.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

the.heathen.&.the.martyr pt.1

I.
What am I?
A martyr with no cause
Separate my bones
Part the cracks and refill with resin
The sulfurous dust
Ejected from a god I never saw--
The sacred and profane carefully labeled
In little orbs of light
It seems the willingness towards-
Crucifixion-
Could get me held high on only stained wood
And coloured glass
... I'd be on display
But silent.
Saviours cannot bleed for their cause
If they lack blood--
I cannot siphon feeling
If I lack the thinnest skin
Footsteps tread like barbed wire
And handshakes move like words
Even my loudest scream
Could not faze the smallest cloud
So tell me darling...
How can god hear?

.miss.

What makes you so important all of a sudden?
You pretty little poseur, your words running like you ran so many months ago from everything you held dear... or so you told us.
You act so big and speak so small, tossing your hips like a pinup doll
Don't hold back, or if you do, don't announce it like a weakness lined in the same lipstick with which you trace your bones
Fragile boy, porcelain puppet, your actions don't move any more mountains than my pity
Makes you halt your stomping steps, deceptively fierce up and down this city
I've seen your vulnerability
I've seen your tears
I've seen your bones break and your empires fall
Step it up honey, you can't fool them all

Credit: Douglas Thompson for photography

cure.for.snow

Nothing can touch her now. The bitterness she once felt vanish crept back into her eyes last night. How dare they. Look at her... now she wants to pluck out her skin again until its raw and bleeding like the plastic knives and safety pins of her angsty over-dramatic past. "Look at me", she used to try to tell the world, "I hurt. I fucking hurt". Now there isn't any tracery, no attention deprived, kohl-lined eyes to stare pleadingly into to eyes of others. She had to realise, one day, one doesn't have to be unique to hurt, to feel pain. Its not something set aside for painfully thin 15 year olds who kiss boys&girls and inhale ragweed like oxygen. They parody their own lives while giving it away for a pitiful glance, a bottle of White Horse, or teased and twisted platinum hair, bleached as white as God. Her name used to be Nothing. She had no Ghost, no Zillah, no Molochai... no youth.
The emphasis of pain converts it to something else, an art, something beautiful. Look outside, she is looking at the snow now, she can't cry, no she can't. She wants to one day, to let it all out, but she can't. She knows how to feel... but not how to paint her silver and blue on this lost winter night.

love.like.home.sick

"Don't second guess me darling", she says. Strands of broken ribbon and tic-tacs are all that is left of the past year and there is nothing she can do, no, now she is pacing, look what you've done. Each heavy heartstring tied to the pink plastic of her flip-flops, staining the already rosy floors with sighs. She feels integrated, she feels objectified, she feels like she'll never feel home again, never feel your fingers tug beneath her skin, and churn her stomach into oblivion.
Normal. She feels normal. Stepping it off her elevation, and watching her breathing catch in her throat on rewind.
Its so hard to get used to him becoming a mere aspect of her day, instead of the being entire day itself
She is still feverish with the love sickness empathy syndrome... so far beyond her comprehension... but she liked it better when the feeling was mutual like the pavement outside is warmly receiving the rain like an old friend, like a feather dream, like a cushioned grave... like home.
She wants to go home.

"It's their world, outside, that they could set on fire
She wants to jump off cliffs while holding on to you
...Well go ahead, you're love sick"

Credits: Mat Devine for song lyrics

.burn.

I want to be invisible today. I would be a mischievous dreamer and meld together strings of clouds so that I may descend safely from my visions, finally landing with a soft disturbance among the long grass. I'd tie together bundles of hay and set them alight, drawing with the imprints left on my eyes by the white heat in the darker autumn twilights. I'd twirl them around like a hellishly fascinating baton dancer, with maroon flavoured lips and innocent cotton candy eyes. Pretending to be a lost gypsy child I could roll down hills without the ever present fear of grass stains ruining the fabric I sewed with broken fingers. Their crooked bones grab at my hair when I am asleep and put strange dreams of strange women in my strange mind.
They never leave my side.
Will you ever leave my side?
Draw me with embers and leave me to dance here, in this wonderland. Creaky floorboards do me no justice and high airy ceilings leave me feeling to small. The little adult girl I'd kill to take care of is making me taller than what I actually am&uncomfortable&out of place&terribly... terribly... ugly.
"But at least I'm still lit", I tell the ashes each day. "You may be beautiful, but I am alive"

.sleep.

