Remembering how I used to exchange poems with strangers. This is from a college student, November 1994.<\/p>\n
\r\n mark,\r\n haven't seen you around in awhile :(\r\n i'm hoping that sometime you will send me another poem or a\r\n story or something, i really liked the first one. here is\r\n something i wrote about a year or so ago.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n I stand alone and you're in a crowd laughing,\r\n laughing and dancing with the flowers that\r\n scent the wind\r\n I mourn in the mist in my circle of black candles\r\n burning, stars collapsing over my head\r\n My green eyes glow from this surrounding gray, piercing\r\n your soul,\r\n emerald pools swirling with meaning as they\r\n go liquid on me once again\r\n\r\n Standing on a cliff, the waves crashing an eternity below\r\n all frothy\r\n I contemplate the beauty and aching wrenching power\r\n of the ocean which cares not a wit for us-\r\n petty symbolic rulers of the earth\r\n And you remain on the beach picnicking with the\r\n friends, glancing up every now and then\r\n to see if I'm still here-\r\n which I always am\r\n Seeing the sunradiate around you as a god\r\n your blond soft hair glowing before my eyes\r\n\r\n Standing by the kitchen sink I listen to you and the boys\r\n screaming as the Giants score another touchdown,\r\n and I wonder vaguely how they are giants when\r\n they are nothing\r\n The shabbiness of this place forces itself on my senses,\r\n ambushing me without preparation-\r\n peeling wallpaper, stained linoleum,\r\n the stale smell of old beer\r\n Every detail of this moment is branded into the soft\r\n tissues of my brain\r\n steady hum of the refrigerator\r\n the blaring of the TV from the front room\r\n I hear you holler for more drinks so i bring you a 6-pack\r\n and hope the game will be over soon\r\n I return to the kitchen and pick up the knife with\r\n which I've been peeling the carrots\r\n Its glinging silver, caught in the drab sunlight filtered\r\n by grungy curtains, catches my attention,\r\n and I hold\r\n and caress it\r\n In all this ugliness and barreness, the knife\r\n is clean, and beautiful\r\n Slowly I look up at the black & white photograph hanging\r\n on the wall from a nail and some wire\r\n The beautiful young face stares back at me with all\r\n the hope of innocence\r\n and I shudder at what she has become, suffering\r\n a painful gradual death\r\n My attention falls again on the knife clutched\r\n in my clenched fingers\r\n I turn it over in my hand, fondling it\r\n And I draw it gently over the back of my hand, staring\r\n at the narrow line that magically appears\r\n I turn my hand over and stare at the blue veins\r\n beneath mottled skin, and\r\n\r\n Casually,\r\n I care a shallow groove across my wrist,\r\n and watch the red well up to fill it\r\n a river\r\n Then again, deeper, and the red flows out of my arm\r\n cascading to the broken linoleum\r\n beneath my feet\r\n -and it is beautiful-\r\n So I do the same to the other wrist, and I\r\n press my hands together,\r\n and think--\r\n Now I am my own blood sister...\r\n\r\n\r\n hallelujah.\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remembering how I used to exchange poems with strangers. This is from a college student, November 1994. mark, haven’t seen you around in awhile \ud83d\ude41 i’m hoping that sometime you will send me another poem or a story or something, i really liked the first one. here is something i wrote about a year or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-6su","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24833,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24830\/revisions\/24833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}