December 7, 2022 - “The Blue String” by Rahil Najafabadi
THE BLUE STRING
To Negin
I thought there’d be people waiting oceans away,
ready to listen and drown with us in our history.
We flew past the mountains and reached the cold,
but the people were no longer there. We were alone.
You and I built them as figments of our imagination,
but they took boats and grew nude for the water
even in the absence of waves, in the bloodiest winter.
All I wanted to tell them was a tale of my womanhood––
Of yours, the one we were deprived. They’ve moved on,
and they suggest we should do the same. Think ahead.
But there is a thread or two between us, hanging
from a portrait of my friend. She will stand still,
She will stare from the distance of a painting or a photograph.
The remains are between us with the blue string attached.
The Blue String is written to and about Negin Mahzoun, an Iranian artist based in New York. Her work deeply affected me and brought out emotions about womanhood that are best displayed within her work. Negin works with different mediums and her work involves self-portraits. The piece that urged me to write this poem had stitches with blue thread over a printed image on fabric, which was about her experience with the cold, women of different cultures, and the sea. I dedicate this poem to her.
December 6, 2022 - “The weight of rain” by Elizabeth Lerman
When the rain falls, this time, it feels heavier than it has in days before, and I wonder what it means when I start to melt into meekness. I don’t like to depend on sunshine too much but I swear something like erosion is happening in the face of all these storms, something like soil sinking deeper into the earth, and maybe that is where the weight of rain comes in, and if it would just lighten up for a moment I might be able to stand again and speak aloud to myself, saying something will change when the sun comes up, saying when dirt dries, it moves at the mercy of the wind and think - what a feeling that would be.
December 5, 2022 - “Especially when it’s dark and the city is silent, almost.” by Jordan Myers
One way to see Eighth Avenue at five in the morning is on a bicycle. I’d recommend this way, especially in December, especially when it’s dark and the city is silent, almost. I like cycling slowly in the middle of the giant avenue; where cabs roam during the day, requiring weaving into, out of, then in between lanes. As soon as the sun comes up, it’s like the night was never there at all.
December 2, 2022 - “The Ordinary Days” by Rahil Najafabadi
THE ORDINARY DAYS
There’s much to see when I’m not looking,
the pictures of a life in motion happens
and my eyes are closed because I’m wishing.
The rain shuts my gaze when it’s too fast,
my name is no longer an awakening––
Only when it’s placed next to yours. Why?
Because we are now distant, anything said
has to be mid-air, between the memories.
But I like the days that go by, keyed with sound
of music playing beneath my apartment.
The days where the water doesn’t run down
the drain without heating me first.
I don’t need to sit in the bath, I don’t need sleep.
I need the ordinary days of conscious
and current waters flowing your absence.
December 1, 2022 - “I am dreaming of you in unspectacular ways” by Elizabeth Lerman
I am dreaming of you in unspectacular ways. You call me, tell me the plot of a movie you can’t remember and ask me if I’ll watch it with you. You say you used to love it and want to see if you still do. You are thinking about time and how strange it is, how crooked it’s all starting to seem, and you are in front of me now, I am trying to tell you the title but words don’t work right here and when I don’t answer fast enough you start to walk away and I am sinking then, trying to tell you, wait, I am right here. I want to say please, want to beg like I never have before, but something mutates in my mouth, melts the moment and folds me into it, making me look, for a very long time, at the quiet way I let people leave.
November 30, 2022 - “Regular Visions” by Rahil Najafabadi
REGULAR VISIONS
The icy ground must be slitting soon. A cold air
has broken the surface of our conversation.
I’m afraid of the things I want to say because
I don’t want them to come out, but they always do.
As I grow I think I’ll learn to become an individual,
unshaken by the trees in the wind or any lover.
But I make the same mistakes and stand with the trees
until a human in motion carves their name on my body.
I am not claimed this way, but I’m nested with winter.
My human leaves and becomes a dot in the snow,
yet I am here, waiting for them to become a figure again.
I think I am losing my eyesight when I don’t see him near,
But then I remember that these are regular visions.
November 29, 2022 - “Shadow of Snow” by Elizabeth Lerman
I am waiting for the season to show itself and there have been times, at night, where I see it poking out from behind the trees, baring more with each breath of wind and I can feel it lurking, catch it in the corner of my eye as I take certain turns, but it shies away when street lights flicker on and if there were such thing as a shadow of snow, that might be exactly what is laying down now, on crooked concrete, what is nestling, silently, in the cracks between cobblestone.
November 28, 2022 - “I was still spinning from three Manhattans / half listening” by Jordan Myers
I just remember we were in the back of a cab that was crawling
down 5th Avenue at dusk, when you started talking about
the Bermuda Triangle getting lost inside the Bermuda Triangle.
I was still spinning from three Manhattans / half listening,
overwhelmed & enthralled by the snow falling sideways into
our windows. Everything was bumper to bumper: your words
like brake lights and headlights pressing against each other,
all the way down to the bridge
/ across the river
/ to the borough
with the view /
of the tiny windows /
& lights of November
/ at night
November 25, 2022 - “Water Mail” by Rahil Najafabadi
I’m sitting by the window that frames a cold mountain,
Picturing a sea or an opening of blue water mail.
Don’t mountains have small waters, sounds of peace—
In the distance a frigid winter ahead, the clouds shy away.
I’ve turned away all elements of calm, only to invite the fire.
A black sky is upon us, a warm winter has died.
I only wanted to see the spring of waterfalls when the coldness is in motion—
Not downward gravitational, but on the horizon
of one living edge of Earth, to another extent of my imagination.
November 24, 2022 - “Sucker Punch” by Elizabeth Lerman
They had decided, one afternoon, to sample the sudden shock of a split lip, of the shiners sported by boys at school who liked to play rough, and so they sat in a circle, up in the attic where their mothers would not go, and talked, quite seriously, about how to form a fist. Thumbs on the side, one of them said, or else the bone could break. They held pillows like punching bags and practiced until the movement became swift and natural, until their arms ached and feathers flew out of the fabric, until they felt like five girls who knew something about a sucker punch.
November 23, 2022 - “The Worst Things in the World” by Rahil Najafabadi
There’s a few moments in the year I feel like a complete person:
At the dinner table with friends, a lover, family––drinking
to the next touch of light. Under pine trees, dozing off from hard cider.
Crashing in the bushes from sugar, too much too fast.
The river of trust when a love story begins, and the person’s hands
are still warm. Opening a box of chocolates and not knowing
which will melt softer in my mouth. Kissing pink in winter,
falling drunk in spring, under the bloom of pounds of lilies.
Countless memories of moments I felt I was simply not awake.
But those days were all free, my smile was not sponsored.
Why are the worst things in the world so expensive?
Freedom takes lives, healing takes time, and I am now bare.
I hope the moon of bad dust skips my home today––come back
tomorrow, the next day, the next, and another lifetime after.
November 22, 2022 - “Hockey Season” by Elizabeth Lerman
The stadium shook when the boys scored and parents pulled themselves out of their seats to cheer wildly before plunging back down in a way that made the metal skeleton tremble. Afterwards, while the brothers removed their padded armor, the sisters would scurry to the snack bar, suck hard on blue lollipops and stick their tongues out at each other saying how’s this? Bluer, they would say and when their lips looked as though they had been dipped in dye, they would run into the gaggle of families, giggling, tugging at their mothers’ sleeves saying look at me, look at me, they shook and made their teeth chatter and told the brothers they had gotten frostbite from sitting through another game.
