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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 177, “for Nick, again..”

The heat settles in, a haze clouds the moon.

I hate the last week of June.

the memories break my heart, wake my fears, and I fall apart.

I’m breaking every day,

A psychic told me it would take ten years to get over this pain,

ten years to put myself together again, to learn to bend.

Instead I just find myself in hell again.

I’ve missed so many things in your life.

I missed celebrating your birthday with you the last four years.

I’ve missed hearing your voice on the phone,

I’ve missed your criticisms

your witticisms

your laugh

your empathy

your anger

your love.

I’ve

Just

Missed

You.

Where has the time gone?

There is a vacant space where my heart once was.

No matter how many times I go to sleep, or lie awake,

I whisper the same prayer, the same plea that makes my heart ache.

I keep the windows shut, locked tight, but every night

the heavy hand of the summer heatwave creeps in.

I wake up drenched in sweat, or tears,

I create humidity,

violently woken by my fears.

The sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

It’s been

four

fucking

years.

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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 174

It’s half past one and I can’t help but notice

the low steady hum of the ceiling fan,

the clicks of the mechanism that turns those big rudders,

and the sighs of the house as it settles down for the night.

Outside it’s 27° and inside the thermostat stays constant at 67°, but somehow I’m always sweating myself to sleep.

Sweating because I’ve been sweating you for weeks.

And something about those ocean-blue gems that draw out my truth,

rob me of my youth,

provoke the most uncouth

thorny statements,

so rude.

You made me feel haunted.

You made me feel hunted.

You chased me down,

a trivial pursuit.

And every night, you dance into my mind,

waltzing in, weaving webs as I try to unwind.

Your laugh echoes around me, your face surrounds me.

I’m trapped in a funhouse of fallacy.

I catch myself falling as I can’t catch my breath after falling for you.

Tripping over slate sidewalks uprooted

by trees growing cramped, exposed ancient roots.

The way my love for you outgrew the box we drew

around it,

the lies we surrounded

ourselves with,

the chaos we concealed behind tight lipped smiles,

on white knuckled rides down the Taconic.

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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 169

It’s funny how I can look at you and feel nothing.

Your presence doesn’t phase me, your gaze doesn’t weigh against me.

I don’t feel nerves, nor the anxious flutter of butterflies beating madly in my belly.

I feel nothing.

But I know you see me, and in me, see everything. I give you purpose.

My smile means the sun is shining for you, and if I laugh, it’s like Christmas.

The flirtation is endless. And I reciprocate it, at will.

Not because I want you, just because it’s something to do.

And perhaps this is just the first of many mirrors in a funhouse maze.

I entertain your affections, advances. I soak in your desire because I’m using you.

Using you the way someone on the other side of the mirror uses me.

And the irony is,

knowing how bad you want me, need me,

knowing how little I care,

is how I sleep at night.

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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 168

I am infinite and running parallel,

so I know we shall never cross again.

Your distance from me is mere inches but in the span of this lifetime,

we shall remain fingertips apart and never touch.

This is our toxic tragedy, a dance between our dyad as we orbit silently, wistfully.

I can’t remember the last time I felt like this,

but I will always remember to never feel for you again.

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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 173

Sometimes people don’t know how to commit. Connect. Communicate.

“Sometimes” people won’t tell you yes or no, they live strictly in maybe,

an island of possibilities,

a land of spontaneity,

where everything is their own heart’s desire, and never accounts for anything.

This island exists alone and they sit there without boats or paddles,

never realizing how shipwrecked and stranded they are,

they mask their disingenuous persuasion as

being busy

too much responsibility

not the right time for a relationship

being too selfless and not wanting to hurt you.

But the truth is,

when you met them, it was because you rowed to their island,

or you swam, or you dropped in on a chopper.

You brought a way off that island of solitude and selfishness.

You held out your hand and said “come with me, let’s escape, let’s be free.”

And you watched them hesitate at your outstretched palm,

you saw the longing in their eyes,

you saw how starved they were for love, and affection, connection.

