inkandpins

[inkandpins]

Every so often I read something that reminds me of you. But I cannot play it like it’s love, it is a memory of love.

I remind myself of you who loved me with such tenderness - to the point of tears - and with such a sense of radiant excitement. Oh the plans!

We drew out the rest of our lives together. I continue to make marks alone on materials I am not familiar with.

It took standing outside, on the sidewalk alone to realize that the story could end with us together or apart..

Either way, I would write about this love, his love, for the rest of my life.

[inkandpins]

I cannot break my heart over and over, and I’m too scared to watch this fall apart. Even now, we have never been strangers.

I congratulate you on some good news from far away. I wish you the best. I dread the day I can only accomplish the latter.

It has been so long since I loved you happily that I only remember what it feels like to love you miserably. Despite this, I cannot seem to let go.

[inkandpins]

An ending to a book about heartbreak

As I walked down that corridor away from his apartment, I felt relief. Each step took me farther away towards an unknown, which wasn’t a comforting thought — but I had held him, laid my head against his familiar shoulder, had given him one last look, a final soft smile — and this would be an improvement from our last goodbye. It wasn’t even a break up, so why did I feel soreness where my heart used to be?

I stepped out of his building, away from our life together, no longer heartbroken - just a little numb from the shock of giving up everything I had ever wanted.

[inkandpins]

Colourful, irregular and abstract “art blocks”. Intended for sophisticated kids.

[inkandpins]

Intelligent Play

Writing is to confine myself to a Montessori playroom. Those kinds with the shelves, each space assigned a toy. They suggest limiting the options to eight– to avoid distraction and foster concentration. I lack focus, Ms. Pippet told my parents with a chuckle, always tempted by the new and the shiny. Among the toys, there is nothing battery powered, no lights nor sound– Here, I am encouraged to engage in intelligent play to create worlds for myself from this block of wood– I’ve stolen only one, the rest have been monopolized.  He’s taken them to build his castle. The spires are strangely shaped, but balanced, his imagination and small chubby hands have stacked them so precisely. He is a genius. Meanwhile, I move mung beans from one container  into another. It’s not much of a creation, but I love to watch them pile together, that trickling sound of dried, shiny, skins.

NY 12.12.22

#montessori #ars poetica #poetryriot #poetry reblog #writerscreed

[inkandpins]

[inkandpins]

Mutare

We gain distance from our failures through time.  Shed them, the way mayflies are supposed to treat an exoskeleton.              Worm their way out.

How it must feel to look back at an empty husk of the fly you once were. Sometimes I see traces of younger selves

in the mirror. Childhood returns in a bashful smile. It’s not quite as powerful as seeing an exoskeleton.

They discovered molting,  to insects, felt like ripping out their lungs.  While you thresh against yourself and your past

it turns out, you can’t breathe at all. It’s absurd, how painful growing up is supposed to be.

Now, each time I evolve off hurting from a hard lesson, I picture tearing myself off,  splitting the seams till they break. 

Would I collect past corpses the way parents do baby teeth, strung into  a morbid set of pearls or carelessly toss them to the side – 

drape and bury them in ceremony or fold them in shame…

Sometimes I am tempted to relapse to old ways fall back on skins from which I barely survived an escape from. I resist my ghosts, these exhumed selves, to face the day.

NY 12.12.22

#poetry reblog #poeticstories #portalreblog #writerscreed #poetryriot

[inkandpins]

Post Office Blues #3: At the close of the year

Dear B,

There's something about writing you letters you will never read that feels so therapeutic. I wonder if this will be the last one I write you for a while. So much has happened in the last year with us in such short moments-- it's hard to comprehend that again, we are at the close of a full year. As always, I am deeply grateful for the person you are and the process I am undergoing to be the person I want to be.

It must be frustrating, having all these expectations or hopes thrust upon you by someone that admires you-- I know the sensation is what drove me away. And yet, I am such a hypocrite for doing it to you all the time. I am always running from you to protect you from the discovery of some deep, permanent disappointment in me-- that I resulted in doing just that.

It is so hard to close this chapter without reminiscing on what truly made it so breathtaking (both good and bad), and now you are a part of both. What made my college experience so deeply joyous and exhilarating, what made it so scary to return, what makes it so hard to say goodbye. I'm actually also just happy that we've ended the letters and emails phase-- it wasn't an honest form of letting go, it was a way to hold onto you and all the reasons no one could live up to the people we became for each other. Though I am still writing them, I now do so without burdening you, and without the delicious and torturous anticipation of your response.

