The Poetry Snapshot: October Boy

Ann Arbor, Michigan

As I take a seat by this fountain
And listen to you speak tonight,
everyone around us fades away.
It’s not that you have so much to say,
But your few words are arranged into a lovely bouquet.

My October boy,
are you a blueprint or abstract art?
You carry a California breeze in your back pocket,
But keep Chicago winds in your heart.
Your expression reads casual,
yet somehow still curated,
Like a timeless design,
you will never be outdated.

Your voice is soft, yet your charisma stays aloft,
October boy, you are now on top.
More adventurous than August, and sweeter than September,
Your eyes-closed smile is one that I’ll remember.

An old man walks by to say what he perceives,
Before asking our names, he tells us that he believes,
In us. What a magically frightful phrase to hear.
I think I’m falling for you like crisp golden leaves.

Evolving Emotions: The Fog

Presences are unannounced in the dark.

Even more so in the fog

A blur of beings rushes by

Without ever crossing my eye

Each step is a careful one

Each breath, hesitant

For I am subject to the misty blindfold

Cloaked 

I embark.

 

In a transition

A surge of events passes me by

What I could do

I can’t.

What I wanted

I can’t have.

I don’t see them 

I didn’t see them

If only by my volition.

 

They move in my view for a moment

So fleeting

They depart 

Without thought

Without recognition

Without realizing

Helpless I am in the fog

For I am a proponent.

 

There is a strange relief

I am concealed

Shrouded in mysterious droplets

They cast a hold on me

Around my every curve 

I am hidden from the world

Away from the mind’s conception and belief.

 

Who I am

Whom I cherish

What I am capable of

What ineptitudes I lock away

The experiences I carry

The soul embedded within

A perfect bubble

A precious dam.

 

A thinning

A receding

A panic

A terror

A grief

A mourning

A spinning.

 

Fog withdraws

Visions clear

Fear resides

In the cavity once hidden

Now in full display

Pleading for a pause.

 

The whole world stares anew

 

The Poetry Snapshot: Strangers at the Train Station

Between two rolling hills, the first glimpse of metal tracks emerge.
The platform is scattered with people ready to leave,
but I am sitting on the verge.

Lima, Ohio

Counting each track as I wait for some peace of mind.
Luggage filled with the memories I cannot leave behind,
it’s almost too heavy for me to carry.
So perhaps I should stay back with my luggage,
or convince myself my destination is the wrong location.

I’d leave comfort for curiosity at this station.
But then two eyes fixate on my visible trepidation.

Fleeting strangers he seeks out on the sidewalk,
he gave me a spotlight in the comfort of small talk.
Because those I love and hold so dear
are always going to stand so near,
that I forget beauty from the horizon.

Waiting for the train becomes a journey in itself.
Standing with no expectations,
my fears are now painted over with new conversations.

To inspire without intimacy,
connect with no intricacy,
I remember a soft smile and hazel eyes,
yet you will never be named.

This moment passes by with the train,
and I find peace in the transience.
Our lives never need to cross paths again,
this fragile tie can remain undefined.
Confined to the walls of the New York Train Station.

I eventually get on my train, ready to leave.

The Poetry Snapshot: Stoic Luxury

A time of milk and honey, where no one talks about money—
champagne conversations and dicty dialogues—
in a town of copied and pasted happy faces,
they find a target for their jealous disgraces.
A woman moves in wearing her silk scarf and stoicism,
eyes reflecting her wisdom like a prism.

Without warrant, their words would spread in torrent,
always giving their looking-glass logic on her loneliness.
Her diamond-pierced ears would hear ear-piercing lies,
but one-by-one she would collect them and polish them,
weave them together into a magnificent chandelier
that she hung from her mansion so proudly,
hosting galas without invites and music playing loudly.

Boulder, Colorado

Red rosy lips softly spell out her secrets,
once touched with passion, but now with regret.
She grew up hiding her pain in pressed-powder,
then created success when no one allowed her.
The day she wore hardship like high heels,
time slowed down until every moment was dusk.

She pours charisma into her glass hereafter
and walks with the scent of vineyards in her laughter.
The only time where nostalgia lies in the future.

She was raised to romanticize every view—
rolling hills nearby would bid her adieu
and the sky would blush at her everlasting glow
only one set of footprints walks along this chateau.

Snapshots of Liberty Street

I recently started a minicourse on the rhetoric of Instagram–yup, you read that right. Our first assignments were to read Annie Dillard’s Seeing and take three photos of things we’ve never seen before. Dillard describes a special type of observation as “a letting go. When I see this way I sway transfixed and emptied.” She speaks of dark and light, blindness, nature, and expectations. I wanted to take her perspective as I sought out compositions around me. Although I have walked up and down Liberty Street downtown hundreds of times, I tried to “let go” and open up my mind to details I had never noticed nor appreciated–like the fairy door at the bottom of the Michigan Theater, or the intricacies of Graffiti Alley. Below are a couple of black and white images I snapped.

 

The Poetry Snapshot: Leave me at the Library

It terrifies me to think
I can get so close,
finally be in sync,
have a moment of repose…

Only to have you become a stranger again.

Nashville, TN

So please leave me at the library;
an unchecked book.
I can make myself invisible,
until I’m something you overlook.

It’s been ages since I’ve let someone
fully read through my pages.
An author, or perhaps my own adversary,
for assuming I will always be temporary.
I write myself out of existence;
before there is doubt, there is distance.
Until I’ve swam so far out into the sea,
not even the waves can quite reach me.

My spine is sewn by the emotions
that couldn’t be noted.
Each word is an ocean,
but I’ve never floated.
So I drown myself into my own story,
I grasp for air, but now I feel lonely.

Tongue-stained with insecurities,
I have chapters of excuses just to avoid
a potential hurt I’ve always known.
Until one day, I’m on my own.