I think I know

I am the reason. I'm the reason you felt the need to bring what you feel on the inside, to the outside. I claim to be holding every one together, but in truth I'm just a single, rusty staple. I can only go so far before time sweeps over me like high tide. Just like that salty expanse of tears, I'm a victim of the capricious moon's ambivalence to highs and lows. I love you though. So I will attempt to be better. I think I could be better, better for you. Just give me some time to wash my skin of it's sallow color. Just give me a little time to compromise with my bones so they don't try so hard to make themselves known under my armor, which is diminishing day after day. I think I know what you want, and I think if I fight hard enough against myself I could give it to you. I just need a little time. I just need a little time.

Her Name Was Naomi

I want space. I want blackness, darkness, quiet, a vacuum. To be suspended, not even in air but in nothingness. To remember to breathe in deep enough that you can see your lungs rise. You can find auspicious dreams in mundane things; collections of bottle caps, toy sailboats, books weathered by time. I just don't understand what it is that I am supposed to be waiting for, or hoping for. I don't even desire to think about anything but the future anymore, and a destiny of living a life defined by unknowns is a sad one. And words don't even make sense. You just write them, speak them, sing them, and trip over them. But who are you getting through to? It just feels like you could scream and throw your fists to the wall and you'd just wake up tied to your bed, sweating: it's all just a dream. You're living a thousand lives at once, you're throwing your limbs into pools of dark water and you don't even care if they get swallowed up. What is it to be so jaded that you don't even think, every moment is connected by impulses. And impulse by impulse you get farther away from your point of origin. what is it to be infinite? to have no clear beginning or end? Is it better to have faith or hope? Faith is defined by a thankfulness for every day you that shows you mercy, while hope is a state of blind expectation. What is it that makes more sense?

The night is the only time I dare think of your face, because you and I can only exist in a dimension separated by every thing else we are. I can't feel you when I'm facing reality head on, because you are not reality. I can't feel you when I'm awake, because I can tell the difference between the haze of constant dreams and the line that crosses into actuality. I feel you when I see the moon, and hear quiet breathing in the night, and am delirious enough to touch my cheeks and feel the wetness you left there. It might not be real at all, but that's okay. In the night it is okay to feel imaginary things. It's okay to breathe in the intoxication of after-hours visions. You aren't hurting anyone, you're not even hurting yourself, because when you wake up in the morning you can't remember. You can't remember sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, hugging your knees, and letting everything that you push away in the daylight to come at you full force. Just feel it, take it in, feel it touch your skin, and know that you are alive. You are alive for a reason, because someone needed you. You are alive with every breath you take, and all the discourse you choke down with tasteless water.

You sit on the granite counter top, it's cold and it feels right. You slide to press your face against an untouched square of stone, colder still, and let your fingers tap ghostly melodies near your ears. You breathe because you are alone, no one is watching, and it's okay to fall apart in the twilight hour. No one has to know the secrets you share with yourself. When the Sun comes up, you smile while your back is turned to the rest, and remember those silent moments. Moments where you felt your heart beat, and you felt your soul speak, and you know. You know

But I Miss Your Face Like Hell

I've never had anything real before you. And despite my own willingness to write off what we had, I know it was as real as real gets. But there are things you can do someone you love that they can never forget. You can break something beautiful beyond repair. And God knows why we do these things to each other, but I guess that's how we keep motion in our lives. I don't know why you let me go the way you did, and you've made it clear I never will. But the thing is, I loved you, I really loved you, and you only loved me when you needed me. So tonight, I'm going to actually do what I've been saying I would for months and let you go. Thank you for teaching me, dealing with me, giving me so many moments that I only remember with joy and appreciation. I hope you find what you were looking for, I hope you find your will to live again, and I hope you find someone to breathe life into your every day. I won't call or write, and I won't ever say your name again. This is over, and I accept you as a vague and wonderful memory. Good luck. Love, me.

P Pan

I've said it before, but I am ill equipped when it comes to goodbyes. But this is especially pertinent when the goodbye itself is not paired with a reason. No jagged set of final words, no raised voices, or the somber pressure of the last hug. And It eats me alive when I have no grounds for letting go. Absence can be defended in the mind. You can invent stories; tell yourself they got in a threshing car accident, unable to contact you or voice their need for you to the bedside attendant. You can convince yourself that their reasons ultimately benefit you, that their selfishness is just a clever disguise for a selfless sacrifice. When you can't look them in the eye and pan for guilt or anger, it becomes a fitting reaction to defend them with a handful of beautiful memories and blind faith. So what do you do? You keep a vigilant look out for that blue, two door, Honda Civic parked on the curb. Does that make you a failure to yourself and the people who believe you to be a strong and independent individual?

