Your hands tanned from daily runs, 

soft from reading books but for 

calloused tips you use for guitar picks,

notes and time signatures in your knuckles;

you sing in strings

with a vibrato I barely understand.

You're exotic as the place I used to call

"home"--twenty-four hundred miles away,

once familiar, changing while I'm not there

even if I resist.

You set down the guitar and dig at your nails

--the anxious habit I recognize--

I want to reach across and still your hands

and ask, "What's wrong?"

I used to know the answer to this. 

Far

I have lived too long in the city,

breathing exhaust haze,

seeing cement,

to feel 

meaning 

in the forest

or smell the floral spray

of unaffected life in the country.

Personal Pronouns

For my memoir class, I was asked to write a reflective piece about how I felt about the memoir writing process and which challenges I faced. The hardest thing for me was using "pronouns" so bluntly, when I was used to hiding them in poetry. I wrote a prosimetrum piece about how I dealt with this. This is the poem I included in the piece. 

The elementary teacher banishes “I” from the essay

At an early age—my thoughts are not

Welcome there. Here, in first prose,

Personal reflection has no home.

New writers equal indoctrinated fear of

Deadly sins in “you” “me” “we” “us” “I.”

 

Kill the reader.

 

Death to the author

Before

she is born.

 

I search for room to beat my wings,

A butterfly trapped between two hands,

Twitching in the darkness. Where will this

Transient lay her head? What country

Will open its doors to this refugee—

Exiled from the essay?

 

The one who calls herself “poem.”

 

Here “I” will hide.

I will hide under a 12-point font

Serif canopy, and branches will obscure

And shadow “my” face.

Though “I” am here, the character

Does not have to be me.

 

Here, the personal pronoun is free.

 

My head rests in the refuge of her floating,

Phantasmagoric form—I am and breathe and do

In sonnets and villanelles, blank verse and free.

 

Now you see, but do not know me.

 

I tell out of order myself in poetry’s syntax—

emotion jumbled.

I conceal love in assonance—

internal rhyme unfurl this heart of mine.  

I speak pain in grinding words tortuous—

banging, audible discord.

I cut my memoires where I will with en—

jambment, how I see it.

 

These are my stories, this is my life:

Elegized, versified, meterized.

You think you know the denizen here—

 that these pronouns

“speak to you.”

I only know these voices

 

And those who live here,

For I am not the only one.

 

There are real people here, beneath these lines

they quiver—life shudder beneath the page

they are safe here too, even from themselves.

I have brought them.

 

Others hide with me in this greenworld,

New pronouns under the canopy. They are

“he” and “it” and “she” and “they.”

 

I hide them in ink and metaphor, obscure words.

They will not be found.

 

They do not know themselves behind simile and symbol,

Allegory and synecdoche.

I put all my feelings about them into

Paradox and irony, understatement or hyperbole.

I will write my reflection in meter and tone,

Burning fire into the page with devotion or despair.

 

Do you see the paper rise and fall with their breath?

 

Of course not. You do not know them.

I hide them well,

 

Until “I” return(s) to the essay.

 

Neighboring “memoir” pulls me back to prose.

She extracts these pronouns from their caches

Like grapes in a wine press--she twists.

 

I must be a different kind of honest.

 

This prose exposes my bones to the world.

My life is before you, you can see it pulsing blue

Beneath my skin—blue and scared,

Scared to let you know it.

Scared to let you know these pronouns

Who must see themselves for who they are

In me.

 

I cannot hide them from myself

 

Or from the world.

 

And so I navigate this new land,

Frank in words, but not so frank

That they will sting.

My poetry was sharply honest, but

Not so honest that anyone knew.

 

Now the world can see my heart beating

And see itself pump through

My valves and veins.

 

And I must be careful

Oh so careful

Not to bleed on the world

 

With these personal pronouns.

 

Bugs

I feel bad the conversation always seems to focus on me--what I do, how I feel, what I think. He probes me with questions and walks me through my thoughts. He interprets the things I say and pauses while I look for answers. He knows me because we are "foils" of one another, he says. 

I feel bad the conversation always seems to focus on me.

Or does it?

"Stand in the mulch," he tells me. "I am you, and you are him. Look up at me. Do you have a foundation?"

"No." 

"You can't pull a man out of the sand."

He does not tell just me this. He tells himself this. He does not just walk me through my problems. They are the objective manifestations of his own. My life is the movie that speaks to him. His advice gives him time to think. 

And makes me feel small, so small. It is harsh. Because he knows. And I need to be humbled. He can only tell me, because he's been here before. 

We sit on the front step and watch bugs wiggle their vulnerable bodies along the concrete walk--a city of activity we could crush with our feet at any moment. 

I cannot stop looking at all the bugs. 

"You need to pray." 

"I do." 

"No. Water your pillow." 

Love of an Orchestra

I would be rather ungrateful if I didn't give notice to one of this blog's greatest influences, and the band who, for many months now, has influenced my writing more than any other artist. 

This is from their second album--the one I heard first. It has some of the loveliest instrumentals and lyrics of any album I own, and never fails to make me feel sublime and content. The discovery of this album led me to their debut "Peaceful the World Lays Me Down." While I think "First Days" is their better album, the influence of "Peaceful" on my work can't be ignored. 

