genesis
Posted by Tiffany Kang | Filed under '11 Fall: An Opiate Utopia, Poetry, Print
To those who have stopped believing in first times, clear your mind.
If there are second chances, there will always be first times.
You are still the children of your mothers,
On bad days, you are your best friend’s anonymous hero. On good ones, you are your own.
You are descendants of explorers who once cupped moondust in their palms
and felt a pulse louder than their own.
You are ancestors of future prodigies who will save this world from what we are doing to it.
They will forgive us for our crimes and ask more of their own children.
You are who you were before you stopped wanting to be.
Before you settled for less than what you deserved
but told yourself it was the best you could get.
Remember the way you spoke your name when you were still proud of the person it labeled.
Remember your second grade birthday cake, and ask yourself why everything nowadays is tasteless.
Find the colors of your dreams before they greyed in the dustbowls of your eyes.
Find your first heart, the one you grew a couple sizes too good for,
and put it back on your sleeve where it’s meant to be.
Because you are beautiful, beauty yet to behold itself,
like the first ring of “middle c” in a deaf man’s ear after signing his last breath,
like the hallelujah chorus of a godless but holy nation
who doesn’t need a heaven to tell it right from wrong.
Perhaps forgiveness for our enemies grows inside bombs and crumbled buildings.
Perhaps every man’s secret is stored in the chest of a woman he loves,
because our secrets are the same.
So let us praise each other’s deepest shames,
Let the sunlight slap your scars in the face and remind them
that nothing on your body is undeserving of warmth.
Your body is a miracle waiting to change someone’s life.
You have the backbone of Demeter,
the heel of Achilles that doesn’t cover itself with armour,
but lets vulnerability breathe properly.
You have the eyes of God herself
and the palms of an Empire who knows its future because it knows its history.
So get excited for Monday mornings.
Spin proudly, across broad street in red heels and a rippling yellow dress.
Rush hour will forget why it was ever in a hurry.
The 65 year old man on the corner will ask you where you’ve been all his life.
and you will say – “I’ve been busy asking myself what I’m doing with my life.”
Your life is a handpicked continuation of someone else’s that didn’t make it this far.
So take a moment, feel the patch of skin behind your ear,
inside your forearm, between your first and second toe —
Yes, there are tender places where we have all been spared of callouses
from walking too far, too late at night with people who wanted too much from us.
We are young in all the same parts —
untouchable, infinite,
our palms are still pink as the sidewalk chalk we used to spell our names backwards with
And there were once days we didn’t mind so much the backwards —
when you still believed that if you cut a doll’s hair, it would grow back
that if you ate too many sunflower seeds, they would blossom in your belly.
That was before everyone started asking each other
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Who says we ever stop growing?
And why must we be something besides what we are now?
I’ve come to the conclusion that my best days are reincarnations of my childhood.
When I decided I wanted to be a teacher, waitress, professional sumo wrestler
and President of the United States between the beginning and end of recess.
When I was forgetful enough never to run out of first times.
And there are second chances everywhere, so there will always be first times.
Composition Book
Posted by Cortney Charleston | Filed under Poetry, Print
I.
The reach of my composition book is flat,
fully extended before me like the
equator before the birth of Magellan.
I look into it and see nothing,
aside from white space, that is.
II.
The pages are blank of confessions
like a virgin’s heart to their
spouse the night of the honeymoon.
And like said virgin’s body,
they are so very inviting.
Inviting, the way a guitarist’s
forearms are to the sharp
wit of a needle, saying
make of me what I wish.
III.
I discover an urge to recreate the
world along two dimensions and
simplify things a bit. I know depth
need not be the literal to be reality.
IV.
I write my name inside of it,
a first act of self-correction.
V.
The ink bleeds a little bit,
as if it is rising
from the paper itself.
VI.
I impulsively listen to The Wind Cries Mary.
VII.
I realize that art and pain
have never been more
intimate than in a tattoo.
This is without doubt
something to aspire to.
VIII.
I write a poem about my lack
of composure affront the sharp
wit of a needle, sewing my fate.
IX.
I look into myself and see nothing,
aside from white space, that is.
X.
I look into my book,
and see two dimensions,
working as three.
I made it what I wished.
Writer’s Block
Posted by Ivy Sole | Filed under Poetry, Print
You say you are close to me. Prove it.
I tried once already, and I can only measure
proximity in fonts and the throwing of stones.
It seems the glass housing my thoughts
is too easily shattered at it’s own hand.
I broke your writer’s block.
whenever, wherever, whatever
You moved like ink.
I remained stationary,
waiting for a word, a mark, a stain,
a stinging tentacle, or perhaps, a slap.
Fingers testing my temple
so I prayed the pain away.
You wrote me a sonnet of solace
in the Braille of bruises.
whenever, wherever, whatever
It didn’t matter. Your story’s setting, that is.
I am your paper thin confidante.
Make a letter out of me, signed with
backhand typeface. Send the world out to see.
Me? I’m content with warning: you can
hear the canvas cries when his fingers paint.
whenever, wherever, whatever
Stay
Posted by Jillian Blackwell | Filed under Poetry, Print
“So, what is permanent?” you ask.
I curl my toes around the edge of your kitchen chair,
Duck my head between my up-drawn knees.
“Nothing”
I say.
We spend most of our time kissing
Our foreheads together
Eyelashes skimming skin
Fingers trailing over ribs
“It’s only been three days,”
you say.
We sat on your front porch in the night
Looking over the overgrown garden
Leaves of a small tree trembling in the quiet wind
Halogen light dividing your face into shadow and ocher
You kept drawing your chair closer to mine
And I kept pulling my knees into my chest.
“One day, I want to live in a house that has a porch that goes all the way around. Well, maybe not all the way around.
At least three sides.”
I said.
You pull your chair closer to mine.
You are framed by the yellow wall of the kitchen behind you.
Your knees make parentheses around me.
I turn my eyes away and press my cheek to my knee.
“Everything ends,”
I say.
We huddle in the pool of flowers that is your bedspread and hide from time.
Legs intertwined like hands
Hands intertwined like expectation and disappointment.
You brush my hair out of your eyes.
“Stay in Philadelphia”
you say.
