“
My Grandfather speaks rapid Cantonese to me.
He’s telling me what he wants from McDonalds.
The kid behind the counter rolls his eyes at this.
The woman behind us in line says “Speak English” under her breathe.
The grip my Grandfather has on my arm tightens.
My Grandfather can speak English.
He can understand English.
He can write English.
But he came when he was in his twenties, and he has an accent
that will never leave.
And when he speaks English
he hears-
“How long have you been here?”
“Can you repeat that again?”
“I don’t understand you.”
And it humiliates him.
This man who left his family,
who left his life to make a better one.
The bravest man I know
is embarrassed of his accent.
And in McDonalds,
the man who crossed the pacific
in a freight boat with no papers
and no one he knew in this country,
bows his head in shame.
Gwai Lo (via coughed)
“the poet chews on tree bark and tastes centuries of fire.
the poet writes about this for four weeks while barely sleeping.
it is raining broken glass
and the poet sticks their tongue out,
surrendering to the shards and the
bright red roses that bloom like metal
in their mouth.
the poet waits for the weather to
change, and, in the meantime,
falls in love with a walking wound
so bright and beautiful that they
do not feel the gash in their chest
when they leave.
the poet collects the winter in the cut
and keeps it there to thaw by the fireplace.
the poet watches the snow fall over the
body of a dead deer like a blanket and wonders if
nature is just trying its best.
the poet eats the spring like an appetizer
and it won’t stop raining in the place
where their ribs stop linking fingers.
loss is a universal language.
the earth is bleeding somewhere
with quiet sincerity, and the poet
cannot find it.
summer is an ugly bruise that won’t stop
yellowing,
so the poet does not write, but swims to soothe the ache.
it feels more like waiting.
fall comes, and the poet thinks about eating a star.
the poet thinks about carrying the moon around with them like a balloon.
the poet thinks about the sun being understood.
it would be a mistake to write about anything else.”
Caitlyn Siehl | The Poet (via alonesomes)
“She holds her hair up with only two chopsticks and a bobby pin.
Think Atlas. Think shoulders.
When your sadness starts to feast,
she carries the light down from the
mountain and hands it to you,
tells you to set it on fire.
Think Prometheus. Think savior.
On Sunday, she steps out of the shower
and you don’t think you’ve ever seen
anything more beautiful than
the way she walks towards you
with a towel on her head,
water clinging to her like there is
nowhere else it would rather be.
Think Aphrodite. Think sea foam.
You love her like mythology.
You love her like the impossible stories of Gods and monsters.
When she sings, think fairies.
Think mermaids. Think hymns.
She is the face of the river that
Narcissus fell in love with,
confusing hers for his own.
She is Medusa’s fury,
Athena’s strength,
Achelois’ healing.
You are kissing her in a crowded
restaurant and it feels like praying.
You are watching her instead of the
meteor shower
and you don’t even notice.”
Mythology | Caitlyn Siehl (via alonesomes)
“She is a year ago.
She is the ache in the empty,
the first time you changed your mind
and the last time you were sorry about it.
She is a city sleeping beside you,
warm and vast and familiar, streetlights
yawning and stretching,
and you have never. You have never.
You have never loved someone like this.
She is your first stomach ache.
Your first panic attack and your
favorite cold shower.
A mountain is moving somewhere
inside of you, and her handprints are all over it.
Here. Here. Here, you love her.
In the fractured morning, full of
too tired and too sad, she is the first
foot that leaves the bed.
She is the fight in you, the winning
and the losing battle
floating like a shipwreck in your chest.
When they ask you what your favorite moment is,
You will say Her.
You will always say Her.”
Caitlyn Siehl, Her, Her, Her (via alonesomes)
Tracey Emin - Exorcism of the last painting I ever made - 1996.
“If love is anything tangible, it
is his mouth
his mouth,
his holy god damned mouth.
He says my name and the whole sky is talking.”
Caitlyn Siehl, from ‘Tasting the Moon’ (via soracities)
“
I am thinking about
the crescent scar on the
roof of his mouth that he
got when he fell with
a straw between his teeth
and how it felt to run my tongue
over it.
How it felt to taste the moon.
If love is anything tangible, it
is his mouth,
his mouth,
his holy god damned mouth.
He says my name and the whole
sky is talking.
Caitlyn Siehl, Tasting the Moon (via alonesomes)
“
I am thinking about
the crescent scar on the
roof of his mouth that he
got when he fell with
a straw between his teeth
and how it felt to run my tongue
over it.
How it felt to taste the moon.
If love is anything tangible, it
is his mouth,
his mouth,
his holy god damned mouth.
He says my name and the whole
sky is talking.
Caitlyn Siehl, Tasting the Moon (via alonesomes)
“In other languages
you are beautiful – mort, muerto – I wish
I spoke moon, I wish the bottom of the ocean
were sitting in that chair playing cards
and noticing how famous you are
on my cell phone – picture of your eyes
guarding your nose and the fire
you set by walking, picture of dawn
getting up early to enthrall your skin – what I hate
about stars is they’re not those candles
that make a joke of cake, that you blow on
and they die and come back, and you,
you’re not those candles either, how often I realize
I’m not breathing, to be like you
or just afraid to move at all, a lung
or finger, is it time already
for inventory, a mountain, I have three
of those, a bag of hair, box of ashes, if you
were a cigarette I’d be cancer, if you
were a leaf, you were a leaf, every leaf, as far
as this tree can say”
Bob Hicok, “Elegy owed,” Elegy Owed (via lifeinpoetry)
I want to hurt you
and not in the way that I want your teeth all over me
biting and raw flesh
but I want to hurl weights at your face
so expressions are pounded, smashed
and your mouth is as open as mine when
I’m shocked and gasping at your carelessness
who are you to play with feelings?
Who are you to twist my bedsheets around my throat and pull?
I cannot sleep, I cannot walk or talk or think without your ugly hand yanking at me
you have taken me into dark confusion
you who’s name I will erase from every pixel of data I store
you, who I will forget by throwing everything I own down
you have only ever given me empty things to burn
I will burn
you, alive.