Because this band is so influential, I like to keep up on what they're doing, more so than other artists in my iTunes. So today, I went to last.fm to check their page. I  had "Noah and the Wha..." typed into the search when I saw their album cover in the bottom right-hand corner. They are last.fm's Artist of the Week, this week; and I whole-heartedly support the recognition. So, I'm including some links so you can get acquainted with this band I love so much. 

Website: (Obviously, this links you to everything associated with NatW)

http://www.noahandthewhale.com/

NatW actually made  "First Days of Spring" to go along with a film they made. It's quite beautiful and features the entire album with almost no dialogue. View it here.

I also encourage you to spend some time on their blog, which is much more entertaining than a lot of other band websites. It's a receptacle for the band's ideas and whimsies and a joy to read. You can really get a sense of who these guys are. Enjoy it here.

Finally, this website combines NatW with a concept I love the "Take Away Show" or "Concert à emporter." It's really quite ingenious. Bands/artists are invited to come and perform in random places. In the streets, in a bar, an elevator, the metro, anywhere. And they film the whole session. They do almost no editing. It's a collection of raw and spontaneous and beautiful music moments. I encourage you to experience the many artists who have participated in this project, not just NatW. I personally suggest Andrew Bird, whose Take Away Show is particularly magical. But, as Noah is the focus of this post, I direct you here.

Noah is an active band involved in many activities and projects that really showcase their talent. While I don't have the time or space to direct you to all of their projects, I hope I've wetted your appetite. Enjoy!

P.S. In case you're looking for some pretentious but well-researched and thought-out indie musical inspiration, I direct you to the place that first directed me to Noah. TLOBF.COM

Breaking

Broken things make beautiful mosaics

These colors you hate--in my hands I will

make them a new shape. Their cutting edges 

do not fit perfectly, but I fill the gaps between them

and with a little pressing they will hold their place.

I reset and recast your shattered pieces, 

broken things to tend.

I was unyielding and you broke me down 

You snapped them with tender hands,

nothing smashing. You positioned my colors next

to yours, so complimentary; and patted them

in place--gentle setting. 

You reformed and repositioned my fragmented pieces,

broken things you bend. 

We are shards no glue can mend. 

The mortar fuses us together

in floating patterns we could never 

make alone, forming pictures from 

old stones. We make scenes immortal.

Yes, broken things make beautiful mosaics. 

Late Nights Part II

 I debated the transfer for months. When I went home for the holiday break, I almost didn't come back for the next semester. Learning how bad things were over the phone was nothing compared to having to see it. When I came home, the Christmas tree wasn't up. The house was in shambles--like a gypsy camp. My father and brothers were eating fast food every night, while my mother ate only ice cream because there was no other food in the house. We all got a handful of cash for Christmas that year, because Mom couldn't get out of bed to shop and Dad was too tired trying to keep up with everything else. As a little girl, I'd developed a thick skin when something like this happened, but my brothers never had. As I watched them struggle in their public lives because of their home life, I couldn't even fathom leaving at the end of break to start winter semester, let alone going back next year. 

I explained this all to my friend, and with a tone that told me he both did and didn't want to know he asked "So are you going to be here next year?" 

"Yes," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere." I think it was the first time I'd said it out loud. At least, it was the first time it felt real, the first time the decision settled with me right.  

That was when he asked me how it had all started--my mother's illnesses. Our friendship was a pretty young one. We were steadily attempting to make up for it as quickly as we could with long conversations about every subject we fancied. I'd asked him questions like "What's your favorite dinosaur" and "What's your favorite childhood memory?" So many questions I'd asked him, and he'd been so good to answer. When our friendship got stronger, I stopped asking questions. I wanted him to share things because he wanted to tell me and trusted me, not because I'd asked. I'm not the same way. I hide much and give up little. There are some things I'll only share if you ask. And he asked me this one thing, and I couldn't tell him. It was a secret and it hurt. 

We decided to head back from our hike, and our conversation became light again. We were good at that. We never let a heavy conversation turn into an awkward moment. We chatted in our usual fashion, not forcing a subject but freeing it to the leisurely wanderings of whim. I felt particularly light-hearted as I walked back, prancing from stone to stone when we came to the rockier parts of the trail; and mirroring my mood in a dainty step and a bob of my shoulders. 

For the first time in months, I was finally starting to feel okay about my decision to stay. I knew that back home, Mom was doing better--not great, but good. I knew that my family would be okay. I knew that I loved being here and that there was a purpose to my position. I also knew that no one had ever asked me that question about my mom before. No one had ever cared enough to ask, and because of that, he deserved to know. 

"I think I'm ready to tell you about what happened to my mom now." And I did. I didn't cry. I didn't get upset. I didn't let the years of pain and disappointment and burden tell me I had to be sad about this. In that moment, it wasn't a secret that left scars. It was a fact. Simple and honest. I said it as if I were reciting a grocery list or remarking on the weather--not as if I was just giving up the family secret so hush-hush we pretended it didn't exist. 

I haven't told anyone since then, and I don't plan on it. I didn't get over it that day. I still get upset when I think about it. I still blame it for most of my problems. But at that moment, it didn't matter. At that time and place, it wasn't a secret anymore. Sure, it still hurts like hellfire; but at least I know that in some place and time, it doesn't exist that way. I may only carry that with me as a memory, intangible and flighty, but since then I've recreated and reincarnated it. As I relive it, the purpose of things becomes more clear, and I've just begun to connect the coincidences and understand their functions as parts towards a whole. And that's all I'm really getting at--being whole.