Yet they kept their hands to themselves, as if chained,

by their own indecision, insecurity, inability.

And you turned back once, twice, perhaps even thrice,

each time your offer more distant, softer, becoming faint as you turned to walk away.

Then soon you got into your rowboat, raft, your chopper, or dove back into the ocean to escape, to float away,

and they faded to a tiny speck in the distance, alone again, stranded by their own demands.

In your heart you knew they’d wait for someone new to come to their rescue,

and no matter what, every time, they’d refuse.

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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 171

I took for granted

the freedom to watch whatever I wanted,

or to eat dinner at 6pm or

just settle for dessert and some wine a little after nine.

I forgot how it felt to sit in my own silence,

allowing myself space to breathe and think

uninterrupted.

I forget how often I made myself bend

cramped fingers and toes to accommodate your comfort,

my purpose limited to your existence.

I crushed my own heart to swallow my pride,

to make you feel better,

to stick by your side

despite all the trauma,

withstood all your drama,

denied my own life

the dignity of

my peace of mind.

I walked daily on eggshells,

a lump stuck in my throat,

tears brimming my eyes every moment awoke.

Killed all my passions, my life-long desires,

burned myself up to warm you by my fire,

and after all that was said and was done and undone,

I cried at the loss of all that we were,

because I lost myself somewhere

and sometimes I think you were the thief in the night

that stole me from me and took all my fight.

But then day breaks

and I lay awake

in the bed all my own

in my bed all alone

and I remember I’m free.

Free.

To make my eggs, drink my coffee.

To sit in silence and watch the tv,

to walk where I want and eat when I please,

and I don’t owe you anything.

I have all of me.

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brightstreetcity · 2 years

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Untitled 167

Some love stories are immortalized into the cannons of our lives,

taught to us line by line as we scratch our names in desks at age 14.

Some love stories become treasured, classics, tomes that epitomize what love is.

What love is. What is love?

Is it star-crossed, teenage lust, 7 minutes in heaven, easy to trust?

Is it death by sword or bayonets on fields already drenched with spilled blood?

Or suicidal acts of devotion to ironically seal your love forever on a lover’s statuesque lips?

Some love stories never get written, they never travel beyond a look in a coffee shop, a shy giggle over drinks on a first date, the sweet touch of someone’s hand upon our arm, or neck, or back.

Some stories never make it past the first euphoric rush of butterflies and confusion, never bloom beyond a whispered word of endearment.

As if the morning sun vaporizes any trace of an enchanting evening with a surprising stranger with a crooked smile or a gentle touch,

as if our moments spent with those we magnetically gravitate to are just that— mere moments in time, holding meaning for a moment, but in essence meaningless in the grand tapestry of our lives.

And if these stories remain untold, unspoken, unwritten, where do those precious moments go? Where do they hide themselves in ourselves?

Do they tuck into the dusty cob-webbed corners of our hearts alongside the tattered pieces of old memories, destined to collect dust as their value declines in our minds?

And then what happens to love? A bud that’s clipped before it blooms and forced to remain unborn, cut short by the wrong phrase, the bad timing, the lack of reciprocal emotion.

And what happens when you become filled with those nipped buds of what ifs and how comes?

Does your reservoir run dry because the buds have collected all your life’s love water? Do you simply drown in the disappointment of rejection and remorse?

Some stories are never told because they’re never born.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 166

I watched in horror as they clung to the plane.

it crawled down the tarmac,

just like water trickles slowly

down a backed up drain.

Then the wheels went up

and the drain came unplugged,

twenty years flooded down

an avalanche of pain.

#poetry #shanza #untitled #spilled ink #short poem #heartbreak #spilled work #spilled #spilled writing #spilled words #untitled poem #free verse #blank verse #shanzagram #afghanistan #wheels up

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 165

Let me teach you about perspective.

It’s the reason

why

57° feels hot as hell in December

but 57° in July feels like hell froze over.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 164

A mist hung in the air,

it hung, and it clung to the cast off light from the street lamp.

