Category Archives: poetry

The ‘A Little Longer’

Posted on by under Longer thoughts, poetry

What if we all would stay
a little bit longer
before we leave our moments
before stepping into the next 

(Then maybe we would stop)
leaning awkwardly against our own ribs
instead sinking into the armchair
of every moment
that makes up our lives. 

Lately I’ve been trying to stay ‘a little longer’ in every moment, just before I do something new. And I’ve realised that it’s easier to wait an extra 60 seconds before you go on your phone than it is to decide that you won’t even look at instagram for a whole night. And it proves to you: your own self control – in case you want to not look at your phone the rest of the night. You cut off habit and make an actual choice.

You sit down in your bed, pick up your phone, and then you put it down again. Stare straight ahead. Think a little bit. Be with God, be with yourself. Maybe close your eyes. And then you can pick it up again. 

Let every moment linger. Think a bit. Realise something new, write something down. More starts growing in your mind. Such is the nature of the sitting down.

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Following nature

Posted on by under life, Longer thoughts, poetry

Through one of our apartment windows fell a square of golden light. There were rain drops on the window, and a dark grey sky overhead, but at the edge of the horizon there was a sliver of bright sky, and in the midst of it the sun shone brightly into the hooded windows of our loft. I had to take the trash out, so I did, but halfway down the stairs the sun didn’t shine in through the windows anymore, having already dipped too close to the horizon and our neighbouring building hid it, and so I was scared that I would not be able to see it again and stand there and look at it while it set like I’d planned. And so I think that’s what it’s like with nature, you can’t see a beautiful evening sky and think that you’re gonna paint it later, you have to drop everything you’re holding and do it right now. There is no procrastination in nature, only time for different things. Right now the grey has lifted, and even though the sun has set the sky is still bright blue, and the lines of clouds golden.

(Also I did make it, when I walked upstairs again the sun waited for me on the fourth floor, and on our fifth it still shone through the kitchen window.)

To see the past through a bedroom window

Posted on by under poetry

The top of the trees
young and green
swaying in front of a bright blue background

We can’t walk back along our timline
but we can
oh we can

Have you never wandered the road where you learned how to bike?
Touched the doorframe you used to grab while swinging around fastly
chasing a friend
a cake
a birthday surprise

Your timeline is written in footsteps,
through mud and concrete.

Bruised knees
and bleeding hands
the stretch of grass

Not your memories
but your actual line of time.

It’s tangled
red
all up in the trees
all around the garden

My mum hung these blue curtains,
and I sit on the mattress.

There’s a weight like a rock at the bottom of my heart.

I am not visiting.
The trees, this window:
they’re seemingly permanent.
It seems I can’t get away

but if there’s purpose I dropped along these roads I can’t remember it
I think: I have so much more of that in the future,
why am I still sitting here,
all tangled up in red.

Identity (The Garden Inside)

Posted on by under poetry

I have chosen dirt over flowers, and picked up the places I used to grow my values in, to move them inside of me.

I have been blue flowers, from the places I grew up in and the family I’m in.

I have been pink flowers, from what I found along the streets in new countries, from what I decided to be in new places.

I have been a collection, I have gathered them from around me, and (tried to) let the influence shape me into something I like.

I am now picking up the roots of the garden and putting it inside of me, so that I never run out of colours from different continents. So that I never have to starve in a place that’s barren.

Now, I’m growing (myself) up inside.

Like, not a poem

Posted on by under poetry

Yesterday I
opened the lockbox
got the key
closed the lockbox again.

Unlocked the door
went in and put my bag on a chair
walked back out
locked the door.

I opened the lockbox again
put the key back in
and closed it.

Tried to open the door
and it was locked
and I was confused

and it took me like five minutes to try to remember what just happened and where my bag was.

Sit down in your life.

Posted on by under poetry

Make yourself
comfortable enough
in yourself to sit down.

Stop leaning awkwardly against some made up counter in the space between your ribs.

Life is a row of plush armchairs
you sit in with your back straight

Let your breath out
into the moment
(sit down)

 

(What I mean is, rest this holiday season. Stay for long. Merry Christmas.)

Incineration (or The bulimia of Pride)

Posted on by under poetry

Pride is a river
Eat it for breakfast
of ice cold water
Wake up
to see clearly
Until
your bones are shaking
freezing
(I throw it right back up again)

_________ your pride
have it for lunch
Only
one
glass
WILL QUENCH THE FIRE!
(welcome to your body)
The bulimia of pride
I throw it right back up again

Pride is a river
(but) In the evening
I have remembered the alcohol in my veins and I set a match to it.
Eat The last supper
Swallow your wine

I’m warm
if you lean your back against me.

From the mountains (unedited)

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(A song I sang on a mountain once) I wrote this while hiking and it’s a river of thoughts. I have some idea how to fix it; there are too many concepts, I need to focus it and edit it and maybe I can make it into something actually good. But for now, here’s the river:

But the mountains did not make me quiet.
We are not     Steadfast     Silent
Do not     Remain
(I was     more     Alive)

We are not mountains
But are we the eruption of a volcanoe?
fire burning, throwing stones, lava sizzling
But no, we as well need to charge
We are not oceans (because we like to go places)
But are we waves?
Crashing and pulsing and beating
No, hearts see hearts and lose rythm
Are we forests
(a million pieces growing and dying)
to get lost in?
But no.
I am not inhabited.
There are no animals here.
No spirits but us.
Everything that I have done has been done by me.

Then
As I stepped on stone
My mind spoke;
Human     –     Nature
We flow differently through the rivers of time.

We are
Like the flowers
– they gave to me every sunday in a church in Florida –
cut at the base, dying                    Slower
Our tears (and laughter) are the rivers
making patterns in the landscape                     Faster

And we are     always     the ocean
Breathe
Waves rolling in     Crashing over our lungs
The air reclaiming it – ocean – as his                                faster slower faster slower slower

As I walk and as I talk and as I run through the crevices of your soul
There are rivers     in me
And fire       in me
And mountains     in me

Favourite Poem Right Now

Posted on by under poetry

We Were Emergencies

by: Buddy Wakefield

We can stick anything into the fog
and make it look like a ghost
but tonight
let us not become tragedies.
We are not funeral homes
with propane tanks in our windows,
lookin’ like cemeteries.
Cemeteries are just the Earth’s way of not letting go.
Let go.

Tonight
let’s turn our silly wrists so far backwards
the razor blades in our pencil tips
can’t get a good angle on all that beauty inside.
Step into this
with your airplane parts.
Move forward
and repeat after me with your heart:

“I no longer need you to fuck me as hard as I hated myself.”

Make love to me
like you know I am better
than the worst thing I ever did.
Go slow.
I’m new to this.
But I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop
without jumping.
I have realized

that the moon
did not have to be full for us to love it,
that we are not tragedies
stranded here beneath it,
that if my heart
really broke
every time I fell from love
I’d be able to offer you confetti by now.

But hearts don’t break,
y’all,
they bruise and get better.
We were never tragedies.
We were emergencies.
You call 9 – 1 – 1.
Tell them I’m having a fantastic time.