Reading the Poetry of Someone You Love

It starts out innocent enough.

"Share yourself with me."
"Tell me what you've been working on."

Now you've finally let me see it.
My stomach churns as I read through your emotions through the decades.
Was it me that hurt you, or someone else?

Was that me you pined for, or her that you've long forgotten?

It is strange to think that you has such emotions before me,
Because you tell me you've never felt so strongly.

If these are not your strongest emotions,
then what emotions do you have for me?

A list of things to buy

Buy the house and when the house runs out,
buy stock.

Buy the stock and when the stock runs out,
buy bonds.

Buy the bonds and when the bonds run out,
buy land.

Buy the land and when the land runs out,
buy art.

Buy the art and when the art runs out,
run.

Or Why I Learned to Love the Rain

When I was a girl...though I am still a girl
I would wake before the dawn for school.
Eyes bright, I didn't know that tiredness could ache my bones.
I had built muscle as armor, though no one told me.

Or perhaps I didn't want to believe them.

I didn't want to believe that I would ever be weaker than I was then,
Though I am physically weaker now.

It was then, in my unknown body that I set out in the rain and fog.
My ears stung, and I wore the crinkly grey windbreaker that was my shield.
God forbid that anyone know that under all this, I had begun to become a woman.
My friends affectionately called me Piggy after we read Lord of the Flies,
And I knew, even though it wasn't true, it was also because of my excess weight...of which there was none.

But in this morning, in this crisp rain and fog and unyielding weather even in the face of sunrise,
I was just me. The chill froze my collar and my feet squelched in flip flops in the rain.

It cooled me from my anxieties, pin-pricked me into loving my existence.
Even when things began going truly downhill, I knew that there would be dark-then-slowly-light mornings with rain.

The fog of my breath was my evidence of life and I knew I lived on.

When I moved away from that rain and fog, I forgot that feeling. I forgot that I was alive.

Where in this sunny utopia, I should have asked, does one find the pinpricks of existence?

I  tried to find pin-pricks in a desert, but I only wounded myself with other instruments.
I've learned about my existence since then. I think I read about it in a book.

But listen to me New York and LA and even little Providence:
Where are your pinpricks? At the sight of rain you hide, when all I want to do is lay in the soggy grass,

In my coat with my hair, like roots, spread around me,
As the pin-pricks pin me into the grass,

I want to feel the pinch of blades beneath me as the heavens rain down love above me.

They are saying,  "You exist, Sunaina." as they wash away grime.

I will shed you like old skin.

Run off of me like water on a glass in rain.

Let the rain stop.

I am a bee and a butterfly.

I am stung but I can sting and I am beautiful.

This is a life outside of you.

This is a life after you.

I will move on.

Tied down no longer.

Free to be what I am meant to be.

Finally, finally, I am free to be.

Expiration Date

Here are the things that I will miss:

Always having someone close.

Being able to tell you where I am all the time.

Always knowing who I want to call and talk to.

Always having a potential date anywhere I go.

Having someone who is just as enthusiastic as I am about things like eating out and having adventures.

Having an adventure partner.

If I ever slept alone it was alright because I knew the next night wouldn't be that way.

Snippets

And so I walk toward a bus stop but not a bed where I cannot rest my weary head.

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Caterpillar clouds crawl over the grandest of canyons.


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So begins a novel. A calculated arrangement of words made from letters created with the intention of creating something, well, novel. Perhaps through plot, through characters, through careful selection of latter letters, or perhaps not.

Tattoos

The day I got my tattoo was a marvelous day. The sun was out, and a calm November chill hung in the air. Lisa and I parked in the brand new parking garage downtown, joking and laughing and reminiscing as we walked down the street toward the best tattoo parlor in town. I was free, happy, determined to get this tattoo; my first mature act of rebellion and remembrance.
I wore comfortable clothes which all of a sudden seemed to big for me as I walked up the creaking stairs into the waiting room. We waited for Kim Foreman, I had memorized her name, to come and get us. Butterflies had started in my stomach.
"Nervous?" Lisa asked.
"I'd be crazy if I wasn't," I said, smiling wryly.
Finally it was time. Kim led us into the empty back room. Light streamed in through the windows, making the white walls, the white tables, the silver lining of the black chairs seem even brighter. I had to change chairs three times, my short torso being concealed by the back of the chairs each time. The fourth chair was one reserved for lower back or full back tattoos. This too was too big, but it did the job.
I took off my shirt, revealing the camisole underneath, and slipped off the long earrings that tickled the tops of my shoulders. Kim pressed the print to my back, leaving a reddish impression on my tan skin. I could see all of this in the mirror. I saw her open the sanitary needles, pour the ink, and glanced nervously at Lisa who sat in the corner, giving me a reassuring look.
"Just do it," I said, prepared for excruciating pain.
The needle hit, almost like a prickling, tickling sensation. I relaxed. The numbness took over.
Thoughts flew through my head. The past year had been surreal. My dad's nearing kidney transplant put on hold after the stroke. The threat of cancer put on hold after the infection. The following coma finally put on hold after the heart attack. The funeral, the unkind mortuary workers, the hoardes of people coming to pay their respects.
The ink, the constant punctures of the needles, spread heat through my shoulder. The pain increased slightly when she went over my shoulder blade, or colored his dark hair. I took pleasure in this pain. I knew my father had suffered in his last days, unable to communicate, only able to react. This was as close as I was going to get to really understanding what he went through.
I could feel the familiar form taking shape on my back. The sharp nose, the strong jaw, the slight wave in the hair; all things we shared. Finally, it was done. Feeling the blood pulsing in my shoulder I slid off the chair and walked over to the mirror.
In that moment I could not know that in a few short days when my mother came home that she would look through my checkbook. I could not know that she would cry, my brother would cry, claiming that I had done something neither of them could forgive. I could not know that this would alter my relationship with the both of them forever.
In that moment all I saw was the smiling face of my father, his shoulders swathed in the robes of a hindu saint. His eyes crinkled slightly, his hair thick, his face kind. His head was tilted slightly to the right, and the raised red of the tattoo gave his face a look of vigor. Beneath him, in numbers, plain and clean, "1959-2007"

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I wrote this over a year ago for the livejournal community all_unwritten.
Prompt 132 - Tattoos.

Nothing great...but it was good to write.