.transparency.

Eternity approaches
An overall hypnotist, alleged and crude
Diving through the thoughtlessness at hand
I need
To etch me into glass so I can see
And be deaf to my surroundings
I take comfort in the distance
Between the stars in my sky
But I know there is one out there somewhere
Somewhere beyond the black, in the way
After all, there is no such thing as forever
Without hitting something
To wake you back up
To know how it feels when your sheets
Don’t smell like your own
Instead, like rotten kisses
And wilted smiles
It feels like the bubonic plague:

A virus that kills more people every second
Than any disease anyone could ever manufacture is
The realisation that you truly believe
Your life isn’t worth living

I want to kill and sustain at the very same time
To throw myself out of bed
But hide under the covers
The duality of the moment eats away
At my sense of belonging---
Belonging only to me
I want to scream:
“Lament! Jesus fucking Christ and his bloody nails too!
Fucking
Bleeding
Lament!”
“But my child, it was all for you…”
And I find myself on my knees for the third time that day

I’m all to used to servitude…
After all, once you’re born
You can’t go back to the
Warm crimson bed in which you were knitted
Stitched together cell by cell
Seeing through nothing but your own eyes
Now there is such a haze of uselessness
(I could say ash but there never was a fire)
There is a slate on which I beg to be drawn
So visible it burns my very nerves
If only I could un-see myself
Through one as distinguished as you
I wonder if I would appear any different
If I’d only see transparency staring back
Or if I’d see my face
Cracked and bleeding but still pleading for salvation

I wish so much that my soul could escape through my eyes
And be transported to a painting
Only to sacrifice my last tear for hopelessness
But I seem to have smeared my watercolour
Pay no mind…
My face is not any less blurry than before
Before the fine lines of my own mortality
Outlined my breathing
With a pen known only as
Time
The ink has run out now
Still walking the halls of my existence
All of the doors are locked
And I have too many keys in my hand
They all appear the same
While calling out taunting words
As if to narrow my line of vision all the way to the end
This door it won’t open either
At this point my fingers are fading
They say I am not grey enough
I can’t be a shadow
And even if I were
Whose shadow would I be?
“Not mine”
they say
1000 voices all rolled into one
But it’s still barely a whisper
Against the roar of my echo
“Echo… echo…
“Lament…”

Not a shadow nor memory nor expression lingers
Just my whispers and me

By Aimee Sanjari
Written 2004
Revised 2007

2:30

the quiet crept into my ears
and became my favourite blanket
nearby lampposts illuminated the
falling snow
at 2:30 am
my cigarette became gin and tonic
my legs became cushions
the cold became home
if the city was on fire
the snowflakes would be mixed with ash
but they stayed clean
expectedly
for sirens didn't belong that night
just me and the sky and the snow
me, perched on a concrete step
the sky, shaking of crisp white dust
the snow, drifting lazily to kiss the ground

in my mind i held you
and i held you
then you were gone.

.quicksand.

we are beautiful when we are together

its a shame time is the quicksand in which we sink

gasping for air inside of each others mouths

-aimee-

i.never

pessimism was my brightest quality
it shed light on the uncertainty i thought was there
and made apathy more possible than ever before
but i never had something good enough to dread losing this much
every little misspoken word
runs a page of doubt across my mind
making little cuts appear
not too visible
but they sting all the same
[maybe thats why i ache so much]
i hate the way it gets me to me, really
i always thought i was above the concept of feeling
despite my previous pains, every fresh hurt
makes me wince just as much as the first
does this make me sensitive or gullible?
i wish i wasn't so disappointed at my lack of indifference
i wish i didn't feel so stupid for caring
even moreso, i wish that i could focus on everything good that is coming out of this situation as opposed to everything that could possibly go wrong [but hasn't]
sometimes i think i get it from my father
that
is definitely
NOT
a good
thing


"enchantment has
but one truth
i weep to have
what i fear to lose"
-t. holopainen [nightwish-'gethsemane']

something.different

my poetry professor is a genius.
he told us that a poem was like someone you are madly in love with---
in the way that you can enjoy them & love them
without really understanding them
my mind rewound to kevin's explaination of why he was late that same day
"i'm sorry baby"
"on the way here, there was a hit-and-run accident"
"involving a horse & buggy"
"i had to run home and get the digital camera"
"the horse was dead and just lying in the middle of the road"
"so i took loads of pictures and put them on my website"
"in one of which, i was posing with a cigarette dangling half out of my mouth"
"with my thumb up in the air"
"grinning like a madman"
he stopped and looked at me
no way in hell could i be angry with him
i stood there with a half-grin on my face
no sure what do to
i could be offended
[so taking pictures of a dead horse is more important than me]
but then i realised
before my professor even said it
or before i could say anything
i knew
that there are things i would have stopped for---
like a flying ice cream truck
or a dead butterfly on my windshield---
and expected him to understand too

treat poetry that way.
treat your lovers that way.
& on occasion
treat yourself that way.
never expect the world---
but always be pleasantly surprised if thats what you end up with.

