Quiescence

You say you're not the same person that you were ten years ago.

I won't dispute that statement.

The red blood cells in your vessels die every 120 days.
The lining of your gut regenerates every 5 days.
Skin cells rise to the sunlit surface every 39 days.

That face I look upon now did not exist a decade ago
Layers and layers sifting away like sand upon wind
Waxing and waning with each lunar phase
Moon after moon
Blood after blood
Life after life

But let me teach you a little something--

The neurons in your brain last for a lifetime.
Memories do not live or die,
but form in an ensemble of connected neurons
firing together at a sight, a sound, a scent;
And dissolve when the connection grows dormant.

When you were a newborn baby,
you were given a set number of heart muscle cells.
These do not divide
but simply increase in size
As your heart grows larger.

No, I have never seen you before.
But as long as you live, I lay buried within you.
Within this still-beating heart, you have the capacity to love.
Within these gyri, you have the capacity to remember.

 //

27

the number 27 is romanticized and idolized to such a degree
it immediately makes me think of Lana del Rey song lyrics
all the hooplah about dying young
Cobain Joplin Hendrix Morrison Winehouse
the cynical part of me thinks
if drugs and alcohol weren't in the supporting role
how much more art we would have seen in this world


i turned 27 in Japan without much fanfare
 - nobody at the hospital knew it was my birthday
 - i erased the date from facebook

the Person bought me a nice trenchcoat i'd been coveting, and we ate tsukemen for dinner
i didn't think much about that number

27


until i drove home earlier today from work
it's funny how productive i get when my time becomes limited
(i suppose there's an analogy to life somewhere in there)

i've been writing with a fever again
and i've been thinking about Charlotte and her connection to me

subconsciously, i think i always knew this
but the revelation hit me like a train

Charlotte is gifted with prodigal musical talent
but cursed with crippling stage fright


what happens to your sense of identity?
when the one thing that drives you
your purpose
your meaning
is invisible to the world around you

i'm 27 years old
how many of the people around me know that i write
or rather, know that i write well
know that i spend nearly all my free time
thinking about it, obsessing about it

i hide it, you see
it's "pretentious" to say you're a writer
i don't show people my work
i want it to be perfect before they see it
but it never is
my own fucked up version of stage fright

the 27 club made their mark by this age
they died young

but before that
they lived



when is it your turn, Sophelia?

Obedear

Obedear, the sky is low 

Gather up its harm and gods 

With grateful arms 

Obedear, the sky is low 

Gather up its harm and gods 

With grateful arms

--"Obedear" by Purity Ring

O but dear
it's been creeping up on me
not the fire that blazes through
like the oblivious frog yet to notice
the temperature has begun to rise

O but dear

my limbs ache in suspension

marionette strings pulled taut

as self control dons its war bonnet

in tribute to delayed gratification

O but dear

two honeybees in a dance

show where the sweetest nectar lies

winter abdicates to spring
as i wring these restless hands

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Ephemera

"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning."

And then she: 

"Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep:
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!“

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."

The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.

"Ah, do not mourn," he said, 

"That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell."

-- W.B. Yeats

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

 ~Pablo Neruda

Translated by Stephen Tapscott

Airplanes Pt. III Feat. Sophelia

Can we pretend that the airplanes

In the night sky
Are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now
(Wish right now, wish right now)

Let's pretend: it's the year 2015
High school Cinderella -- once caught in between
Sweeping the soot of the world or living out a dream --
Now she's seeing the world through a tinted limousine
Let's pretend Cinderella's risen to the top of her game
Stepping out downtown with the fans screaming her name
Never thought she'd be the one escorted to a movie premiere
By the celebrity she's been crushing on all these years
All these years -- remember back when it was 2010
What if Cinderella had never bothered to pick up a pen
What if she'd buried herself alive taking reqs for pre-med
Neglecting the words rattling inside of her head
Back when nobody ever remembered her name
She'd look out the window wishing upon an airplane
Shooting stars burn and crash but airplanes fly
But only if you've got the fuel to keep them up in the sky
Then maybe one day you'll wake up and find
Your writing devoured and praised as being one-of-a-kind
But don't forget dear, Cinderella can only reap what she sows
Nothing comes from daydreaming out the window, thinking...

