Author: poetryfest

i leave to become someone.
tears are falling. every time i leave, mom spills water from the jug behind me
maybe to wash them off, but maybe just to divert attention
that happiness can still be forcibly awakened.

i’m leaving and thinking about where i live when i leave…

my home is my mother’s unbrushed hair.
my home is the flowers in the yard that we forgot about…
and that one today she got for her birthday.
although she knows that it will soon wither
she still changes the water in the vase
(sounds like we never forget
that without success does not mean in vain).

my home is my father’s hand – that living wall
between
me and the cosmos
new wars and old warriors
bad artwork and famous artists
stony heart and tetralogy of fallot
(one never means the other).

in fact
my mother’s eyes are also my home
those glasses through which lives are viewed
like field flowers that the naive wave
those windows i peek through
staring at pockets of the sky
looking for god to ask him something.
my home is also her toothbrush
another reminder that words can be washed away
so we can clean ourselves
as long as we have someone to show our teeth to.

i walk away and turn my head back.
the outside lights on the house are on, we forgot to turn them off.
i will never forget the night before
when father turned on those same outside lights
that those who have not spoken to him can carry firewood.
it’s cold, the world needs warmth!
now, he is looking out from the window and watching my steps.
since he had a heart attack, he is not allowed to go out in the cold.
if i were a woman, i would cry, i am thinking to myself.

it is running through my memory…
all those smiles in our pictures,
all my successes in school,

all those war-erased soccer trophies from my father’s youth,
all those rags of the hard-working housewife – my mother…
i am watching all those dead events in my mind
and trying to relive it as a catharsis
(the past is never caught for hands).

my home is also an orthopedic aid in the corner of the living room.
three of us but only five legs.
that plastic leg as a war survivor’s medal
it is waiting for tomorrow – to walk again
and to remind us to keep going as long as there is tomorrow.
some list is on the table. an asterisk next to my name,
it means something.

i am leaving and thinking about where i live when i leave…

i slipped up.
i still look like the oldest twenty-two year old in the world.
i slipped up.
i’m still leaving to come back.

The faces I wear outside differ from those I wear in my house. My friends see a different smile than my parents. They would both be shocked to see what face I have when I’m at work. Some faces mask the other’s tears and cover them with smiles—the realization of different faces was at 12 years old. Sometimes, the faces would slip off as a teen, causing screams that would make the walls quiver in my house. People’s words would cut that face if it slightly slipped off in school until nothing was left.

The hands that put on a new face have cuts and bruises, trying to hide the fear in my eyes and only showing the soulless eyes allowed for a man. As an adult, the faces are stitched on so tight that if they are removed, blood will flow like a river.

Will anyone see my actual face? Do I know what it looks like? I imagine it has smile lines from a time I don’t remember. I would like to see the wonder in his eyes, which now has nothing but the lost souls he has met. Was he as free as a gust of wind? Was his smile free from the strings that now pull at it? I don’t know what I was like as a kid. Did I yelp like the roaring seas when I first changed my face? Was it for a friend or family member? If I went back, I would try to stop it and let him be himself. I would love to see that.

An old man sipped coffee so rich,
On a winter’s morn, a nostalgic pitch.
The antique mug warmed his sight,
As slushy steps danced in delight.
Musty air, stinging cold, a sensory glitch.

In the market’s lively throng,
Where whispers mix and gazes long,
A figure stands, simple and true,
Radiating a light, a hopeful hue.

Her lips, a curve, a gentle smile,
Echoing joy in every style,
Her hands, they oDer more than fare,
A touch of kindness, love to share.

Like chocolate on a summer’s day,
Sweetness in her, come what may,
Promoting more than mere supply,
Spreading love as time goes by.

“I love people,” her words do ring,
A truth that makes my tired heart sing,
In a world where doubts hold sway,
Her love shines bright, come what may.

Who is she, this angel fair?
A stranger passing, yet so rare,
In moments brief, she turns the tide,
Filling skeptic hearts with love inside.

She’s a symbol, a beacon, a guiding star,
In her presence, doubts no longer mar,
For in her smile, a truth we see,
Simple joys can set us free.

In the market’s bustling hall,
Underneath her radiant thrall,
We learn anew, in every mile,
The power of a simple smile.

being of age is finally believing in ghosts.
on my pages you’ll find,
people will push my pain to just push a point,
paths will pause to patch the pattern of the pain.
when diamonds grow participate under pressure,
is this when i get to feel great?
hopefully diamonds will blind the texture of my age.
but you can never cut me the same way again.

By Jayden Curran
Genre: Sad

When you left me, I flew with mighty black wings to the edge of a black hole. It was there that I thought I might find you, yet.

