introduction
i suppose i should warn you now about the lack of capital letters,
and poetry quilts that feel too thin, too thread-bare.
you'll have to learn to excuse the cliches
because they've become old furniture here;
overused, but they feel like home.
and we'll call it poetry, because that's what poets do,
because if these words aren't somehow poetry
if they're just run-on sentences curved in worn-in metaphors
reaching for all the truths i can't quite tell
if these words cannot be poetry
then what else would i do?
alliyah's poetry album
113 posts in this topic.
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one
i resolve to dream farther than i can see
i sometimes i worry that i only dream as far as i can see
not beyond clouds or the dark indigo stretching across the horizon
and i wonder what i would see if i dared to dream there.
if your dreams stay close to the ground, it hurts less when you fall,
you can pretend you were never reaching or dreaming to begin with.
but for a moment can i whisper my dreams to you
so soft i can pretend i never spoke if i need to,
could you hold them and hold me to them
and tell me it's okay if they fly farther than i can see,
farther than what the light touches,
farther than i've dared to believe.
i want to write, and live, and love without fear,
i always hold my fear too tight,
fear of rejection, fear of failure, of change,
fear of you, fear of me,
fear of closeness, fear of farness,
fear of everything between.
i want to make a difference,
i want my words to go far
i want them to spring from closed files,
spring from good byes, and closed doors,
spring from half-written poems that i'm scared to finish,
and go where i cannot go
i hope people might hold my words
for the words to find their way into their veins
and stay with them, give them the courage
to look into all the colors of the horizon
and to let their dreams go beyond the clouds,
and let us dream farther than we can see. -
two
free today
let go of the memories;
clouded water isn't good to drink.
rinse the cup, fill it new.
don't try to breathe in
all the smoke and screens;
the past weighs too heavy.
exhale, inhale - let go
of what will not sustain,
what was never real.
don't live on dreams,
don't cling to residue.
let go of the memories,
let windows defrost,
and warmth settle in,
let the new day rise without
the burden of yesterday. -
three
she isn't yours to know
No one really knows her, Mona Lisa,
leaning against a wall in France. For all
intensive purposes, she is nameless;
so she is no one or rather, everyone.
And that isn't to say no one claims her
or puts a man's name next to her own
in the formal paperwork;
she is a woman after-all?
Leonardo da Vinci's lover perhaps?
Why else would he bother, with a woman
as his subject? She must have been an object
of a man's desire, or maybe someone's wife,
yeah, some Pablo, or Francesco, some man.
Synonymous with beauty itself, though she
might have never asked for such a thing. Perhaps
she was immortalized for the whim of a man,
who longed to gaze on her at his convenience.
People still flock to her frame, admire her portions,
bright complexion, soft skin, body preserved in paint.
But the men taunt, she is a woman after-all,
so they'll critique, "would you smile honey,
loosen your lips, and show some teeth,
maybe your name would matter then."
Did you know, that no one knew Mona Lisa,
until she was stolen from the Louvre Museum?
In 1911 she was taken from her bed,
no one noticed Peruggia had stolen her until
days later, and her image was sprawled across
the newspapers world-wide, and she was known
for a moment, admired because a man had
desired her enough to steal her away.
The theft said, he chose her for being
the smallest on the wall. Women are always told
to make themselves small for men,
cross your legs, be quiet, don't make a fuss.
And somewhere I'm sure Leo is smirking still,
"You chose her, did you? Could have taken a general,
or an angel, or Christ himself, but ol' Mona?
Go ahead! See if she'll smile for you."
Peruggia kept her for two years, some theorized
it must be love! Though the thief himself said,
he was just returning the woman, to the country
of the man she belonged to. Take her to Italy!
Take her back, return the beauty to da Vinci!
Lisa had a name after-all,
she will always be that Leonardo's.
She was taken back to her wall in France,
now the most recognized woman in the world,
A nameless woman, a symbol for all women,
Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, Leonardo's girl -
while men keep claiming, keep taunting,
"would you smile darling, would you
give us a grin - I didn't come all this way
to see you, but to steal you anyways" -
four
i know what i am
don't tell me I cannot fly,
though I have no wings - -
five
loose dreams I can't hold on to
Dreams are like feathers fallen,
or loose hair left on combs. Dreams are like sand caught on shoes carried miles and miles from the sea. Dreams are like love, and hope, and fear, and other wispy things. You should never really hold them.