Credits: Kevin Mock for photography

---------------
just a thought
to divert your attention
form the prospect of airborne ice-cream men
and something that just irritated me:

isn't it annoying
how there are those people you hate
not because you've ever met them
but simply because their existance
in a way
seems to cancel out yours in some ways...

of course it never helps---
if they are better looking than you are

involuntary.solitude

she hadn't left the room for days
footprints were worn into the carpet
imprints of her laughter remain in the stale air
but the walls remain quiet
as does she
she hates crying
but no one makes her
feel anything else
nothing else at all.

"i remember i remember everything
all those times when no one ever came to get me
all the nights when i was scared..."
-m.devine

she's.just.crazy

it all came back around this time
because she hates the slight hopes he gives her
'maybe' someday has gone & past
everything is black and white again
there is a certain envious air to the way she walks
accentuated by the lack of peers within a ten foot radius
'there she goes', they say
they whisper about her ripped jeans and set jaw
sometimes when he looks at her
she feels too exposed
she met him one evening, bundled & clothed
he unwrapped the fabric as if she was some sort of rare fruit
he unwound her soul as if it was a barrel of spirits
past & present gushing out in a quiet torrent of feeling
now he wants to peel off her skin
after that, then unzip her ribcage
finally, when he has uncoiled her genes and lived
every
single
second
of her eyes
he will try to put her together...
but there are some pieces that can't stick back where they belong
being ripped apart too much takes a toll on her skin and it can't stretch the way it used to
he'd try ribbon and glue and tape and twine
fusing the tissue back together with kisses and a desperate sinking feeling
of loss
so he'd go to the sink and wash of his hands
unable to meet his eyes in the mirror
'she's crazy', he would try to assure himself
'she's just crazy'

Credits: A Softer World for photography

.parachutes.

Today I remembered those parachutes they used to give us when I was very young. A huge multicoloured circle with handles all around, one for each child. Having my luck, I always got stuck between two taller people, so that when I threw up my hands, both grasping a fabric handle, my arms felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets.

I'd jump
I'd stretch
I'd wish for just another inch

Maybe if I was able to pull up the giant semi-orb with ease, I would have had the courage to be one of the brave children who ran under the parachute to another side before the fabric would come down again.

The last time I played that game, I was tall enough---
to lift the handles at least.

But come to find out, I was too tall to run under the parachute without getting the synthetic material caught around myself---or at least thats what I figured. To this day, I have never run under a parachute. I was so afraid of not being able to do it, to risk the laughter of the other children, to suffocate, to not feel good enough if I failed.

Now, I am older... a decade or more older since I last played with the parachutes.
And I would still probably be too afraid.

They were mentioned today in a passing conversation, and I all I remembered was hot good the sun felt on my skin, and how inviting the grass seemed, and how deep of a blue the sky was.

I guess you're expecting some kind of a moral to this story, but I don't have one for you. I mean, if you're willing to offer one, go ahead, or what you think I'm hoping to get out of writing this. I would actually appreciate it.
I think the most I could say is that I'm still afraid of suffocating.
I'm still afraid of being laughed at.
I'm still afraid of being not good enough.
I think everyone is, sometimes...

I just wish I wasn't afraid anymore.
I wish I could do just fine on my own---& not need everyone else's approval.
This past year I found Rocko. And Kevin. And Amanda. And Mindi
I met Megan when I was closer to my parachuting age.
I'm not afraid with you.

I hate being alone.
Its like the stretch in your muscles when someone pulls you too hard by your arms.
Its an ache.
For some reason this place reeks of being alone.
Maybe its the horrible first semester which gave me that feeling.
Maybe its the semi-new dorm room.
Maybe its how my phone never rings now.
Not like when I'm back home.
Here, I'm not needed.
I need to be needed.
Or something.
I'm going to bed.

.1947.

You called me two years after the bombs came

The telephone shuddered

then calmed with your warmth

You said

"I'm long gone baby

Its time to go outside

Dry your eyes and part the clouds

There you'll see me

Proud

Bright

Pure

If you ever see me out

Of the corner of your eye

Slowly turn away

Or you'll start to slowly die

Streaks in the sky & burning buildings

Sealed this man's fate"

I said

"Darling, rest.

You're two years too late

Years & tears & sighs have passed

The least you could do

Is find peace at last"

I cried & cried until I could no more

I then stood up straight and walked out the door

I laid myself down, thinking of the life I shed

I saw you for the last time the next day

And found myself dead

heaven.on.a.broken.bridge

We drove too slowly before we jumped

You spoke into the steering wheel

"Darling we'll be there soon

Long ago--

Great metal giants fell into the sea

The way I crumbled and fell into you"

Our tyres were slipping and

You smiled and you blinked

Closed your eyes and drove us under

Deep below the iron Atlantis

Laughing, you said--

"Darling we'll be there soon
Long ago--
Great metal giants fell into the sea
The way I crumbled and fell into you"

It wasn't long 'till the sun set and joined us

You led me out of the car and held me

[Tell me, tell me you mean it forever]

The phantom dolphins carried us far

To a pearly bed on sand and scale--

My first night with you

I fell, I fell, I fell into you

-29 December 2006-

Brighton, East Sussex