Belle Song

It’s the realization that my friends didn’t fall away by chance, but my circumstance. Circumstances that I put in motion when I walked out the door all those years ago, headed for another airport. As I ate strange food and struggled over the pronunciation of “película,” my friends did not. They sat together and watched a movie. When I gave up my semester in high school for another weird land, my friends did homework together and played ultimate Frisbee. I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had, but I sometimes wish there was someone I’d done them with. Now I lust for new experiences and insight that can be found in abundance across oceans; they drink wine together and reminisce on the years gone by. I’d like to reminisce on the years gone by, but the words I say have little meaning with them. They didn’t walk up mountains with Israelis and try strange potatoes, they didn’t navigate a city full of strange symbols; my friends have no taste for spicy octopus soup. My stories are only that: they are stories, fantasies, lives they may never live. They have lives of ambition and promotions. They are going on failed dates and laughing about the consequences. I am also ambitious, but not for the same things and we cannot relate. We can’t relate.

I can’t relate to my... who are they anymore?

Merely circumstance, but it’s of my own creation and I have to pay the price. I suppose it’s worth it. I suppose there was little choice when my heart called me away but to listen. Even when it meant leaving it all behind.

I was reading but My eyes could not stick To the lines. Eccentricity. Extra-centrist-ity. Deviance. Dickinson. Holes in self-protective Judgement. I’m sorry. What Was I saying?

You are: like roots, like the trunk reaching into my center, growing unspeakably; deep enough now  to be caught up in my organs;

heart wrapped in tender offshoots, pituitary in flowering buds, stomach in gnarled branches, peeling bark; Fused, reaching toward the warming sun.

you ask, and my mouth shuts.

slowly, carefully, I choose one at a time, perhaps two. I let out words.

vague, they describe something good as good. only good.

I fear, I so fear what might happen if I accidentally opened up.

the spill would rush forth, advancing, no end in sight. no cup could hold my words and my heart. my fingers would lose hold.

a handful of balloons slipping away and all at once.

I don't desire to blind you; my happiness is that bright with not a cloud in the sky.

and who, I ask, who? could possibly be happy for me and untainted by jealousy? has anyone ever felt as alive as I do now? surely not.

no, no. I keep my mouth closed. I protect those who ask, they aren't wearing rain boots.

and they aren't prepared for a flood.

Leaning against

empty office seats,

I wait for my portrait. 

There is no light

right enough to disguise

my swollen pride,

my puffy face. 

Dreamt of a room under water. 

I reached up toward light, cutting

Through the depth in flashing circles. 

___

I could not hold my breath, knew that 

it was only what we deserved: 

The surface stretched far and away.

I wrote you a love song.

It sucked. All wrong.

Maybe a love poem will do:

Honey, I love you.

I really do.

Uniform grey clouds

Release my melancholy:

Rain falling sideways

42 cloves of garlic

Roasted with olive oil, salt and rosemary

Squeezed into 6 to 8 cups

Of portobello mushroom stock.

Much better than a boyfriend

or the hospital.

-Nichole

The vineyards: empty

branches. Wine pours from bottles.

Taste flights, opening.

it feels like the middle of winter and I'm bundled up my jacket, my scarf, my six layers underneath, the wind is sharp I step onto the bus and I'm blasted warm, heat, my stomach is sick.

that's how it feels to remember you and me and us.

these days, though seeing you would feel quite different.

like noticing roadkill on a quick drive into the city grateful for barriers like cars, windows success.

in a game of tic-tact-toe challenge me to your heart's content you'll always play the x and I'll always win with the o's.

Reading poetry on the bus

I find the grief in surprising

Turns of phrase.

  A woman kissing the eyelashes

Of her dead husband. A man abandoning

his dying father inside of his childhood

home. Grey rain. Obscured pine needles.

Ghosts in Costco.

  This sort of writing ought

to feature a warning: May induce bouts

of public weeping.

I wonder if this is how the best of life will feel

(& if it’s already left me behind)

Breathe exhaled,

Muscles in the throat

Vibrate.

I am moving through it.

Reach up.

Fold over.

Empty it out.

Inhale. Exhale.

Attachment brings

Suffering.

I know. I know.

Create space.

The things I will

Never have.

Can't. Can't. Can't.

Inhale.

Two. Three. Four.

Exhale.

Two. Three. Four.

Body warmed, lifting upward.

Breathe in, stretch.

Breathe out. twist.

Release.

Dignity.

Dignity. Something inherent. A quality that is the right of all human beginnings. Integral. Undeniable. Recognizable.

Oxford says: Definition of dignity

noun (plural dignities): the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect: a man of dignity and unbending principle the dignity of labor

a composed or serious manner or style: he bowed with great dignity a sense of pride in oneself; self-respect: it was beneath his dignity to shout a high or honorable rank or position: he promised dignities to the nobles in return for his rival’s murder

Phrases stand on one's dignity insist on being treated with due respect.

Origin: Middle English: from Old French dignete, from Latin dignitas, from dignus 'worthy'   I read about it in articles alll the time. The dignity afforded to people of strength and will. Denied to the "Other" - exotic, erotic, invisible and omnipresent. Men. Women. The space between.

As with all things, repeated enough it loses potency. I wonder: does it belong to us? Can we demand it? And I return, always, to the conclusion.

That we are limited. Conscribed by neurons firing at random.

Like salvation,

dignity is the false hope

Of life after death. The hope of life while we live.

there is a hidden mind a fortune teller she lives between my stomach and intestines or perhaps behind and stomps around with no relief when I'm about to do what will bring my grief

she never fails but I frequently do I ignore the slamming doors and vibrations and pound, pound, pound my brain is an ass stubborn, kicking and stupid I carry on typically because of cupid

oh, the hell I pay if I could only listen but like a child with a marker and the whitest wall my future gets darker when Mom walks into the hall the fortune teller sighs she retreats, she rests preparing for another mistake which I'll inevitably make I'm always telling myself lies

I write only in broken prose, unrefined flows, strangely placed, haphazard rows, it’s as if I chose to propose words in this order that no one knows, but that’s how art, poetry, prose, I suppose, goes.