You are like smoke to me. You signal heat, and energy. Where you rise, incredible things have happened. Things have burned, things have lived so violently that they thrust you out of their pores. You are ominous and significant as a symbol of birth and death. But by the time you are taken note of, you begin to flicker and fade. You dissipate into the surrounding air of innocuous normality. I reach out to grab you, to hold onto your drama, but all I get is a second-long sting and ash-blackened palms. I want you back, I want you back smoke. Because without you these blue skies will drive me straight into the ground. And I promised you we'd do that together, you push the dirt in handfuls over my eyes and I'll pack it tight around your chest until the breathing stops. Fading is slow and beautiful when you do it side by side with your best friend.

Modern Girl

I'm nocturnal.
I hate that I have to be quiet at night when I wish I could be bouncing around to Sleater-Kinney & writing music.
I'm coming to the realization that all I was missing in my life was laughter. I had literally forgotten how to laugh. No matter how funny I thought something was, my laughs would be forced. An awkward and contrived replication of instinct. Portlandia fixed my problem. Now I laugh a lot.

I am the product of my own imagination. If I want to be happy all I have to do is close my eyes and imagine sunny days and Fred Armisen. I can keep Tegan and Sara on repeat for hours on end and remember waiting in line for 10 hours to see a screening of their new DVD Get Along. Sara Quin and her beautiful smile ten feet away from me.

I know better than anyone that life is just a collection, a flimsy string, of memories. Who you are is subjective upon which of those memories you choose to bring to the surface.

There is nothing I can't do. I'm writing music that is blowing me away. I'm preparing for a life on stage, a life of story telling. There is nothing that can get me down now that I feel this high.

No one can let you down until you give them the power to do so. And if someone turns out to be the big bad wolf, why give them that much credit? Enough credit to get you down.

May you have an infinite amount of tomorrows. May the beautiful ones give you stomach aches from laughing too much. May the dark ones lead you to create beauty out of the awfulness of it all.

I wish nothing but internal sunshine for every one.

The sun will be up soon, thats my cue to nod off into a Donnie Darko dreamland.

See you tomorrow with the moon.

Yaz

Turpentine

I chose to wait. I decided that waiting for the ultimate final destination was better than moving on to mediocrity. So when I see that they're lives are moving on without me, why do I feel saddened? I don't regret my decision 95% of the time, but the other 5% are just an agonizing and circuitous slideshow of all the reasons I have to melt my sword down and start hammering it into a better shape. I am walking ambivalence, and the people I love pay the price more than I do sometimes. It's so selfish to want anything in a world that makes it impossible to achieve a single goal without feeling the flesh of an innocent person's face against the sole of your boot. It isn't fair that instead of using this fervent realization of my mistakes to fix the things I broke, I just sleep on the couch and stare at the ceiling, praying for rain to wash it all away (or at least give me a miserable enough head cold to wipe the slate clean). I don't want to be Meredith Grey, I really wish I wasn't Meredith Grey. Excuses pave the way through my maze of hallucinatory, straight-faced humor. It's this twisted gut reaction to lean towards the "i'm fine" approach that keeps me believing in crossed fingers and lucky pennies. There is nothing worse than straddling the line between harboring a delusional, innocent hope alongside an insatiable hunger for the ability to hope. There is nothing worse than trying to be yourself and getting tangled in your personalities. There is nothing worse than knowing that you're on display for an empty gallery. My chest is open, exposing my beating heart, and even the crickets are too busy to chirp away tonight. At least for tonight, it's quiet.

copyright Yasamin Aftahi 2011

Thanksgiving In Retrospect

I’m thankful for this tunnel of light I just pulled up in front of. Amidst this horrible, threshing feeling in my heart, I found that I’m not broken. I still have hope. I still have a necklace of optimism laced around my neck. For the first time in my life, I can feel that my growing up is more than ostensible. I realized that this thing, this experience that I thought would break me once and for all, hasn’t made me bitter. Not only am I alive and breathing, but I have no doubt in my mind that I will get up and walk away from this fire unscathed. For the first time, I’ve realized that nothing can take you down but you. I might be lost, I might be forever caught up in my delusions, but I’m not broken. The next time you touch me, I will be heavier, fuller, and lighter all at the same time. It’s a tragic and beautiful thing to realize how much power you really have. So today, that’s what I’m thinking about. I’m thankful for every single thing I have, and every single thing I don’t, because I am me, and I am not broken.

Copyright Yasamin Aftahi 2011