bloodlines

to be compelled by family--
it is inherent.

here is a family.

live,
uphold beliefs, the dignity of blood:
being wrenched to fit,
to conform.

elevating a bit
in the remote perhaps.
     time beyond memory,
     whole-souled.

extremist-- revolutionist,
her family.

--so was she.

incomplete

this is stage violence. too pretty, do you see? this bruise. blooming over my jaw like a challenge. it looks so soft, taunts your tenderness. be hard. bite me.
cut: a contradiction. pain on pain. it makes no sense.
should it? take two, i say. mine and yours. the pain you keep behind the curtain, pull it up into a bruise. pull it out into a wound. further, make it mine.
one hit: that's fine.

a writing exercise

Taking inspiration from Anne Carson's translation of Sappho Fragment 22 in If Not, Winter.
Mine in italics.

Fragment 22 

] white, silent
]work ache, guilt pulling my throat to my spine
]face let me recognize you/myself
] 
] 
if not, winter the maybe of the cold, the maybe fear
]no pain sweetness
] white, silent
]I bid you sing sing
of Gongyla, Abanthis, taking up
your lyre as (now again) longing longing: so invisible, so abstract i might have invented it
floats around you. so light, so covering you

you beauty. For her dress when you saw it you beauty.
stirred you. And I rejoice. 
In fact she herself once blamed me 
Kyprogeneia

because I prayed
this word:
I want i want

winter

my mouth is white and silent,
my throat pulled to my spine. 
       this ache, always. let me see you.


this ache, always:
       the maybe of winter. 
the sweetness 
in loving without knowing.
my mouth is white and silent still,
but i ask you to sing

and
this innocent longing about you,
i have not created.

you beauty
i cannot help this joy. 
i might blame me 

if


i want







Interesting results, for sure. Strangely, I think the Sappho starts so tender (and is so tender throughout) and is a little more intense at the end. Mine starts intense and grows tender, but I don't think I like the effect. The beginning is so overpowering and it lacks reverence. Maybe that says something, though. I think it's honest to leave it this way, but it might be more artful to write another version. The parts I like most are the softest anyway: "the sweetness/in loving without knowing" and "you beauty/i cannot help this joy./i might blame me//if///i want"
I think my favorite line here is by far "i cannot help this joy" (thanks Sappho for that "rejoice"!) because it's... loving? It's grateful. That's important.
Although I also like the double meaning in "I might blame me if I want," fun stuff w/ the puns.

summer

She tells me, watch this horror movie.
You'll feel unreal. I already feel unreal, disconnected.
Everything should be clear and bright. I'd paint straight out of the tube if I could.
So close to the colors.
So close to everything like
lying on the ground with my ear against the earth just soaking it all in--
but it's too distant, indistinct.
It's
the summer heat, pulling,
stretching everything apart into waiting.
Longing.
Hanging on the end of a word.
Trying to find
                      the edge.

self-conscious

i want to sleep somewhere wild:
a rainforest, maybe,
or a canvas.

my spirit is stuttering
stop, go.
reunions scare me. what if
my mind is too loud, again?

i want to be seen in the sleek warm lines
of a brushstroke: there, deliberate,
edging into meaning.

what will i say, 
tonight?

          quiet, mind. 

          spirit, 
          speak.