- Anna Nalick

“Breathe”

follow me.

the crescent of your lip
is tauntingly delicious
but i refuse the chase
instead
i trace you further to the curve of your neck
where the shadow creates soft dark maps
of places only i know
to touch
they are places where my breath
dances sleepily on your skin
making you quiver

breathe in…
breathe out…

clenched fist.

from there i travel south
to your chest where i sleep
my pillow beats a steady gentle lullaby
mingled with drowsy rhythmic breaths
these are the sounds i sleep to
comfort
that comes from
familiarity
it curls up, warm, content

i tiptoe towards your stomach
as to not wake you
the lines there are etched carefully, slightly
i trace them
they tell your story
i read your lines with
my fingers
just quietly, lazily
stroking the russet edges
and there i know you

through

un raveling
un tangling
un wrapping
un dressing

i discover
you
and in that

i discover
me

with these lips of yours

they flirt coyly

with my conscience

as if they know i cannot refuse anything they propose

i love the way they get after my

bite

brilliant raspberry red

deliciously inviting

come a little closer

let me get a taste.

for, you take my breath with you

just stay still so i may stare

the dappled sunlight has still caught

you in it’s arms

touch me now

and we shall burn

i want to watch this dream

with eyes wide open

run my hand through

to make sure you’re still there

what we’ve left outside

we don’t know

shadowy blue hides us for a while

and where we meet

we melt

a flame that fuses

you and i

and then we’re on fire

flushed reds

and hot pinks

dance across your cheek

and live at your lips

and your kiss is then scalding

leaving my lips burning

still wanting more.

dissolve into me

and now we are no more part of this world

we exist only because of each other

there is no one else to make us real

though your eyes follow, and

sprinkle me crimson

don’t let me out of your sight

this addiction has not yet

found the taste

of

satiation

on it’s tongue

the last page of a book

i’m not ready to put on the shelf

i can’t go back to the beginning

or the words will unwrite themselves

but i can’t move past

this full stop

you’ve placed upon our story

this is the place i’ve come to fear the most

the time

when i turn the page

 and there will be words

of which

i am no longer the writer.

“And everyday we shall have less. And then none.”

“Would you rather, therefore have had nothing at all?”

“No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now and those other times are running elsewhere.”

– A.S Byatt, Possession

– Joseph Arthur

"Honey and the Moon"

and circle heavily where we stand now.

the ocean comes to kiss the shore,

but we’re not ready to get lost in that embrace.

our strides in tandem,

are now our baby steps                seperate

which will take us in to what lies ahead

though we step so gingerly now

everything is new, this path unknown.

we won’t come back full circle

we’ll keep on going

till we walk in to the sea.

That every poet is a fool

But you yourself may serve to show it

That every fool is not a poet”

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

we put our dreams in a box

and let them fade away

we’ve patched up nicely

don’t you think?

and wrapped the bandage around our wound

our skin has healed over

but don’t you know that

this wound

goes

deeper

but what does it matter?

do we really give a shit?

i know if i didn’t, i wouldn’t be writing this

because when you come back to me

i am scared

i’m fumbling around

trying to find the key

that will let us in

into the past

where we once were

us

but then i see you

and the keys don’t seem to fit

and the bandages peel away

raw, tentative

stripped.

and so you turn me upside down

so the snowflakes that lay asleep

twirl in crazy circles

intoxicated

i wait for the flecks to settle

to quietly fall back to sleep

yet they continue

to spin

making the butterflies dance in my stomach

stop giving them wings

you’re not meant to make me feel

this way…

I can’t say that I’ve always known I wanted to write. At first I wanted to be an artist because I thought coloring in my coloring books as child was fun, and then I wanted to be a vet because I had just got my first puppy. But when I wanted to be a writer it was first the appeal of the soulful, deep, thinker that sat in coffee shops all day typing incessantly on a sleek laptop, while pausing perhaps to chew thoughtfully on a pencil or to sip the Espresso on the side. However somehow my passion for writing stayed, even after I realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to sit and sip coffee all day and even after I realized not every person who called themselves a writer could wake up one morning and write the next Booker prize.

