In the quiet shade of the pine tree, where colours are muted but bright and the sun drops in Komorebi light. The healing scent of pitch, fanning the air with an almost sweet smell, pleasing to the nose and cleansing the mind of yesterday’s woes. As the skies turn from blue to orange, birds return to their nests, and the night dew begins to fall.
In the shade of Pine,
Time ticks slowly – forever
Bird song fills the air
In the streets where cries echo and cry ,
For justice hides under the blanket of silence,
A voice roars out, brave and bold—
A cry for change long awaited
The names we call out, the lives we grieve,
Are no less than hashtags made in the past.
They were fathers, daughters, dreams, and light,
Now embarrassment and erasure set in stone and endless nights.
And we march forward, in rain or flame,
Holding our banners high, holding sacred names.
We speak about truths that some around us are hesitant to see
Because they come from a history or context that is painfully carved.
No justice? No peace?
Then we will raise our hands, walk up this hill.
With every step, with every breath,
We reclaim love in the face of fate, we honour death.
We DO NOT ask to stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
We ask for equity and love, equity for justice, love for hearts.
Dignity for those whose voices are heard,
For dignity, for voices clear.
Black lives matter—not more, not less,
In a world that frankly needs to readdress the ridiculous amount,
Of stolen grace these past centuries.
For equity we fight for the right space.
So light the truth, and hold it high,
Let no truth quiver, let no hope die.
Let no pain go from soft whimpers to raucoused call,
We still believe.
We still rise.
A crescent emerged in the twilight
bidding adieu to the sun
welcoming the stars
that poked through the azure
one by one
Shot through the chest, it looked pretty grim
His world growing ever more dim
Sticky blood started to pool
Who knew the world could be so cruel
He reminisced about the past
It seems nothing ever lasts
He remembered all the mistakes he had made
Growing all the more afraid
Still so much to do, so many stories untold
He never got the chance to grow old
Did he do enough in his life, will he be remembered when he’s passed
He thought of the wealth he amassed
He had no warm memories, no one to put in a locket
Just the cold hard cash in his pocket
He still couldn’t buy comfort when he kicked the can
He died a billion dollars to his name, but still poorer than the average man
the brink of a nose, beckoning
fingers dampened with sweet vanilla extract
while the tongue regurgitates the bitter liqueur
venom of mama’s milk and cookies
the outreach of limbs, hankering tendons and all
this daddy’s girl of a claw machine, clambering for comfort
while the pupils of his eyes shrivel in withering sights
predator of papa’s unzipped mind
the grippling of pleasure receptors to that scarlett nectar
dimples rippling to orbs at the knees of euphoria
before her kiss takes your breath away for a second too long
cannibal of neon desire
the laying of your skin against mine, and
the shutting of those longing eyes, oh won’t you
let my fingers worm themselves into your soft ears, and you can
touch, and lust, and thrust, but never ever trust
this sleeptalk to leave you with
secrets that belong in daylight
your fingers peer into this peephole of a mouth
wander this pink welcome mat of soft and shallow buds, oh
please, won’t you do me a favor?
do not dare venture any farther into this tunnel
contorted and inflamed with antique imprints of screams
when your tracings slip from my gums
do not ask the secret to these sharp and jagged teeth
catch a whiff of decadence, carry no promise of spoonfuls
let my hands keep clean, reaching than clawing
for exhilaration be a craving, never a longing
set me free baby, won’t you promise me,
you’ll find another lady for this male fantasy.
The house remembers.
That’s what the old woman said
when she handed me the keys.
She looked at me
like she knew
exactly who I was grieving.
Exactly what I was trying to bring back.
It’s his house.
Was his house.
Ours, once,
before he disappeared into the kind of silence
you can’t call back from.
I came here
because something in me believed
he might still be waiting.
Not alive.
Just
here.
And maybe I was right.
At night, the bedroom smells like his cologne.
Not strong, just enough to stop my breath.
The record player spins without prompting,
playing the same vinyl
he played the day he said,
“This house has a heart, you know.”
The third step creaks.
Always the third.
He used to skip it.
I never told him I liked that sound.
Now, the house skips it too.
Sometimes I hear him calling my name.
It’s never loud.
Just behind me.
Or below me.
Or inside the walls
like he’s pacing
and waiting
and watching.
His clothes are still folded
where I left them.
But last week,
one of his sweaters was on the floor
like someone wore it
and changed their mind.
I saw him once.
Or something that looked like him.
By the mirror.
He didn’t move.
But his eyes were mine
and his mouth didn’t smile
the way I remember.
This house
knows I want him back.