A lonely bulb floating, attachments invisible against the blackened sky.

My attachments are invisible.

Like cobweb silk strings, unseen.

The mist or the fog, or whatever it was, made the night feel like a cloud of squid ink.

And the warm white glow of the bulb, with its halo, a light at the top of an ocean.

This is all it takes, and I come undone. I am unhemmed, my raw edges fray with reckless abandon.

I sit and I pick. I tear and I tease the little fibers of my being, as I turn myself over to unravel.

And every night that passes, I battle the sandman as sleep approaches.

I’ve grown accustomed to feeling as though I can’t sleep alone.

I can’t sleep without checking my phone three dozen times as I sword fight blindly against the death of sleep.

You’ve made me believe

that sleep is not sanity, sleep is not a reprieve.

Made me believe that without you beside me, I am not me, and sleep is not sleep.

I know in my heart I simply couldn’t care less about if you live or breathe,

yet here I am.

Still battling the edge of sleep,

because these dreams are not dreams,

and every nightmare I see is my reality.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 163

The bitter truth is

there are some vacancies in our hearts that can long remain,

the flashing signs flickering endlessly for decades in the emotional motels of our minds.

Sometimes they advertise free cable tv, or more appropriately

come Netflix and chill with me.

But like transient guests, these lovers seldom make requests.

We’re only watching the first 17 minutes of this movie.

Before we start the table read for our bedroom scene.

But broken-hearted, hardly broken, or openly heartless, it doesn’t really matter.

These half-baked commitments bring temporary satisfaction like boxed cake mix batter.

If I didn’t bother to save your number or learn your last name, then this ain’t end game.

I’m not planning on starting a family plan with you or be your Mrs. whatever-the-fuck-your-last-name-is.

It’s funny how at seventeen your sex must have meaning,

going steady, prom queen and king.

And it’s like each year we grow older, the rings around our tree mark each fuck we give less.

Like we’re learning emotional unintelligence.

Like we’re ignoring the boundaries we steadfastly clung to in the comfort of our high school bedrooms.

Back then, meaningful meant promise rings, sophomoric attachment, rosy future dreams.

Now meaningless is how we find meaning in detachment and darkened reality.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 162

And something as potent as the shifting hue of green to blue in the vein along your forearm still seems to captivate me, holds me captive as you hold me closer.

And it’s funny to me that somehow after all these years, and all these tears, the only thing you beg me for is just the scent of me, upon your pillow, against your elbow.

And it’s ironic how as human beings, we have the ability to change our scent with a drop of perfume, a clot of cold cream.

I’ve never failed to recognize the way you like me unfiltered, undone, unadulterated, even after all these years, after all the ways my skin and eyes are no longer young and I’m not 27 anymore.

And we are no longer two lonely hearts under thirty, feeling flirty, only lit by the lights on my Christmas tree. It’s half past six on a Wednesday evening after Thanksgiving, and the winter is just creeping into fall’s last run of relay, and you are here. And here you are.

Your nose and cheeks are rosy pink, your eyes are bright, tearing in the chill, and it’s dark outside. Let me in, you whisper, shivering, like a patient vampire awaiting my invitation.

And as I opened the door to my home, somehow you found the keys to my heart and there you nested, there you rested, holding it in your hands, my heart arrested.

And it wasn’t until five Christmases later that I even realized I associate the scent of noble pines and monochromatic red-decked trees and my aversion to being stared at with you.

And it wasn’t until six years later that I tried to adopt a new scented moisturizer in my bedtime ritual, and the idea itself brought me to tears.

And that is when I realized that the smell of Nivea is the only one so inoffensively scented that you’d tolerate its presence on my skin. But I love the way you smell. That’s what you always say to me. No perfume. just smell like you, okay? Yes babe.

And somehow now, as thirty-somethings, we’ve begun to unwind and uncoil our tangled memories, like the mini lights upon my tree.

So I’ve started by rescenting myself, so I can stop resenting myself, and you, and all that you represented of my careless youth.