Can we pretend that the airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars?
I could really use a wish right now
(Wish right now, wish right now)

-- Inspired by "Airplanes" by B.o.B. feat. Hayley Williams

Beast

if i ever date a boy
i want him to take me to the theater

not the movies

a theater with red velvet seats
gilded arches of swan necks lifting the
stardusted ceiling to the moon and the stars
with divas draped in fabrics and jewels in all the colors
you'd find at the marché de plein air
in the crates of fresh fruit, ripened, glistening --

my mouth waters

with dashing baritones -- the vibrato throbbing
in unison with the pulsating red rivers
flowing under my prickling skin
i want to take that deep, lulling voice
wrap it around my bare shoulders on a summer night


that's what i was thinking last night
as i sat on the balcony
watching the beauty fall for the beast
and as the enchanting little girl beside me
strummed arpeggios across my heart strings
with her staccato giggles and allegretto chatter
and i thought of him -- that one who sits beside me in class every day
-- an idle, subconscious thought --

but then you came back to me that night
and as i awoke from that wretched dream
all my memories of you
poured down like a torrential rain storm
drowning within me

and though i know my heart has enough love
for a child of my own
i don't know if
i can ever learn to open myself up again

9 o'clock

sensual generator of its part, singing poison
petals and vessels in the nets of nets, beating
stolen
entangled

God help me, I've come undone

sensual generator of sliding fields, fabricating glass
occupancy of whispers motioning
glass whispers of whispers beating
gestures of thought rending
pure

out of the light of the sun.

Matisse

when i came home two weeks ago
i saw you for the first time in two months

but it felt like i hadn't seen you in decades

you still recognized me, struggling out of my mother's grasp
to jump into my lap
and lick my face
but i knew something was different.

you, who used to race around the house like a white lightning ball of fur
lazed the days next to the glass sliding door
as the sunlight kissed your paling wet nose and stroked your fur

(i could never look at you for too long under the sun
the brilliance of white would have made me
blind)

you, who used to tumble up and down the stairs chasing my mother's footsteps
would whine at the foot of the stairs
waiting for somebody to carry you up

you, who never tired of energy during our neighborhood walks
would sit in the middle of the sidewalk, refusing to budge
until i picked you up and carried you home

i write of love so often
mainly of the romantic unrequited sort
but i think is the first time
i've cried while writing a post

you always knew when i was crying
you'd find me, wherever i was
and lick the tears off my face
as if you could absorb my pain

is it wrong for me to be crying like this
when i realized today that
you won't be there to lick my tears
the day that i cry for you

Miscarriage

There’s a rose on the windowsill
Swaddled in a cloak of sunlight
Sometimes curled asleep in a bud
Or crying pink fragrant tears.

They say pain is a necklace of roses,
Everyone wears one --
A necklace of thorns
Clawing at the place where
Part of my heart has gone.

But the fragrance is still here
Lingering like a sweet memory
Though your time was fleeting
The rose still blooms for you.

Muette

I see you through the window
Only the back but I know --
it's you
Sitting there in your black leather jacket
Hair spiked into ebony shards

The closest I've ever come to finding Ren --
it's you

Two mutes sit side-by-side in a bus
Severed tongues
Neither can taste the
sweetness of stillborn words.

Tell me,
how do the eyes speak
when the tongue cannot?
Do you look at me in disgust?
awe?
fear?
When you look away,
is it because I repulse you?
Or because you don't want me
to catch your lingering stare?

The mute collect rumors
like beggars hoarding coins.

I've heard what they say
Got your heart strung round the neck of another
But I wear my black leather jacket
Ren's lock strung round my neck.

Don't look away
I want you to see
the one with the key's not you--
it's me.

Mother's Day

The first time I saw that photograph
I thought the little one was me
She wore a printed skirt and had
The cutest face I'd ever see

But it turns out that girl was you
The more I look, the more I see
It's A-Mah standing by your side
But somehow I still see you and me

One day, maybe ten years from now
In your cradling arms you'll see
The cutest face that you've once seen
In A-mah, yourself, and in me.

sophelia sometimes

"what would it be like if i thought i was pretty
what would be like if i carried that knowledge around
like i do the knowledge that i am a writer"

...

"would i be able to write such raw and seductive words
would you have fallen in love with me sooner
would i have frightened you away
before you had the chance?"

-- From "like pretty" by Francesca Lia Block

----------------------
when i was your age
i wanted pretty things
silver butterfly and dragon rings
i wanted fashionable things
a leather jacket and graphic tees

when i was your age
i wanted to leave this valley
paris for the lovers
florence for the angels
nyc for the rush
seychelles for the antidote
tokyo for the androgynous stars

when i was your age
i wanted to be a writer
publish a novel
both deep yet accessible
a modern rock opera
a punk cinderella story
watch my story on the silver screen
write a television drama
an intelligent sort of humor
of identity and duality
then shatter my label
and write something kafkaesque, literary, raw

when i was your age
i wanted to be loved

now i am old and weathered
crinkled brown paper packaging
but no strings attached

the world is rotating
time dripping down the hourglass
my sillhouette is blurring
but i am still
sophelia, sometimes

Motorcade of "Meant to Be's"

"That's when it turned on me
A motorcade of 'meant to be's'
Parades of beauty queens
Where soft entwines make kindling
These many detailed things
Like broken nails and plastic rings
Will win by keeping me
From speaking to my new darling
And there's no way to know
Our future foe scenarios
That's when it turned on me
Where bobby pins hold angel wings"

-- "Future Foe Scenarios"
by Silversun Pickups

---------------------------------------------
I never know what to think when somebody around my age passes away.