Muscles are tense and cheeks are pale. She sang a shallow lullaby (over & over) trying to lull herself to sleep. Slumber is a distant acquisition, and she paced discontently in her room, wearing away the nihlistic, groaning floorboards with each restless step.
"Lovers burned and took their revenge
The lion sails tonight..."
Her voice shook more and more with each word:
"Once consumed and turned to ash
In its cold blue light"
The words turned her mind over in their disturbingly harmonious hands until she finally sank into the depths of her own self, and lay still.
When she awoke, she was relieved to know where she was, in her room. the familiarity curved her lips into a smile and she opened her window. The sun was out and it was raining. Perfect. She hummed and she blinked, until she noticed the tips of her toes were singed. Then, she cried.

"Only a lover lost burns in GhostFire"

Credits: Tiger Army for song lyrics

thank.ful

Human nature. Something in which I have had more skepticism than faith, but nevertheless, it never ceases to amaze me. Brittle bones and unstable tissue walking around, making entirely different worlds with each other... humanity is a beautiful thing. The complexity of each different feeling is astounding if one stops to think about it. What nerves, what cells prompt us to act as we do? Me personally, most people would describe me as a shy girl, one who covers her face with hair and perplexity. I suppose I have dabbled in illicit activity to earn a reputation otherwise, but with this Starting Over Point, I feel i have some leeway to personify myself as I am. it doesn't matter to me how many foreign grains and dusts line my arteries, how much smoke lines my lungs... how much guilt and shame still lingers from past experiences.

Forgive my descent into these matters, it just never fails to amaze me how much other people think of me than I think of myself. Its not that I am lacking esteem or pride (I have plenty of both), I just realise exactly who I am, and why I am that way.

The point I am trying to make, is that humans are painfully aware of themselves too, and of their mortality. Each day, our cells die off, one day, we will all lie still.

But yet we can still promise each other forever when we know we won't always be here... and we can still say "I love you" when we see dead skin decorating our eyes. Thats what I love about being human... its what I am thankful for.

a.simple.god

Today, a young woman wrote a letter to God, but all she could think about was how many stamps were necessary in order for him to receive it. She went back to her room and picked out the three most colourful stamps she could find. Every time her grandmother sent her a package, she soaked the cardboard box until the stamps peeled off and then kept them in a little tin box. Whenever she thought of her grandmother and of Iran, she thought of mountains and mosques, both of equal splendour, bustling marketplaces which smell like kabob and sabzi, and rustling skirts sweeping the streets while women donning brightly coloured scarves carried children, bread, or fruit from one place to the other. She thought if one were to hover above the ground, they would seem like tropical birds skimming the surface of a desert, leaving clouds of dust behind them.
She stuck the stamps on the envelope with glue stick and smoothed the corners so that the perforations would not tear. "He will like this", she said. Her small room smelled of saffron; her grandmother had sent her some in a little packet covered with florescent Farsi lettering, advertising the vendor. She inhaled deeply, and smiled. The bracelet Grandmother Mehri had sent her reflected a curse sent by a pair of evil eyes whose host stumbled past her window. The young woman didn't notice. After she finally sealed the letter, she placed it on the pillow of her cot, grabbed her schoolbag, locked her door and left for her French class.
When she returned from class not even an hour later, the letter was gone. The young girl smiled knowingly and sat down to commence with her studies.
It seems that Allah likes saffron and pretty stamps after all.

.needles.