And it’s giving me pieces
like scraps of a dream
stitched together
with grief
and something darker.
The house remembers him.
And now,
so do I.
Even the parts
I tried to bury.
But it’s not him,
not really.
It just wears his voice.
Wears his shape.
Wears my want
like a key.
And I think
it’s waiting for me
to stop noticing the difference.
She is looming over you like a false god,
your room a temple where all the dead girls pray,
clawing at the ceramic of their skin for divinity
leaking through the scraps.
If you were to pluck every scar from your skin,
uprooted from their field cloaked in bitter soil,
could you create a mural?
They’ll burn the crust of your youth
and carve from your ashes a martyr.
This place is a wasteland,
a silhouette marred in smoke,
but tonight the dim light sits flush against her face,
her laughter like the ocean is alive within her chest,
like bullets folded on her tongue;
something almost contemptuous in her gaze,
disdainful,
yet still prettier than any statue
you’ve ever defaced.
This charred touch is the only thing
the two of you can share, because after all,
how else can you hope to cradle
someone who does not want to be saved?
Once a goddess.
Now, she slowly gasps for breath as she chokes.
Chokes on our smoke.
Flaring Lungs, Forests Burned.
Plastic Face, Plastic Sea’s.
Dazed memory, Pollution.
The bacteria spread their infection,
Through her veins. She dies slowly.
Even though she rains and floods them,
They mutate and attack.
Yet they claim they are children of the holy.
There used to be stars.
Now, there are pointed fingers.
The same fingers that dictate and declare war.
Wars that destroy the homes of children.
Once sitting there with the toys,
Now, hit by the noise.
Beirut. Baku. Budapest.
“Is there life on Mars?”
Bowie asked it like a prayer.
We made it a plan.
As if we deserve another world to ruin.
We rid the sky of stars,
Similarly to the over-priced products
We pay for to rid the pimples on our face.
She was a goddess once,
Green limbed and river voiced,
Hips like the hills, lungs of the forest,
Heartbeat in the tide.
Now she coughs in silence.
Oil pools where blood should be.
Plastic chokes her throat.
Beaten down,
Abused and assaulted.
Similarly to us down here, but we are cared for.
She’s all alone.
The moon turns away.
The oceans climb the stairs.
Even the worms seem tired.
No stars.
Just fingers.
And none of them
lift the sky back up.
(for my father’s son, Vova Chechotkin, 33)
Father told him.
not too high,
not too low,
As he gifted the waxed wings
and released him from his cage.
As if the world ever listened
to a father’s fear.
He wore thirty-three on his back,
And he ran like he was racing the sun with his baseball bat.
Strange,
How the number stayed with him,
right to the end.
He laughed like nothing could touch him,
a sound brighter than the sky.
He didn’t look back.
Not once.
I saw as Father tried to steady him,
guiding, following, warning.
But he found his wind,
(a wind that would carry ghosts)
and made it his own.
Father watched.
He always watched.
Through the storms,
the silence,
The slow climb back
into the bright light.
And when he finally flew,
free, clear,
No ghosts clinging to his heels.
The world reached for him,
and took him too fast.
Soon enough,
He fell from the great height.
They still say
He had so much ahead,
But Father saw
How far he came.
That flight?
That was everything.
And sometimes,
When the sky is too dark
And the world feels too quiet,
Father speaks out to the moon.
“Careful, son.
For the danger of fun
can quickly turn into memory,
of the boy
who flew too close to the sun.”
These smart primates have surprised me
with the way they dream up changes
and bring them about with nimble fingers,
grasping tools hewed from all the materials
found from my surface deep into my crust,
living plants and flowing water cobbles,
metals made molten a million years ago,
rocks compressed as I shift and groan,
metamorphosing into marbles and schists,
coy crystals sparkling in my crevices,
and oily remains of carboniferous plants.
These humans find them all, exploring
in packs, swarming over my surfaces,
diving into my most turbulent waters,
shimmying into my caves and up my mountains,
oddly undaunted by my proudest features.
The humans chop, peel, spill, poke, shave,
pluck, tear, gore, mash, and mutilate me
beyond recognition. Yet, inside, I remain the same,
steadfast in my core and buffered by my mantle,
the human attentions only skin-deep.
When the people are gone someday, finished
with trying to shape me to their favor,
having extracted and exhausted
the resources they need,
I will still be humming along, dancing circles
around my Sun, and sending bursts of magma
to my surface, doing my own kind of play,
making new rocks and rivers and rainbows,
remembering how clever the people were, yet
so short-lived against my four and a half billion years.
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