It wakes me up again, a question that will not answer itself. You open my hand on the street in front of a bar that is covered in graffiti. You mark a black X on my palm and tell me that tomorrow it will mean something; that this is inevitable, and that it is also necessary for me to be confused.
The world presses on me; the people, the things they say, so repetitive, so alone. The cars (where are they all going?), the ads and signs all screaming at me to pay attention. To what?
In a better world there are longer, greater distances, there is wilderness and anarchy. The city becomes like a tiny speck, fragile as an outpost in the north, and the next city is a five day flight. But this is the world we’re given—cramped with people and even more, with symbols.
I want to kiss you in a riot, slip a piece of rubble into your pocket, from a wall they are tearing apart. When we meet again, it will be in a desperately crowded dance club, it always is. I will think you are dancing, I always do, but no, you will be in the middle, barely swaying, standing still. I will run with you to the roof, we will locate Sirius, Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Betelgeuse, Altair, Aldebaran, Spica, and Antares, all the stars the city lets us see. By then I will have planned an escape, complicated and unlikely. All that will remain for us is to give it every chance to fail. We will post our secrets onto paper airplanes, wishes that must never come true.
this is absolutely beautiful. but i’m not sure i could tell you why i think so.
gut wrenchingly honest and hopeless, amazing
Brilliant. It’s the opposite of chaos. Tho not tranquil either I think.. don’t ask me to explain it either! Simply put.. it’s simple.
and I leave them on the street for the people to step on
It’s late, but I don’t want to sleep. I am alone with silence tonight, like last night, and the night before that. A long time I have waited, to travel, to make meaning, to languish in anguish and pain for the mere association of words. I have waited to belie my existence, stretch out over computer warmed pillow, content with last night’s view on perspective and grace.
I am in a trance. I do not care what you think. I do not care what I think. It is all I can do to keep the world from exploding. Ethereal headaches and the reunion of tight lipped throats tearing the cotton from my sleeve as I search for the off-switch to the light, get the magic flowing in volume, stature, in harmless arrays of favoritism.
Strike down my sleepy singing and take up your word, as long as it lasts. A wildfire does not need matches. So run from the danger, from the un-wantedness, towards the light I turned off all those minutes ago. Eons and ages ago I kissed, not remembering fully what it was supposed to mean, or what I made of it.–Triss Teh
You write a lot about sky and stars and clouds. There’s something to that I think.
You constantly dare to reach out and grab my hand because after all, it’s just another day. I constantly dare to give up my smile just to touch it. And I cling to it. I pull it and run. And run and run and run. I’d run to the end of the world with that hand. But it takes my world and runs away with it, without me. It tells me it didn’t know it would mean a thing at all.
But I so clearly remember those nights. You woke me up just so I could see the stars. I thought meant something. You held my hand during long car rides. I thought that meant something. You counted the freckles on my arms; you timed your breaths perfectly with mine. I thought that meant something. You told me you loved me; you told me you were mine. I thought that meant something.
So how did we get here? The plan was so clearly drawn when we mapped it out lying in your bed. There must have been a hole in our plans. There must be a hole in your heart. Devouring all hope, there are holes everywhere. And I stuff up these holes with lies and starry nights and I just can’t find your hand anywhere anymore.
I want to kiss you in a riot
I want a kiss so tender
slip a piece of rubble into your pocket.
slip my hand in your hand
When we meet, I think you are dancing,
with you… in a sweet cadence
I bring you to a rooftop, we spot what stars the city lets us see.
or the beach… where the stars are more bright and the breeze more gentle…
We plan an escape, complicated and unlikely, give it every chance to fail.
Why?
We post secrets onto paper airplanes, wishes that must never come true.
There was never a we – you have never shown me a you
I post secrets onto paper airplanes still… with my mind, and my heart, and the little things that i do when you are around…
They will always be secrets.
I will not ask for anything.
I know not whether what I want is also what you want.
By default, nothing said, nothing meant.
Secrets. Paper airplanes. Wishes that must never come true.
I have to settle for these things.
Unless…
Sigh…
i miss you.
but i can’t afford to.
it will cost me my life
or whatever’s left of it
(if you can but shield me from the pain
if you can but protect the US that isn’t)
but you won’t.
so i can’t.
but i still will.
in secret.
i miss you.
I want to walk with you through the naked streets, fully clothed, and soaked to the live skin with beats telling me what they see. I want to help you through the alleyway, towards the back door of the backstage, where the sound treats you like royalty. I want to dance under the sky and over the coals, take note of all the ways light can play with your eyes. Give rain a reason to fall.
I would like to volunteer to be the other to whom every lovesick notes above is addressed!
Here is a very fun poem by John Donne. Really hoping this makes everyone smile. I came across it last week and was so delighted I laughed out loud.
— — —
The Indifferent
I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.
Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear, that men are true, torment you?
O we are not, be not you so,
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travail thorough you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?
Venus heard me sing this song,
And by love’s sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, alas, some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think so ‘stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, since you will be true,
You shall be true to them, who’are false to you.
— — —
I am considering a proposal of marriage to John Donne.
Me too. But he’ll never leave the memory of Anne.
Ahhh….to be loved like that, by a mind like that….
Exactly. Theirs is my all time favourite love story.
I should say that I use the poems to imagine said love story, but for me they are enough; I haven’t read any of the substantial biographies yet, but I hear they leave us much to imagine.
John Donne gives me vertigo every time I read him. Stay tuned for more Donne!
If I leave, I will not take your world.
If you leave, you will not take my heaven.
But for now, come rock ‘n’ rollick with me.
(my heart on my sleeve and your soul in your shoes.
But it’s all rust and stardust now.)