I walk from door to door and room to room, and none of these places smell like you. You haven’t been here, and I haven’t let you.

And still there are moments. I light the teakwood candle from my old living room. The one I lit when I was with you. My heart will stop and I’m thrown back in time, you’re laying across me, your hand covers mine.

I am unable to escape the scented memories of our past. I can tear up the pictures, delete all the texts. But a Christmas cookie, or the smell of your soap, or even the cigarettes that I smoke…

they all carry your ghosts and won’t leave me alone.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 161

I am vacant, hollow like the bones of a bluebird, and perhaps as blue within as he is without.

The hours that weave together into days seem to melt without measure, and lately, all I see is sunset.

Like a hunger that exists, no matter how fully sated. A fridge full of options, and yet, unfulfilled.

There is something romantic about being so broken, so blank, without emotion.

And as the pain washes through me, it’s as if I’ve never known truth, or joy, or beauty.

The tortured soul always longing, for that which is out of reach, like an icicle that only shines in the sun that destroys it.

As am I. Longing for that which is always out of reach, seeking that which makes me shine, knowing it will kill me.

I can hum a melancholy song, hold my heartbreak in my hands. The shattered pieces I keep stored in an old shoebox full of memories,

I can shake the box, make chaos of the pieces, or I can arrange them neatly, to form the picture of our fragile peace.

The box lays, collecting dust in the darkest corner of the guest bedroom closet. And yet, it calls to me, whispers to me, like the telltale heart, I can hear it breathing, weeping, calling to me. I can feel it reaching through my bedroom wall and trying to snatch me from my sleep. And when it fails, I wake up panicked, unsure of where I am or where you are. These greedy memories that don’t want me to leave them forgotten, keep calling to me.

I can breathe, or I can hold my breath in anticipation, eyes squeezed shut like a child wishing before blowing out birthday candles.

I know I must unravel, like a ball of yarn, long forgotten in a cupboard, I must be respun.

I know I need to pick through all the pieces in the box. The sharp, clear, jagged edges. The tear-stained, the blood-soaked, the pleadings and the promises.

The warped photographs that leave us with joker smiles, memories that I wish I could live in for a while.

I need to peel each part of me that’s stuck to each of these. Put those parts of me back together with the rest of me.

Discard the rest.

Let the memories that I’ve drowned my heart in circle the drain and flow out to the river.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 160 - work in progress, “for Nick pt 2”

The heat was the same as it is now. Clear skies, hazy air.

The smell of blazing pavement and trees evaporating into the air we breathed.

The sun bleaching the blond heads of kids playing on the street, tanning shoulders, legs and knees.

Loud music escaping fenced in backyards, and cracked windows of cars,

the sound of bees, the trees sighing, in response to a humid breeze, clinging to the leaves.

It’s a heat wave in New York.

The state known for 6 ft of snow at Christmas and at least 6 inches of the same in April.

But the end of June is always a scorcher.

And this year is no different than the summer 3 years ago.

June 28, 2018, I remember we spoke for the last time. I told you it’s so hot and you laughed that it was nothing.

You promised we would hang out after your race and I reminded you about the heat.

It’s. Nothing. It’s nothing, you said. It’ll be okay.

I remember the day the heat came down, the way it covered the earth like a damp towel. Stifling. Suffocating.

Wrapped around your shoulders as you went up the mountain. The heat wrapped up the mountain; a craggy burrito.

I can hear your measured breaths in my head, I can picture the beads of sweat on your head. I can see how goddamn red that beard of yours was.

I can see it.

And just. Like. That. The darkness falls over my mind’s eye. The psychic visions of you collapsing crush against my skull. They break into pieces, shattered windshield glass at the moment of impact.

And as your breathing becomes shallow, I can feel mine slow too. Everything is dark and it’s like I’m inside you. It’s like I’m living in the tiny space between your brain and your eyelids.

I can hear the buzz of insects, the clamor and confusion. And it is so so cold.

I can taste your fear in my cotton-dry mouth. You’re trapped inside yourself, unable to shout.