It's days like this when I wonder.
I wonder what you would have looked like at this age.
Would you still have kept your hair short
or would you have grown it out?
Would you have been a
punk
ballerina
athlete
nerd
all of the above?

Would we greet each other in the hallway
or avert our eyes --
because it's easier to pretend we are
strangers than to admit that
we're not children anymore?

I wonder if we would have still tormented each other
like sisters
Two girls with dark cropped hair
In a year we'd be
Laughing at your junior prom photograph
Mocking my slow death in college

I wonder how many people still think of you
Because it's days like this that I remember.

what he said

From the lookbook

he once said he liked girls
with big eyes and dark curls
so she cut her eyelids and found
the hair chemist downtown

he once said he liked chicks
with bodies thin as sticks
so she whittled down to the bone
through the skin 'til it shone

now he says he likes a girl --
une belle au naturelle
so she cut the rest of her skin
to display the dead heart within

--------------------------
Inspired by "Pretty Girl" by zzocco (aka Museician)

The Dirge of Lenore St. Laurent

I go alone then, underground
When the night murmurs without a sound
Like a dying moth smothered beneath a jar
I go alone, beneath the ground
Away from the painted clowns and tinsel gowns
Where the blinking Ferris wheels go round
In the carnival above the ground.

He paces back and forth along the stair
Fingers running through his thinning hair

But what happens when Orpheus never appears?
Do I stay, do I wait? Do I listen for a voice --
For the stillborn confession lodged in his throat?
I confess, I fail to understand his fears.

He paces back and forth along the stair
Fingers running through his thinning hair

Still, I am no Eurydice
And he is neither Lazarus nor Hamlet
But Ophelia -- a rippled face below the water
They are not mermaids but ravens
The shelled carcasses (picked clean) drift across the ocean floor;
I stand alone by the jagged shore
As the voices gurgle, "Nevermore."
--------------------------------------
[edit // 06.07.08]

There are a couple reasons why this poem has a deeper personal meaning to me, which I didn't want to share with my English class.

- Last year, I wrote mainly vignettes. This year, I have been writing mainly poetry, but before, I had zero confidence with poetry. I think this is the first poem I actually feel proud of.

- When I was reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," I don't know about everyone else, but immediately I started wondering about the object of Prufrock's affections. Did she know he was in love with her? Did she love him as well? If so, how did she feel, constantly waiting for him to make the first move, as conventions dictated?

This nameless woman instantly struck a chord with my own self. I will probably never know how the Orpheus of my story sees me, but I know all too well how it feels being the one with unanswerable questions. In a way, I transferred myself into the character of Lenore St. Laurent.

- Like Prufrock, I calculate risks so carefully that I usually end up sitting passively on the sidelines. Similarly (and just as pathetically), I fear I will end up exactly like Prufrock - middle-aged and trapped in unending strings of one-sided loves.

Anyway, I am thrilled that a bunch of people actually like this poem. I really am. When I got no response during my discussion, I completely panicked, because I thought my tendency to write obscurely had gone too far. And I am also really glad that I managed to give a decent analysis of the poem in front of the class. Despite those 8's and the one 9 I've received this year, this is probably the most personal (and most satisfying) one out of the bunch.

Sotto Voce

It wasn't the hair
the eyes
the lips

But the voice
I drowned in.

The ocean won't bring it back.

A Note by the Window

This is just to say

the glass shattered

as I crashed through

your window

Perhaps consider

leaving it this way

as I tend to break

fragile things

With love,

Your Superman

Uncaged

I was once the pulsing bird trapped in your ribcage
Carrying a song in your burning chest
I heard your voice, your laugh, your cry
Slice through skin like a shaft from Eros
I could listen, but I could not see.

My cage is exquisite, an architectural wonder
It resembles you so -- except smarter, taller, kinder
Like an airbrushed demigod lurking in a dream
My desire carries the oxygen to your veins
And I alone keep this illusion alive.

Nobody remembers the heart, the poor thing.
Hidden, forgotten, taken for granted
I am trapped within my own creation:
A flawless phantom of the falconer who
Caught songbirds for pleasure of hunt.

Only when I heard her sickeningly fawning purr.
Coaxing the lust in your throat to bloom
Did I finally see who you really are --

Cause of Death: Cardiac Arrest
And the songbird rises free.