incomplete words are still understood by the dark glint in eyes and the cobwebs in certain corners, not others.
who needs a confessional when the darkness in the bedroom opens train stations and tracks to shuffle dreams back and forth and brings tongues to looser states than beer or rice wine?
the heartbreak I am waiting for now is no longer my own but the day he comes home, young and raw, believing first loves will never rise again -- and we must hold our tongues so we do not let him know it is true that each fall chips something away, that you end up tumbled and torn but the consolation is a warm palm to rest in.
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With seven minutes left of the day -- seven minutes left of the life allotted to me -- I turn on a video that used to keep me awake but will now have me drowsy and dreaming before I can realize I ended up having the strength to kill myself after all; I just needed to do it slowly, in small steps, with the approval of the world at my back.
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There is a bar around the corner that holds its own beige-washed square in its palms and stretches out shy tendrils of plastic chairs and plastic tables called "la terraza" and called "less intimidating than sitting in front of the Spanish workers inside".
There is a sun dial on the wall. There is a lamp above the black/white sign. There is my backpack on the chair to hold my spot, to mark my territory, to serve as an anchor as I float inside.
"I want one of those." No vocabulary, all pointing and cash.
In the moment, the sun and my foreignness made the bar prick, though the soft inside of the bread sat atop the egg tortilla and the leche inside the cafe kept me from bleeding too much.
But weeks and months later, I imagine my father pulling up moments later on his bike
[he pulled my little sisters in a trailer behind his bike as we adventured from our house to the park, as we adventured from our house to the bridge across the highway; he transformed a bike into a stationary piece of exercise equipment in the basement; he left a bike seat for me to find in his effects after his death, and I will never know what it means]
"How was that road, eh?" [I can hear his voice and his heavy breathing -- like after yardwork or after coming out of the sauna he built over the stairs coming up from the basement at the house on Brownlow]
and I hold out his plate -- one more egg tortilla and one more crust, because we are traveling together and I learned to say "quiero dos" instead of just one.
Weeks and months later I imagine that his voice helps mine fill the beige-washed square, and I am not afraid in this wide open space alone because we have come to this strange place together and are upon the road together.
And this is what really makes me bleed. I hold a photo book and my certification of completion to the wound, but it still comes out in waves until the tables, the chairs, the sundial, the sign, and the lamp are covered in red.
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Everything is easy to forgive and remember when you are hiding behind a small white curtain. Sunlight is hazy; sounds pass through boxes of old photographs and come out gray.
So when they ask about you, even the donuts you traced in the snow in the empty parking lot across the street (although in fact they were laced with beer and orange prescription bottles that I never asked about because why would I) become happy, wild memories postedited with smiles.
Only vaguely do I remember I was paralyzed in the backseat as you took highway 94 weaving with the smell of alcohol on your breath -- were you mad because you'd somehow seen I'd gone with a date?
Only vaguely before the breeze whisks the curtain and the fear subsides and is replaced with your hard black briefcase swinging by your side as we walked through the skyway to Taco John's on a Tuesday - Taco Tuesday - to bring the bag home to sisters and a warm orange breakfast room, and the wooden floors, and the tumbling dryer and my room with the chandelier upstairs.
You loved milk and eggnog and meatloaf and liver and hiding in the attic with six packs and cigarettes and cooking our dinner and reading to all four of us before bed and screaming at the top of your lungs until we'd hide behind desks and playing board games after family meetings and playing Radio Gaga in the car.
Why are even your flaws something keenly missed when the pain and fear is too far away to remember?
And even if I make mistakes with the son in my womb, will he sit in the middle of the small white curtain and remember my missteps with love as he wishes he could call me just one more time, just one more time?
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my science books told a story about a planet ringed with rock and ice a disc like a CD spreading wider than anything i could imagine bigger than my whole world
but one night atop a mountain in Korea i peered through one end of a telescope that could hold me in its trunk and i saw a small marble surrounded just as they told me i would
it wasn't that i hadn't believed them but maybe it was that i hadn't believed them and just wrote the answers on tests i knew they wanted without really taking them to heart
is there anything else i rehearse like saturn that is just waiting to be blown into reality by peering into dim expanse and seeing for myself?