I can feel them lift your body, and I can sense you trying to help them as you’re strapped in the gurney.

And as the sounds fade in echoed rounds, a choir of the damned only singing in the wailing sounds of sirens, beeps, whistles, sighs of machines. I can hold your panic in my hand. It’s tangible. You know where we are.

The smell of sweat and rubber clinging to the corners of everything. Nothing is here and yet the whole world exists in this moment.

A moment of darkness flickers in my line of sight and then there it is: the cliched slideshow of life, flashing before your eyes.

You’re 3, sitting on the floor of the living room, your sister’s laying on the couch. Saturday morning cartoons buzz on the tv. You’re 9, it’s the summer you’re turning 10, and boom, it’s recess on the lawn at Mount. It’s field day. Blue team wins. It’s Bobby’s birthday. It’s Adam and you riding bikes. It’s Beef wrapping you in a bonecrusher hug. It’s fighting with your brother and being told to knock it off. It’s the smell of your mama frying bacon on a Sunday and calling you guys to the table. It’s getting cut from the baseball team. It’s being shy in the back of class. It’s senior prom. It’s semester at sea. Beers. Girls. Parties. It’s becoming a vegan. It’s 4,761 hours of conversations with me. It’s Gepetto the dying cat on a cold December eve as you deliver newsday to the people. It’s your dad laughing on Christmas morning. It’s cheering for Kym at competitions. It’s the baseball opener. It’s summertime and Saratoga lake. You’re reminding me I’m not fat. It’s you kissing me on the cheek as I cry about another boy that broke my heart. It’s every girl you dated and fell in love with and lamented then left. It’s homeless in California, and every protest you marched in. It’s 10,000 miles of races that you graced with your name. It’s being obsessed with Rich Roll. It’s becoming sober. It’s getting accepted to go back to school and pursue your dream of becoming a doctor. It’s a hundred dreams and wishes you never got to fulfill. And then it’s you pinning your number before this race. And then the picture fades. It’s broken, hiccuping, skipping, and keeps flashing back to starting the race. And then it’s black.

And that’s when I wake up. Drenched in sweat and consumed in tears. And it’s real.

No matter how many times I’ve relived the nightmare, it never gets easier. The devastation of summer is a curse I carry forever.

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 158

It’s the first summer day that comes in mid-Spring.

We hit mid-80s, so hot that the smell of wood stain lifted off the tables and everyone stifled their complaints behind masks.

And the sun battled dusk in a blaze of glory, ripples of heat lifted off the streets.

The moon came out bright, full, pregnant and glowing, giving a sun a run for her money.

Electricity seemed to charge through the air and just like that—

lights out. clouds shrouded the moon as she slipped into the sky, retiring for this part of the night.

The humidity clung to every surface, the scent of gardenias bloomed in the air.

A sickly scent of growth mixed with the acrid smell of death— the rodents that died beneath the porch became known, once frozen to death, now melting into the scents that filled the night air.

It’s not even May and this year reeks of decay.

#poetry #shanza #untitled #spilled ink #spilled prose #shanzagram #untitled poetry #spilled ink prose #writing #spilled poetry #spilled ink poetry #prose poetry #spilled ink prose poetry #spilled ink prose poem #blank verse #free verse #untitled work

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brightstreetcity · 3 years

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Untitled 157

I’ve never felt better than I do right now,

it is so hard to believe that this vibe to thrive came from feeling like I had died.

I’ve never felt so ready to take on the world.

Never felt this way. Nor have I ever reveled in feeling wretched.

Enjoyed the pain of difficult thoughts tumbling through my brain,

nor contemplated the plane of my ideas, were they sane?

But I am happy. Oh so so happy. I am free and full of promise. And that promise is to me.

I am awake and every moment is dazzling, a sensory experience of joy, heartache, excitement and mundane.

The complementary textures of emotions, experiences, the sweet, and the sad. The salty and the sensational.

The hurt that attracts laughter, a magnet for the path towards peace.

It really is true, you’ve never experienced love until you start loving you.

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