Blotchedpoems - Tumblr Posts
Poem: Autumn
The summer wonders shine like sunlight,
flickering through the clouds in our memories
of ice cream dripping down our fingers
and slipping off onto our clothes.
We shiver as we consider the chillier days
and earlier nights that are waiting to bite,
whispering into our ears from the shadows
of the hazy fog of the oncoming winter.
j.p
Poem: Breathing
She told you to take deep breaths –
throw a few minutes of air at your problems
and watch as they sink into the ground –
but you stretched your face into a yawn
and roared your deepest breath in her direction
in peaceful protest of her airy approach.
j.p
Poem: Solo
She danced around the room,
looking people in the eyes
as she twirled past them,
never meeting the same gaze
twice. In the flashing lights,
spinning late into the night,
she was untouchable,
her tears dripping like sweat,
catching light like diamonds,
slipping, unseen, to the ground
as she kept gliding forward,
spinning late into the night.
j.p
Poem: Breathing
She told you to take deep breaths –
throw a few minutes of air at your problems
and watch as they sink into the ground –
but you stretched your face into a yawn
and roared your deepest breath in her direction
in peaceful protest of her airy approach.
j.p
Poem: Solo
She danced around the room,
looking people in the eyes
as she twirled past them,
never meeting the same gaze
twice. In the flashing lights,
spinning late into the night,
she was untouchable,
her tears dripping like sweat,
catching light like diamonds,
slipping, unseen, to the ground
as she kept gliding forward,
spinning late into the night.
j.p
Poem: Solo
She danced around the room,
looking people in the eyes
as she twirled past them,
never meeting the same gaze
twice. In the flashing lights,
spinning late into the night,
she was untouchable,
her tears dripping like sweat,
catching light like diamonds,
slipping, unseen, to the ground
as she kept gliding forward,
spinning late into the night.
j.p
Poem: Ocean, Part I
As we stand before the ocean,
feeling small, as people do,
your eyes reflect the golden glow
of the sun shining for you.
Maybe we aren’t as vast and bold
as our dear sea of navy blue,
but our hearts could pull the tides
with love as peaceful as the moon.
j.p // I / II
Poem: Ocean, Part II
As we stand before the ocean,
I will reach out for your hand.
We can dance along the shore and
watch the sun set from the sand.
Maybe we are small, as people
tend to be, but our fingers linked
so tightly make us a stronger
force than all the waves we see.
j.p // I / II
Poem: Coffee Date
For once, I’d like to love you
in a typical way, weekends
with planned coffee dates
in picture-perfect cafes,
where the pink walls match
the rosy tint of my view
of you, leaning forward
from your pillowed rattan chair,
beige as the pastries we share
to indulge in the sweetness
of pastry scents filling the air
between us, the mood pink
and soft and pure like you
with those three packets
of sugar you always stir
into your lattes, welcomingly
warm like your laughter,
carried by the breeze as it floats
through the open windows,
gently welcomed by our lungs.
j.p
//“Colors” #1
Poem: Caramel
A thousand shades of caramel
waft inward with the wind
as your melting chocolate locks
drip their sugar down your skin.
j.p
Poem: Sugar Rush
A spell of syrup
at the bottom of a cup –
a rush of nausea at
a sudden sugar blast –
I wash down coffee
with a wave of taking
too much on at once:
too much of a sugar rush.
j.p
Poem: Coffee Bean
A coffee bean’s crunch lies
beneath a chocolate coating;
one bite brings a burst of bitterness
before the sweetness sinks in.
j.p
Poem: Little River Love
A Haiku
little river love,
we adore your flow while you
reflect skies above
j.p
Poem: Fixing
I don’t want to chop my hair off;
I don’t want to sweep the floor.
Years-old strategies for fixing me
aren’t fitting anymore.
Find a new job and new wardrobe
to suit up my older self.
Grow my hair out. Make new friends.
Light a candle. Make a mess.
When I whittled myself down for weeks,
who but I should wield the broom
to brush away the parts I’ve shed
and build myself anew?
j.p
Poem: Going Ghost
No wind brings whispers of love and beauty--
my own shivers in the cold are all that move me.
I’m going ghost in the midnight hours,
a new-born vampire when I look in the mirror.
I sit with faceless fuzzy creatures and a can of fizzy water,
having a name and face and being someone’s daughter,
in good company through this blanching night--
a place to be and sit awhile, to make myself alright.
j.p
the drinks are on me
Past midnight, at a rusty bar, a young man conversing the outcome of a wrestling match. Quite charming, really: three shirt buttons undone, smooth grin of “the drinks are on me”. I heard the conversation make some turns, some more abrupt than others. The more drinks hit the counter, the more his words left tire tracks. He was soon boasting his fine palate for Japanese whiskey and saying “I saw scenery of the sort in Kyoto back in 2004”, “Hey Jim, here’s a quarter, go play me a song on the jukebox will ya”.
He was in the booth in front of me, but I couldn’t see his face; I only caught a glimpse of his slicked-back brown hair. Maybe I had one or two, two or three drinks myself. Maybe it was a little too dark. I didn’t usually go to bars back then.
“Wait, play that again, I’ve heard the tune before, just don’t quite remember from where”.
A waitress, still bearing the traits of adolescence but old enough to look at you straight in the eye, came around.
“Most people call me Connor. But you don’t look like ‘most people’. So call me whatever you want, it’ll do.”
Connor. The way he pronounced his name, revealing his Boston accent, still rings in my ears. I still mouth it to this very day, letting my jaw slightly drop and my tongue press against the back of my lower teeth, just to make me remember that, despite the drunken haze the moment was soaked in, it was not a dream. It was something concrete in the stupor of it all.