I have never been afraid of needles, not since I was young. The syringes of my youth interrupted my veins so much, that I never thought anything of them. I even sat with a mild sense of fascination at every pinprick. It was, after all, most of what I had known. I had often wondered what my parents would have thought if they knew what my sister Lilly used to do to me. They were both absent since before I can recall. Lilly once told me that I poisoned them, but then again, Lilly was always saying things like that. Most people now tell me she was mad. I think she was the best kind of martyr, always trying to save me from my natural, unholy nature.
When I was six years old, I had a nightmare. I woke up screaming like a banshee, streaked with sweat and with hot bedsheets twisted around my smallish body like a cocoon. She was eleven at the time, but calmly walked into my room with the somber, disciplined stride of an old madame. She slapped me across the face, which only worsened my agitated state and then sat on the edge of my bed and pinned my arms down. My face was red and swollen, spit was trickling out of my mouth, and yet my Lilly whispered, "You poor, beautiful child" before continuing with her "standard procedure". Both of our parents had been dead or otherwise absent for only a short time, but Lilly knew what to do.
The mahogany armoire had three little drawers at the bottom, my sister went to the last one and retrieved the syringe. I could still see a bit of dried blood on the tip of the needle from last time, but the terror I felt from my nightmare prevented me from noticing until Lilly wiped the tip of it on the hem of her skirt. She marched to the small shrine near the fireplace and filled the syringe with blessed water (brought about by the local friar, who took pity on 'poor poor orphans' such as us). Lilly shook her head and her dark curls brushed the pale contours of her face. "You would think that God would take pity on such an unfortunate creature", she said. Lilly had repeated this like a mantra, ever since she had been left to take care of me. "Hold still child". I felt the tip of the needle nudge against my temple. I tried to hold still, but the fear hadn't left me yet. The pressure form the needle was taken away and Lilly backhanded me again, snapping my neck backwards. "Don't you understand?" her voice was shaking and her face was turning an ominous shade of crimson. I wanted to cry even more... she was only trying to help me. "I need to do this to you. I need to make you *smack* all *smack* better!" She stopped screaming, pushed me roughly into my pillow, and shoved the needle through the thin layer of skin covering my left temple.
After that, there was only darkness.

I awoke two days later but my vision never returned and neither did my dear dear sister, my Lilly. People told me she went mad and killed herself but suicide is a sin and I know for a fact, Lilly did not sin.
She had tried to cleanse herself like she cleansed me, and she misaligned the needle and holy water had flooded her frontal lobe and cerebellum. She had died with grace and purity.
She died a saint.
Now, I live for Lilly... purging myself of sin, so that when I die, I can join her up in heaven. People invaded our house, and when they found me they took me away, but i still keep my needles, her needles, our needles. The dried blood wiped away on my skirt, I purify my mind, and the darkness becomes brighter and brighter and brighter each time...
Soon... I will be as white as God.

Credits: Sami Ollanketo for photography

times.of.flight

Are we climbing up or down? It is hard to differentiate the ladder from clouds, the clouds from smoke, the smoke from aching eyes, and eyes from flashing lights, searching for any minuscule remnant of reason one may come upon during these times.
These are the times of flight.
When open-tongued words leap from mouth to mouth, polluting the silence with a constant hum, like the protest of a dirty engine suffocating itself with diesel fuel and lonely songs played with accompaniment from static and the situation of being In The Middle Of Nowhere.
The rustling of maps makes me want to draw my own and leave this town. If I make the map, I'll always know where I'm going. I'll draw it in expensive ink and razzle-dazzle rose crayola crayon so I can obnoxiously unfold it all over an anonymous cafe table and pretend I am from another country and I'm trying to find San Francisco but somehow ended up in Harlem.
I will pretend to be Russian, blond and tall
If you are tall enough, you don't need ladders unless you want to get your hands dirty. Personally, I know my fingers get along with dirt very well. They say that beauty is only as deep as your nails can dig... but there are only so many colours one can wear with bones.

Credits: Taylor Williams for photography