The writing I think, started off with the most selfish of reasons; because it felt good. It felt good to formalize or just see my thoughts in front of me, and not a mess of tangled musings floating somewhere in my head. Through writing, journalistic or creative, writers are able to experience everything twice, from actually experiencing an emotion or event to the arrangement of it on a page. For the readers as well as writers the words on the page immortalizes that moment, that feeling that can encompass more than a memory because the writing is alive, it represents that moment in its entirety whereas a memory may have a few gaps, alterations and subject to the erosion of time. Writing is more than any 1000 words a picture can paint because writing lends the thoughts and emotion to those who read it, a picture can only scratch the surface.   

focusing on writing now, most people say that you should write what you know. i can understand that, emotion and feeling can be best described and conveyed if you’ve actually been through it yourself. experience is a wonderful tool. but then, what happens to imagination? imagination - the ability to imagine is what sets us apart from animals, its part of what makes us human. books like the lord of the rings would have be unheard of without imagination as we can be sure that jrr tolkein did not know of any hobbits personally. so writing what you know can’t always be a good thing. sometimes people want to be lost in a book because its about something that’s so far removed from their lives. if art can’t provide a means to escape, or provide solace…what will it do for society?

the same goes for acting. some schools of thought say that when acting you should you bring the emotions and experiences from your own life in order to create a more convincing performance. logically this makes sense, if you’ve actually gone through an emotion then bringing it out again on stage will make your performance more realistic. but then is regurgitating old emotions acting? acting is about presenting something you’re not, creating an illusion – but if you’re using past experiences in your acting then you’re not acting, you’re representing reality. isn’t the ability to express emotion and character that is so far removed from yourself the makings of a truly great actor?

now since i’ve probably labelled myself as pretentious to all those who happen to read this, i might as well stop before i start getting hate mail or something. well maybe atleast that would liven up this site.

Well then you ask what about the poor, the hungry and deprived? We had no poverty. Everyone had what they needed, because what was his was mine, and what was mine, his. We shared and helped each other through everything. There were no rich people with fancy parties and sleek cars, and there were no poor people, hungry and lonely.
There were no wars, because there were no countries. The world belonged to everyone. We were citizens of the Earth. We coexisted with not only the people of the world, but also the plants, the fish and the animals. There was no real difference, no real difference in life. Since we valued all lives equally no matter if they were animal plant or human, we cared for our environment and in turn it took care of us. And so words such as Global Warming and Ozone Depletion were distant funny sounding words that only people like you used.

Then you asked about racism. Well what about that. You talk about it like you know it so well. What are you talking about? We don’t know race or color or ethnicity. We just didn’t see it that way.
But then finally you asked, “Well what does your world look like?”

And sadly, my friend I cannot tell you, for all of the people here are blind

I know you’re there
Under the same sky
Watching the same stars
Dreaming the same dreams
You can see what I see, feel what I feel
Yet it is not enough
I want more.

I know you’ll always be there
Or so you say
Always there to talk
But words are no substitute for voices, for feelings, for caresses
It is not enough
Want more.

I know you say we’ll always be friends
Friends who talk
Friends who listen
Yet I must share you
And thats the part I hate the most
Friends.
Is not enough
More.

where I end and you begin
can you find it?
but where our lips meet
and our breath mingles
where are the lines
that divide
you
and
me

the caramel drips in
and the milky coffee washes over
and all at once we are swirling
and I don’t see you
I don’t see me
I see us
swirling

but ofcourse
everything must become memories
which I may only remember
and never re-live

because now is when
we end
and
I
begin

Once upon a time there lived a prince and a princess who were completely in love. But this isn’t like most fairytales, so they weren’t blonde haired, blue-eyed clichés – but real people with fading dyed hair, bitten nails and denim jeans.
”I’m sorry”, she said. And she rolled into her speech that she had practiced so many times before. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, she did, it was just that she didn’t know it yet, and she wasn’t going to stick around longer to find out. He, on the other side of the room sat there and listened. They had warned him about her – how she could never stay in one place too long. He sighed and looked her, the soft falling hair, the smooth liquid skin and those lips. God, those lips! The lips that said everything, without making a sound, the lips that curved into that smile, the lips that pouted every time it didn’t get its way and the lips that he used to taste. How was he going to get over her? How could he? Just look at her
And then the words came, the words that seemed so unreal, like a badly rehearsed play, tumbling out of her mouth. He listened but he didn’t understand, it was like he wasn’t even there. Like he was watching from the other side. Conversations from before started flooding into his head, advice from friends, warning him about what he was getting himself into. And all along he had known that he was going to lose her, he had known it would have ended up like this. But that was the chance he was willing to take. He wanted to find out what it was like to hold her hand, to make her laugh and now that he did, it was worth it, even at the final moments.
”Here we go again.” she thought to herself. “I’m the bad guy; I’ve become the insensitive jerk again. What is up with that? In the movies, it’s always the guys, you know, the heartless bastards who cheat on their seemingly perfect innocent girlfriends. How did I end up the bad guy? I didn’t want it to end up like this; if I could, I’d write it out as a never ending fairytale romance. But that was not reality now was it? In reality, the prince got moody, the princess got frisky and the castle started to get old.”
”Promise we’ll always be friends?” she asked meekly. “Yeah right. Friends” he replied, his answer laced with sarcasm, which made her wince and bite her lip. Seeing her reaction he immediately regretted it. “You know why I did it right?” she asked to make sure. “Yeah, sure, I guess I understand”, and with that he stuffed his hands into his pockets, closed the door and rested his head against the cool surface of the door. On the other side the girl stood, stunned that it was all over. It felt weird and sad at the same time. He wasn’t hers anymore. Breathing deeply she leaned against the door for support.
After a few minutes, on both sides of the door, the floor was wet.