And to tell you the truth, I spend a lot of time worrying, when it's 3 a.m. and all I have left to worry for are all the important things, and I worry that I only ever dream as far as I can see;
never beyond clouds, never into the deep indigo stretching across the horizon, because I am scared what might be there if I dared to dream far and wide and light and carefree.
I was an anxious child.
I used to wish for cake, when blowing out birthday candles. I'm so afraid of being let down, so I dream low, and set my expectations on my shoulders, and watch my feet when I walk, and only ever fall in love in hindsight.
And there's still an anxious child in me,
who whispers her dreams too quiet for me to hear, who knows the world can be cruel, who files hesitations and counter-claims to every sign the world can be beautiful.
If you carry your dreams between clenched fingers,
no one will ever take them. If your dreams stay close to the ground, it will hurt less when you fall, you can pretend you were never reaching, never dreaming, to begin with -
but I try to unbind my fears, from my hopes, from my veins, and tell myself that the risk might be worth it.
Because I know dreams aren't rocks or roots. Dreams are like helium balloons. Dreams are like lungs filled with oxygen. Dreams are like birds locked in cages.
You have to let them go, let them go further than you have ever been able to hope, or see, or reach. You have to let them go, and sift through your open hands, and float, and fly, and go beyond clouds and sunsets.
You have to let them go,
for dreams to be dreams.
Loose Dreams -
These are all so good alliyah c:
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<33
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(thanks @fraey & @manilla <3)
six
are there more than answers?
Spoiler
This is my attempt at modified black-out poetry, using page 295 (I cheated by using a few words of page 291 too) from "Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics" (transl. by Marin Ostwald) published by Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1983 edition. -
six
are there more than answers?
[plain text version]
we
study knowing
wisdom is not enough to
become great
we have
the power
to turn
the natural tendency
to be confined
by fear, and to pursue
what is noble,
what is peculiarly human. -
seven
light over gray
it seems like there should be something more
than just a pale gray square leaning against a
scarlet background, with a fading dark gray
rectangle floating [or maybe sinking] below.
with the noble portraits i looked for new stories,
in the sweeping landscapes i looked for beauty,
but here, i don't look, [i avert my gaze,] there is
an element too intimate stirring among the colors.
one doesn't visit art galleries to see themselves,
and i know it's too presumptuous to say i see myself,
but here in this mix of daunting scarlet and loose gray
yet i am somewhere here, i am [i am overwhelmed].
people over-paint their lives compensating lack,
nearly-neon trees, loud river streams; props
to bring the painter and viewer out of focus,
in an effort to obscure or direct our vision.
and maybe it's the stark lack of distraction in these
lonely gray rectangles, that force introspection
the silence is deafening [there's no where to hide].
why are you here?------
picture reference: "Light over Gray" Mark Rothko, 1956
extended author's note:Spoiler
The inspo for this is I saw a Rothko painting in an art gallery a few years ago and was seriously blown away - it seemed honest in a different way from other art. The art gallery tour guide told our group a story of some people who started weeping when they saw the Rothko painting. And I would agree there is a sort of overwhelming, empty, and yet intimate feeling one gets from his work. -
nine
fear of abandonment
I have read
{from a book I never finished}
that the fear of being abandoned
starts even at infancy
maybe something went wrong,
i was left too long in the dark,
or maybe it's just ingrained in a strand of DNA
that's bound too tight, and tells me to hang tighter than is really healthy
I sometimes wonder
{wonder is another word I use in place of worry}
if there is some moment I could pinpoint
that maybe if I could just recall some wound
I could tell a younger self, that I'll be alright.
if only I could find her.
{you're okay, you're okay child, you don't have to fear} -
ten
it all makes sense if you don't think about it
Potatoes are also rainbows
if you've never heard of
chicken-noodle soup in the middle
of July - though a month is hollow
so you fill it with raspberry jelly
like a donut rather than
chicken-noodle soup if you're
that sort of person -
intermission | round two
new beginnings
there is something incredibly misleading about the end of a poem
and the hollow space that follows,
like a thought could ever be completed,
like we aren't always writing these same lines,
like the next words weren't already settled in our bones ready to be said.
poems don't really end at all,
at least, not for those whose poetry is nothing more or less
than breathing, than balancing words between lips
and letting them scatter out on the page,
poetry isn't something that ends,
but it's what keeps you up at night,
the voice that won't let you forget who are,
the new dream and old grief sharing each other's company,
it's the words you didn't dare say in the moment
and the ones you wish you hadn't,
poetry never really ends,
only begins where you last left off -
letting words become air and lungs,
become breathing, become life,
over and over again.
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