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yesterday there were feathers strewn across the path and the pigeons up in the eaves were cooing incessantly so i made up stories in my mind that they were mourning the loss of whoever had once worn the feathers.
yesterday the orange cat who jumps up on laps at night was breathing heavily on the ground in the sun so i made up stories in my mind that he doesn't know how to drink water -- the endless water -- in the stream in front of him and may die soon.
yesterday a man stood close to the stream and when i followed his gaze i saw five ducklings trailing their mother into a safe haven and then up onto a grassy peninsula so i made up stories in my mind that when the man declared 'animal or human, mothers are great' it was a sign from the sky that we'd all be okay. we'll all be okay.
but i still made up stories in my mind about car crashes or medical emergencies, and i am just hoping the stories i make up in the hospital will taste more like magnolias and fuzzy buds on twigs. like iced lattes with condensation on beautifully shaped glasses. like the sound of gravel underfoot as i walked across spain. like what it felt like when you suddenly said, 'i love you' for no reason last night.
you can message me with anything: questions, review requests, rants are you a green room knight yet? have you read this week's Squills?
Hannah, no surprise but I love every poem so far; the narrative elements - with more to read into, and the careful ways you phrase things that sound effortless but poetic. I like that there are some continuous themes of enduring-memory within death and life and complicated relationships and legacies. All the poems make me want to sit and think on them a while, but they are very readable, active, and engaging too - you are both a story-teller and a poet which is the perfect combination.
In "Bar Juan" I love the idea of a ghost-like memory of a passed-father, compelling the speaker to more boldly order twice as much food. And the tension of memory being helpful/strengthening, but also painful/bleeding. "Bar Juan" and "My Legacy too" were probably my favorites so far - but these are all very strong.
Why are even your flaws something keenly missed when the pain and fear is too far away to remember?
And even if I make mistakes with the son in my womb, will he sit in the middle of the small white curtain and remember my missteps with love as he wishes he could call me just one more time, just one more time?
<333 Such a sense of "full-circle" and maybe peace to this end (though it ends in a question) making it feel still open-ended. I love your writing and reflections. Looking forward to following along!
Edit: And oops! I neglected to check if your thread was okay with comments or not - feel free to delete if you'd rather not have comments within your thread.
you should know i am a time traveler & there is no season as achingly temporary as now
and I was Jesus: arms outstretched and strapped down wires whispering from my finger, my chest, my arm, my spine and I was open from the waist down: I was suddenly open to everyone and everyone owned me but it didn't matter, and I couldn't find the presence of mind to fight
I dry heaved, a pad held to my cheek until a new shot slid cool into my veins and the nausea subsided
cut and cut and cut and cut I couldn't feel it wasn't until later I saw the splatter across my face they had killed me, pulled out the good from inside me and stitched me up a sinner -- I could not walk, I could not hold my hands to my eyes and cry
light screamed in the corner as it was not of this world and they held it there, demanding holiness demanding it breathe life into their ranks and without knowing how not to, it did
I closed my eyes and was resurrected on the first day so I could hold the trembling being later in dark curtained rooms when they'd all gone away, as the nausea went out like the tide and his face was the rising moon
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the curtains just brush the floor and when a breeze tongues through the window they detach and whisper in the dark
my old house was full of loud rooms and quiet rooms in the dark like a living room with a good sofa and then the one that everyone sat on the dark rooms were painted on canvas stretched across doorways inviting me to rip through and see if maybe someone was hiding on the other side but I always ran up the basement stairs, afraid and would never even dare to brush the canvas
ripples of clock ticks fill pre-dawn space and sink into hand painted walls and new wallpaper while the street light on the corner sneaks in the living room window and I stand in pajamas to bear silent witness to it all
that was my parents' quiet and my parents' dark but now we hang curtains; we are preparing our own soft gray pre-dawn stillness for someone to remember after passed decades as they know they can never go back as they know it will all blow out with the wind carried on curtain whispers to show the street lamp what it has become
you can message me with anything: questions, review requests, rants are you a green room knight yet? have you read this week's Squills?
Found this thread because of a PCPick, and I am so glad I did. I love your poetry style so much! The poems you write hold the type of beauty I hope to achieve. You're officially added to my list of fav YWS poets. (yes I have a list. yes it is in my notes app on my phone.)
Hi Hannah! I stumbled upon your thread by reading the p-crew shoutout for your poem "nostalgia tastes different now" and Wow! That poem really deserved the spotlight. <3 I also love the opening one that you have for your thread. One more day to go! You really inspire me with your poetry ^^
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