Pain never felt so exquisite as it did in your absence. The fire of the void of you licked at me — flames of my own personal Hell.

The pain of you was my ecstasy. One which I had no intention of letting go. The pain was the only part of you that was still mine.

It was here I challenged God Herself, at the threshold of the Universe. It was here that I scratched and screamed and choked on impossible tears.

There were many things I endured.

Her mighty hand once reached inside me, and reminded me. What was I without Her?

She ripped out the part that made me whole.

The fall.

The fall, where I learned about infinity. Who wants to live forever, always wanting more?

At the end of eternity, I endured the cold. Frozen was the lake of the Morningstar.

It was here that we learned why the Lightbringer was so singularly talented at burning.

He did what he had to. He burned the only thing there was to burn.

The fallen ones who man the bell tower at the gates of Dis still scream with the pain of his fire.

Out of the pit, I climbed for you. For seven days, I climbed. For I am the wicked, and you know what they say about our rest.

To leave the pit, I had to change. I was the first to learn what it was to be baptized by fire.

I was the first to be baptized by the kiss of Hell.

To be of Hell is to endure. And I could endure.

But not you. If there was one thing I could not endure, it was the absence of you.

And so I stared into a dead star and witnessed a billion suns rush past, eager to join.

Me and my black wings, at a singularity.

My love was always a gravitational, crushing sort of thing. You said that. Do you remember?

So fine. I’ll meet you there. When you’re ready to be loved, I’ll meet you at the edge of the universe, at the grave of a long dead star.

for Masume

An Iranian woman believes
she will be married off
to a Muslim man but it is
her sister chosen this time.

Fearing she will be next
she begs her father
to immigrate to the U.S. She
leaves to re-create her life.

Iranian relatives call & ask for money
in desperation. She gives &
gives until she cannot swallow
that burden any longer. It ends.

Her greatest secret: In 1990 she marries
a Lutheran man, a U.S. military veteran,
and in her heart it is right, but he is
not Muslim, defying parental orders.

This phone call reshapes the
course of her life. Her mother reacts
to this news: Well, Christ was a prophet,
one of the holy ones, so that is OK.

But it is her father’s wrath she
anticipates, expects the hammer
of his voice to fall upon her, the flood
of time & distance to drown her.

But he asks his beautiful immigrant
daughter very slowly in Farsi—
the years had only softened his heart:
Is he good to you?

i listened to the dry thunder in the distance
and drank a sip of the coffee they told me was immoral
what a day

i used to swear i was destined for street lights and silk
and taxi cab horns and stilettos and stage names
but now I just tell people i like to write when they ask
i like to write

i used to dream about being all grown up when i was a kid
little did i know i was about as grown up as i was going to get
i still feel like i’m nine and know everything-
or that i’m nineteen and know nothing at all

i’ve taken to going on walks in the evening sun
thinking about the shapes of trees
and the shape of my life and the shape of all the lives i could’ve lived
my shoulders are red and sunburnt but at least my head is full of ideas
i always forget i am so young

i used to believe in heaven and hell
but these days i don’t believe in much at all
and to say i did would be a sin, huh

i used to wish my skin would be clear and my ribs weren’t so prominent
and that i was faster and stronger and smarter
but she forgot that she was pretty and healthy and still growing
and so am i

growing up is both a punishment and prize for being born
for existing, in the simplest way
did the extra inches forced into my legs
make up for all the times i should’ve stood up for myself?
did the scars from the smattering of acne across my face
pay the debt for envying the girls in my class whose hormones kicked in early?
did the hurt in my heart do anything either?
what did i do to deserve that?
the stupidness of youth, i think

punished for ‘i didn’t know better’ and the betrayal of my own body

i walked into my apartment and wished for my childhood bed

Moments,
times of bad and good,
listen as they speak,
these stories never heard.

From the ordinary they rise,
begin speaking,
seeking the listening,
tales they’d tell,
of times now past.

Dust and wear,
time taken hold,
now left forgotten there,
in the unused,
old clutter with old stories,
of snapshots in time,
where life once engaged,
remaining in stories never heard.

Much like a bear,
these southern white women
will fight, tooth and nail,
for their cubs
and their sleuth.1

Much like a mouse,
this queer person
slinks from their hole,
afraid to leave
and face the sun.

I envy these women,
with painted claws: a perfect
pink. Nature documentary mommas
with feathered eyelashes painstakingly
applied every morning.

I know
nature documentaries are scripted.
Reality: the bears
get punched to death
too.

But when they leave their house
and enter that restroom,
they don’t worry
that red stains ruin their
bright clothes.

1 A group of bears