Soon enough, they were all loudly singing, their arms enlaced around their necks, swaying back and forth, tears swelling in their eyes. I watched, amused, possibly sipping the foam of yet another beer.
And that’s when everything started to slow down. I laid my head against the wooden panel on my left side and let my heavy eyelids close.
“We’re closing”; I was awoken, dazed, from the deep trance of a dreamless sleep.
The bar was empty: only the manager, a heavily-built middle-aged man with tattoos covering his neck was standing right in front of me, slightly frowning.
I rose from my seat, silent from the grogginess. As I was about to make my way out of the booth, I noticed a piece of paper, on the table, in the corner of my eye. Unsure if it was mine or not, I grabbed it and shoved it in my back pocket.
I took the bus home but got off one stop too early. I stumbled my way through the streets, occasionally letting out a chuckle for no particular reason. The streets were bare; the town was dead. Ten minutes later, after fumbling with the keys and crawling in the stairs, I fell, fully clothed, onto my bed and fell back asleep.
It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I was sitting down, my hand laying on the countertop, watching the coffee slowly drip, every drop tolling in my head. The piece of paper that I had taken the night before was in my right hand; it was a phone number.
7911-75246 written in slanted black ink.
I grabbed my phone, turning it in my right hand indecisively. A few minutes later, the number was dialled; here we go again.
© Margaux Emmanuel
haiku
eyes of dented ink;
summer liquor store color
crawl into this bed
© Margaux Emmanuel
The way your eyes would bite my neck during the cigarette break when there was nothing between us and the moon except for the smell of stale tobacco.
© Margaux Emmanuel
It’s 12 am and teenagers are sitting down, cross-legged, in a fast-food’s parking lot, some loosely holding a crestfallen cigarette in their right hands, its embers lightly glowing in the darkness, some staring at the cars passing by. They’re playing some obscure artist’s b-sides on a beat down stereo that they all seem to be sitting around. “I’m going inside; so fucking cold out here. You guys want anything to eat? Daniel gave me a coupon for their sodas”, says a boy with piercing grey eyes as he rouses himself, long dyed-black hair peaking out from his over-sized sweatshirt’s hood. “I think we’re good”, replies a red-haired girl, almost mechanically, almost as if she is somehow not allowed to want anything, as she lies back and stares into the starless sky with an empty expression. Another girl in the group, chattering teeth and hugging her knees that she has covered with her large green knitted sweater, is aligning dominos on the smooth cement. “What are you doing?”, asks a boy, his veins visibly snaking under his pale skin and his eyes hidden behind strands of brown curls. “This…is us”, she answers while pushing the first domino and watching them fall, one by one onto one another until the very last one drops down and they are all lying there, inanimate, almost breathless. “The fuck are you rambling on about”, he sharply rejoins. “She’s saying that if it weren’t for Lawrence we wouldn’t be in this shithole”, suddenly says the red-haired girl, a little too loudly, as she sits up to face the other members of the group. “Shut your trap”, whispers the boy in a foggy breath as he nervously turns his head to make sure that Lawrence isn’t in sight. “Don’t you tell me that it’s not true, Anzu will tell you the same”, she continues but now in a lower voice and slightly turning herself towards Anzu, awaiting a response while bitterly putting out her cigarette against the asphalt. “Kat’s right…”, says Anzu under her breath with composure. The boy doesn’t say anything, perhaps because he knew that his friends were right but it hurt too much to acknowledge it. He moves the hair that was covering his eyes and places them behind his ear, revealing mellow cedar eyes that betray his cold demeanor. He peers at the dominos, almost frightened by them. Suddenly, he reaches towards the stereo and turns it off in the middle of “hear what I say and tell me if you still-”. Katherine and Anzu look at him, gaping. “Let’s go”, he says as he gets up and grabs the stereo. The girls remain where they are, puzzled. “Ernest, are you fucking out of your mind? We’re in the middle of nowhere and Lawrence has the car keys”, says Katherine with an anxious chuckle. Ernest begins to make his way across the parking lot, holding the stereo in one hand and putting his other hand into his hoodie’s pocket, ignoring Katherine’s indignant remark. “Ernest!”, screams Katherine as the washed-out boy’s figure progressively blends into the dark horizon. Anzu calmly lights a cigarette as Katherine arises and begins to desperately run after him. “What’s going on?”, says a voice from behind. Anzu turns around and sees Lawrence, insouciantly biting into a hamburger that he holds with his two hands, ketchup dripping onto them. “You really don’t understand, do you?”, she mutters into her green sweater as she watches Katherine and Anzu from afar. “Anzu, what are they-“ “Lawrence, it’s freezing, we’re far from home and we haven’t slept in days, this had to happen at some point.” “You can’t possibly think that this is all my fault!” “That’s not what I said.” “But you seem to think so.” Anzu doesn’t dare to look at Lawrence, maybe because the way that he would look at her would bring back more painful memories. She sniffles. “Are you crying?” “No, I’m just fucking cold”, she says as she rubs her sleeve against her teary eyes, gets up, and leaves Lawrence alone in the icy parking lot. He looks at the dominos laying on the floor and then, almost as a reflex, bends down and grabs them. As he turns the hard rectangles in his hands, he thinks to himself that nothing can be done.
dominos | © Margaux Emmanuel
wake up
you write
arbitrary letters
on the lampshade dust
a game
of mental scrabble,
modernity’s
aphasia
the light turns on
v
u
l
n
e
r
a
b
l
e
you are in bed
writing
what you think,
letting your skin
nervously flirt
with unfamiliar sheets,
letting your pen
nervously flirt
with innocent paper,
meeting
your pale lover’s
weak eyes
for the first time:
we all need
to meet
ourselves.
© Margaux Emmanuel