Happily ever after.

Night was fast approaching over the open savannah. The trees and hills surrounding it were draped in soft shadows except for one. A large baobab tree stood at the edge of the savannah bathed in the few strands of orange sunlight that had managed to trickle through the heavy clouds. I hurried my sister through the trees as softly as I could. We had to reach the baobab by nightfall or the legend would not hold true. And the tree was still a vague silhouette against the colored sky.
My sister, Kaela and I were refugees escaping civil war in our home country. Our home and family were all lost in the turmoil and we were forced to begin a journey to the neighboring country along with others from our village. But along the way my sister and I were separated from the group and we were lost. The vast sun colored savannah seemed to stretch on forever in all directions. It all looked the same. The first few days I panicked, How were we going to survive? We were lost with no food, water or shelter, alone in complete wilderness. On the second day we managed to find a small banana tree, thought the bananas were barely ripe, we tore off banana after banana eating greedily, with sweet fruit dripping down our chins.
The next few days carried on like this, we’d walk around in circles in hope to find our village people. Eventually we would sit down in the shade in exhaustion. We’d eat unripe bananas from the nearby trees and sip water from the drying lake. Our stomachs were full and our thirst was quenched but we still lived in constant fear and uneasiness. We’d sleep very little in fear of the wild animals that we could only hear but never see. Neither of us wanted to say it out loud but we knew that if we didn’t find our people soon we wouldn’t last much longer alone.
One hot sweltering afternoon, my sister and I lay down to rest after another one of our walks. We lay our hot cheeks against the cool red soil and tried to catch up on some badly needed sleep. After about ten minutes I have up my attempt to sleep, with the flies buzzing around my face and the hot afternoon sun hitting down on me, it was impossible to sleep. I sat up and shot a quick glance at my sister, she had galled asleep quite quickly but the occasional flutter of her dark eye lashes suggested that she was not in peaceful slumber. I waked around our new surroundings shaking off an army of red ants as I stepped through the thick sun-kissed grass. I scanned the horizon briefly in hope to see any sign of our people, but as always there was nothing. I have a quick glance once more, and then something caught my eye. Its reddish color stood our boldly against the yellow-brown of the savannah, my eyes widened as I realized that the red object I was looking at was a baobab tree! A flutter of excitement rose in my stomach, I had heard about these red baobabs from my grandmother. Red baobabs were sacred; inside them they supposedly held the passageway to paradise. And those who found such a tree could enter paradise by knocking on the trunk of the baobab three times. Excitedly I rushed over to my sister, walking her to tell her about my great discovery. She looked at me through sleepy disbelieving eyes but hurried along with me, letting me drag her by the hand through the scratchy grass blades.
|This was it” I thought. The end to our pain and suffering. The tree was like a gift from the gods in return for the family we had lost and the nightmare we were living through Just as the last few ribbons of color were fading away into the night sky we reached the red baobab. I held Kaela’s hand tightly and breathed deeply, knocking shakily on the tree three times. The red-brown tree slowly creaked open and we stepped inside incredulously but with out eyes closed.
We opened them only to find that we had been knocking from the inside.
                                                                                                                    

I used to be very sure of myself. My life was under control and I was happy living it organized and predicted. I had no time of immature love stories, like the sort they have on television. Maybe that’s why I didn’t believe in you. To me, love was a superficial pastime that was meant for fools who believed in destiny and true devotion. Call me cynical, sarcastic….whatever, but that was me, and I liked my hair tied up and knotted.