I am always romanticizing our interactions, and perhaps that's why we can never truly be friends until this phase is over. I'm sorry for raising your hopes and always running. The truth is, I think I am just trying to run towards the place I need to be where I will feel happy with myself, and I haven't found it yet. At the moment, it is not by your side, not next to you in bed, it's the place I'd have to spend the in-between... perhaps with friends I cannot let down in the same way, perhaps in the safety of solitude where I am responsible only for what happens to me.

I wish you limitless joy, fulfillment, and peaceful satisfaction. Thank you for always cheering me on from afar.

NY. 12.12.2022

[inkandpins]

October morning light

[inkandpins]

Poem about a Poet on the grass

When I shield myself  to write (August, Autumn), I have nobody

save the ants crawling over my screen. Uninvited guests trampling

my meagre efforts to make meaning out of a moment alone.

To resist the urge to transport myself to distant locations–

I love reading about the seas I’ve never seen, handling instruments untouched

What’s it like to shuck? To lean over a gunwale?  I fixate on the smallest

of details– the dull point of the knife, the wet, thick blade. I breathe in the brininess.

Pruned fingers touch the keycaps differently– I crave the callouses, the experience.

This quad is my ocean, I shuck myself slowly.

An ant is crawling up my forearm, Annexing it 

for its advantage, what does it bring home from colonizing the keys?

I must be careful to avoid the letters it hurriedly occupies, in case I stamp it out on accident.

NY. draft in the quad 0922

[inkandpins]

Endless layers of rice fields in Bali, Indonesia.

[inkandpins]

Ars Poetica

the rice fields bend my back, I Hunch to fit in a Bowl, rolled myself all my life  leading up to harvest. Trembling  at the scythe

Propped in the corner, the raw Red hands that shake with me. We are both tired of the rough tumbling

crashing into the stained cot the Cold damp dirt at the end of a long day. the crows Circle in murders 

with curved beaks, What are the odds  their Cardinal eyes center on me today?  It is a different kind of agony– to bend at the beat of their wings, 

to meet eyes with them to watch the handle rise with a grunt. Inside me, concentric rings toil Sunlight brings us beads of dew? droplets of sweat Collect like precious stones. The magpie steals coins from the hole in your drawers to decorate its nest. I wait to be snatched away, to experience the Feeling of flight the sweet smell of escape.

N.Y., dreaming of fields 1022

#poeticstories #poetic words #writerscreed #poetryriot #spilledink #poetry #poets on tumblr

[inkandpins]

Lovers on the grass in Washington Square Park, New York, 1953. Photograph by Ernst Haas.

[inkandpins]

I love you for sentimental reasons

Touring houses today -- I looked at the spans of windows, measuring the length for my legs on the sill. That wall -- would be perfect for a bookcase. This corner, for plants, your collectibles -- trinkets and mementos of lives I lived through you. Is this theft?

Sometimes I retell your stories as my own-- I have simply gone over the details so many times I recall them firsthand. If only I could inhabit your present the same way. I sit in your outline in this -- midcentury modern chair, and wrap my face in your scarves (luxurious and loving.)

Leaning over the kitchen counter, I drape myself over your tired shoulders and kiss them after a long day. You kick your stiff shoes off at the door, and we glide -- socked and stockinged feet floating over the tiles, cheek-to-chest in solemn prayer. Do you hear these lyrics? This is how I feel about you. (Love is a serious thing.)

Will that bookcase have a moving ladder? You made me many promises. Will my house have midcentury modern chairs? Will your feet be polishing my floors. It's hard to design a life without you.

N.Y. Talking about apartments 1022

[inkandpins]

I Always Lose the Tape

or the tongue– that tiny lip sticks shut every time I need it.

Outside, I see you throwing a football, there and back, there and back, and I wonder if the game will ever end. If I turn away to focus on this damned tape, will the ball touch the ground? Will I miss it?

Somewhere someone is deciding how to say goodbye to me. Whether they’ll hug me with both arms or just stand with that non-committal see-you-soon. Someone’s dropped the ball without me looking. Someone will stop by and lean back in my chair, asking you about your day. Someone’s always finishing their cup of tea before it’s been left too long to cool. 

It’s hard to pack for the rest of your life. A lot can go wrong if you’re left too long to think, if you’ve slept through the days, dream-finger- tips searching for that tiny lip, the okay to peel away.

I entomb my precious objects in layers sealed with the promise that they won’t splinter in the disruption– I would feel so sinful to unwrap shards. but the trees go on waving their twisted shuffling hands.

N.Y. A quiet patch of grass amongst the chaos, 10.12.22

#poetryreblog #poeticstories #poetryriot #writerscreed #poeticwords #poems on tumblr #inkstay

[inkandpins]

03.02.2018

The rain, to make less differences among the ones I love.

[inkandpins]

Untitled