nothing you expected

You look nothing like I thought you would.
I balk
your ruffled skin and deep-set eyes,
like crevices on mountains, headquarters
of supervillains

You look nothing like I thought you would.
Interspersed with
skin fur of grizzlies,
the realest of the fruits
that humans have to bear

You look nothing like I thought you would.
And aren’t I glad about it,
aren’t I glad?
Aren’t you the same person that
I saw all along?

You look nothing like I thought you would
and I am nothing you expected
but here we are
grasping
for the memory of our ideas
and feeling it tingle beneath our palms.

-A

thoughts

 

i’ve reserved a space for you at the bend of my neck
it’s kind of bony – your hands oppose my bones,
your hands instil in me a quiet
beyond sound
your hands your voice
there is your hair in my eyes,
looks like my eyes are seeing branch shadows
when my lids shut, it’s like i’m in elle
woods’ wet dream,
pink and patterned

fingers press down on each of my vertebrae
your nails carve a trail from the back of my hairline to
where my back gets convex, re trace it backwards
back up to my hair, return to hair, move hair
stroke pulse
i think i’m getting a headache that’s already dissolved
your fingers are like electric balls
my head has never felt touch
it’s like the greatest organ
and no one cares about orgasms

today yesterday hysterectomies
surgeries – extricating from organs -
gallbladder bladder heart
bleed purple, bleed like a half-breath
when you breathe in leave your thoughts
in your bladder, oxygenate your piss
leave it out in the front yard
to evaporate

faces have organs too all over the world
there are little face organs peeing breathing
feeling someone’s hands on the backs of their necks
feeling the dead trail of someone missing down their backs
scares them like they were touching a gravestone
they were
their feet were on concrete dirt gravel or carpet
their mangled toes, dirt under the nails – dug in to the black sand
tar, like a swamp of boiling suck
up to the ankles
the shins
their fat hips
their too thin thighs
their angular chins

their sighs.

all growing with sea

I am stuck on a cloud going Eastward, sailing across the Prairies,
then, we dip to the Appalachians – all misty and suffocated with
cold breaths.  After that, we are above the Great Apple of NYC,
stuck where souls ought to be, stuck where souls are rushed faster
than the wind that carries me over them,
whispering necessities behind right ears make people run faster,
towards something.

The cloud changes shape; my journey does too.  A sparse few
persevere with me in my sweeping motion Northward – the rest
disintegrate, circle down to the Caribbean – the middle earth,
to where the sun makes the sea glad to be so translucent,
and your skin wears colour like cancer is a magical concept.

Some clouds go across the Atlantic, the salt and seascape of it,
the waves rolling onto the beach like they do every other place on earth,
hit England, get depressed, come back.  Some make it to
the sea of the Past, the olives and the grapes and Minotaurs
all growing on earth, all growing with sea;
some settle for trade routes to Jerusalem or Mecca
or Cairo.

I want to be above this.  Watching the winds muss the clouds,
make something of them – not just hurricanes, but crops,
and orphans happy with their new soil,
and trees that create shadow,
and birds that shed their wings.
I want to see this take shape,

now.
Right above me, under me, beside me-
I want to be stuck on this cloud going Eastward.

-Arina

i don’t love you to be liked

Hey all!

Hope the past couple of days have been treating you well.  Not to complain, but just this morning I was writhing with a maternal sort of pain (pre-maternal, really) and I was pretty unhappy about things. Now, after about 7 hours of TV, pills, and beautiful new sandals, I feel a little bit better. Also, a Mumford and Sons cd (Little Lion Man is a golden song!) which was only $9! Holy crapolski!  Also- here are some pictures!

It’s funny, after looking through these beautiful pictures, I don’t feel half bad.  I guess it’s all about attitude, after all.  Not that I didn’t believe in that previously.  The will is the way.  Oh, and also – the island controls you.  It just does, so stop resisting.

Back pain? The island. Loss of appetite? The island.  Awkward sexual urges? Definitely The Island.  Life going wrong – in general – for the past 30 years? The island.  You are special, Mr. Locke, you are magnificent.

But I like how they use philosopher’s names for characters in that show – very thought provoking.

In other news, I believe that I have too many muslim friends to have not read the Qu’ran by now.  I will give it a go.

Here’s a poem about clouds that I wrote on the bus.  It’s called “Vagabonds”

I wandered lonely as a cloud,
except clouds are kings of
their blue expanses
and are anything but
lonely at the top.

They swallow the world
in big gulps -
like they’re thirsty,
and our water isn’t
as salty as it claims.

Gaps in their dominion -
the tantalizing flashes of
royal or seafoam  or cerulean
are just reminders:
they can take it away.

It can always rain.

I hope you liked it. I hope you like crisp skies with wisps of white, like water seeping through blue watercolour.

-Arina

#23.3

I know I haven’t written for a while, I apologize.  Life grips me in its constant blandness and swirling of days.  Except the blandness is not bland at all, but too much and so I am trying to breathe through it all, work each day to the mold of tomorrow.

Here’s a poem I’ve been tasting on my tongue for the past few weeks, let me know if you like it.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Every time someone drops off a balcony
just stops being level with their existing
there are questions.

But there are only so many times you can
stay up wondering
stay
stay up wondering about the differences
in your theories
of their passed futures.

We’ve already read the book.
It doesn’t end well.

There is no middle,
and the characters have lost
their features-
blackoutline, highlight, black, aquamarine
It’s like playing Clue in fifth grade,
which room?
What with?
It doesn’t end well,
for Miss Scarlet
letter.

So really,
the story doesn’t matter it all

The bottom of the matter,
the bottom of it that’s left
all
over
the pavement-
it’s the only thing left

unburied and exposed.

-Arina