close my eyes and comb your beard Feel your sticky face and your warmth pressing on these empty hands. This feels nice. I'll let this memory lull me to sleep. Then it fades, and I'm back. And you're not there. And I reach for one more pill Stop Slow and steady, remember. So I wait and wait Till I can take one more pill again One more pill that is you. But not you. But an addiction. - C.J.C.

[thefigtreeproject]

You see - There was a time for us A time rushing dawn, Keys, pants, grumble Now I'm in your shoulders. Kiss, back to sleep. Half past nine, Shirt, skin, on top Our yellow secret blanket Kiss, back to sleep. Midnight, Shhh, light, skin Your hand over my mouth Kiss, back to sleep. You see - There was a time for us. There is still time for us. Where now is our time for us. - C. J. C.

[thefigtreeproject]

When a poem is submitted, can it be submitted anonymously?

Ughh I think they changed it. There used to be an option for anonymous submissions but I can’t find it anywhere, and there’s nowhere in the settings that will enable me to allow it. Sorry about that! If you can figure it out before I do, go for it.

[thefigtreeproject]

The bed creaked under John’s weight as he reached for a cigarette. A beam of light shot across the room from the window. As he lit a cigarette he watched the smoke while it passed through the light.

The phone rang,

“Uh, hello?” “John! Jesus Christ, mom’s sick. You need to come home.” “Wait, what?” “Mom, she’s sick. Like dying sick. You need to come home.”

John laid down back into the bed, cigarette in his mouth and didn’t say anything. “John? Are you there?”

No answer.

“John, I’m not kidding! I need your help, please.”

Still nothing.

“Please, John, talk to me.”

John took a drag from his cigarette.

“Sam, mom’s been dead for years.” “What are you talking about? Look, I need your help. You need to come home. Right now.” “Sam, she’s dead. She died in the car accident the summer after you graduated.” “Shut up, John! Please!”

W.P., September 1st, 2016

[thefigtreeproject]

relinquish pt. II

you

fell apart for me, like, a crumbling ruin left for thousands of years to rot in my heart, you

were built up with care, with precision, with something next to godliness  with blueprinted paper and a fine-point pen  now, reclaiming the elements, I

rain upon you like a storm you’ve never seen carrying epochs of anger— the wrath of a mortal who cannot contain— I seep into the cracks, melt the mortar between your bricks

I take deep breaths, deeper,  blowing down your tempests and towers with gusts, gusts, of 120mph rage  I am hurting, and it expels from my lungs with force

then, the fires begin; no sweet little flames, only furious heat, I engulf every last pathetic being  cowering within your walls; I enter the thick, gray smoke into every skin cell and laugh, raspy, guttural, good

and last the low rumbling of earthquakes I crash, tectonic plate upon plate, and shake your foundations to reach the very core of you I reach deep into you, turn you inside out from the dirt, the earth, hear me screaming so that you know it’s me sending you into ruin breaking down your flesh by pixel and crying out until I never hear your silence again, you

thought you stood tall, like, an ancient city

All you are is dust. —AKM 8/23/16

[thefigtreeproject]

“i hereby relinquish”

d i s e n g a g e

i retreat i rework i change my mind i live in moments your moments they belong to me, the ones        whose images are seared into my        mind’s projector, playing grainy,        ancient snapshots, over        and over, and over, and over,        and over, and over, and over

       again. 

d i s e n g a g e 

the moments that belong to me are out-of-date, the images faded, filmy,        old and wrinkled, like rotten fruit        locked away in the pantry too long

i’ve been trying so hard; i disengage i rework your image in my mind;        slowly shedding the ancient, the dusty;        like slipping out of last winter’s moth-bitten coat        like the first inhale of summer air, i’m        in danger of renewal        —of moments, simply, that do not belong to me 

       anymore.

—AKM Monday, Aug. 8 2016

[thefigtreeproject]

lines on a grave injustice

when he tells you about his new girlfriend— your heart won’t shatter, but your eyes will wander as he sits across from you in the crowded coffeeshop; it’s her you see you already know her name, her face, and the way she must look at him when he tells you about her—you look past his eyes deep, into his mind’s most private places, and find the things he doesn’t tell how they lie, together, in the dark, where he’s committed to memory the sound of her breaths the way her arms lock into his, a satisfied click, the perfect fit his arms have held the solutions to questions you never could answer, the most private places where you never belonged

he’ll never tell her about you— she won’t know your name, your face, or that it could have been you 

[thefigtreeproject]

Lines about recovery

Have I words? a challenge in the guise of question like insidious disease    clouding and crippling me, creeping in, crowding

Have I words? a challenge as question that bounces around mind’s concrete catacombs,    it echoes, echoes.     No answer.

Where have they gone? I’d lovingly poured my existence into my words, like hot tea into a fragile cup    I thought it was safe there    Yet how did I get here,    to this place,    where I do not exist?  Where did I go?

Have I words? I did once

Have I words? I was here once

Where did I go? I trace back, back, to when I lost the words I cherished I trace back to the source of silence  I trace back to you

[thefigtreeproject]

sometimes I have no face; that is to say, the flesh that wraps around my bones, the stretch of alluring lips, and exotic flutter of warm, brown eyes— I melt them away.

In an imagined, un-illuminated corner of silence  I invent a place where they don’t see my face anymore. and I shroud myself in a darkness so deep I cannot find my own hands, I must feel for the throbbing of my pulse, my blood,

rhythm of my veins, the way

it nudges my skin in minuscule bumps and pulls,

to know that I exist. 

It is worth it.

Obscurity my protection, the darkness my shield — the world

they see my face and stop, refuse

to see anything else,

refuse to know that I am pure

that I am human

that I exist beyond.

With my face I have no mind.

With my face I am not whole I am merely a stretch

of plump lips waiting for your arrival

dark, flashing eyes painted fresh just for you

a landscape of virgin skin just meant to be touched — no more.

I am mind and soul and fire and so

on days when wholeness evades me again

when I am frankly quite done with not existing

I snuff out the candle, melt my face away and welcome the dark

sitting still, still, still, save for the thunderous beat of my flesh-and-blood heart.

—AKM