Your face….it was hopeful yet growing with disappointment as each minute passed by as you stood outside in the pouring rain in front of my house. I di not let myself feel any empathy because that was what you wanted me to feel. I asked my mother to lie and conjure up excuses every time you called, because I didn’t want to hear your voice, in fear of what it might do to me. I stood by the window and mouthed words of discouragement so that you’d go away but still you did not listen. Your persistence…it scared me even more, but I wasn’t about to give in, I wasn’t going to let myself lose this war.

Yes war is how I saw it. You were trying to take away everything I had known and believed, you were snatching the ground beneath my feet. I was furious with my mother for giving in. She fell for your sappy chivalry by bring you that hot tea in the rain. I tried to figure you out; maybe you were doing this for charity or money or maybe as a dare prompted by a friend. I didn’t actually think your motive would be love. I looked harder into your eyes but each time I looked it felt as if I had been turned upside down. Every time I stared into them I lost more control and more of the group I stood on. I tried to replace that feeling of fear and uncertainty by anger and hatred, because that’s what I wanted to feel, especially towards you.

Hating you did not work because….because I had lost all control from the moment you looked up at me. I lost all control of my emotions and I stated feelings things I had never felt; or wanted to feel before. I started to hate myself for falling into your trap.

With more curiosity than strength I decided to talk to you. I wasn’t about to let you run my life and emotions forever. I was going to confront you and your silly infatuation and tell you toe leave me alone once and for all. But alas, all the confidence I had built up on the other side of the door, vanished as I saw you, the rain cascading down your face. Your hair, dishevelled and wet hung over your eyes, like a mask hiding your feelings. With a deep breath, I stepped into the late afternoon rain, my hair let down, flowing in loose waves.

once there was a time
when you used to stop and stare
now i’ve got a smile that’s barely even there

what’s changed now?
what have we done?
destroyed something that’s not begun?

they say,
you don’t know what you’ve got till its gone
but did i ever have you?
maybe, but not for long

we’re pushing away
how far can we go?
strangers on a street, waving hello?

will you become a memory?
just a face in the crowd
or will you be by my side forever..
starting now.

amidst the frantic running circles,
through the crowds of screaming thought
i want to stop.
breathe, and take a look around.
live a little
laugh a lot
taste it
take it all in at once
let life roll off my tongue
savoring, relishing till I squeeze out the last drops
feelings, pulsating and alive
a chance to run my fingers through the living
hear a smile, touch the voices and grasp the fleeting dawn
pour in the tears, drip the kisses and spread the exhilaration all over
i want to feel the tingles
the rushes
wash over me
and shield the flickering candles
so when my time is over
and the end is near
when i can’t feel the tingles
or catch the raindrops on my tongue
only a myriad of memories
floating, flowing, swirling
and as i drift away
i can lie down and smile
for i have run my fingers through the living
lived a little
laughed a lot

i want to capture this moment

cradle it in my hands

and softly pour it where no one else may reach it

i want it to drown me

on days when i forget

and hope it will keep me afloat

on the days when i want to sink

sink                 

because i can’t forget

and float because i shouldn’t forget

but would you forgive me if i do

if the moments that we’ve sealed

are left behind

as i turn to run the other way

the days that go by
can you see them blend?
where did yesterday end and when did today begin
sunset, sunrise the orange is all a blur

here is now
but then where are you?
there are no highs
no lows
but everything in between

i can’t feel that love sick feeling
i’m getting dizzy from being still
now
the blood runs too smoothly through my veins
in quiet linear streams

these days i breathe too easily
the rushes don’t come and go
i want to be submerged in the agony of love
so i may be acquainted with the exhilaration too

pour yourself all over me

so the drops trickle

down to my mouth

whetting every part of my body

so i can taste you

feel you

all over me

i want you to stain my skin

so i know you’ve been here

just your waves washing over me

makes my hair dance

dreamily around my face

i’m thirsty for you

drip yourself down my throat

so your being cascades down me

and let me drink in the liquid of your eyes

but i’m scared

for the time

when

you stop flowing

and i have no thirst for you

and you have no trickles to give me

i’m still wrapped in you

our memories are folded

in every part of me

and your kisses

are the ribbons tying me together

how is it that you’re there

and i’m here

and yet you have every piece of my heart

its because your arms are still around me

please don’t let me go

because even thought i can’t have you now

just knowing that it happened

is enough

and truth be told,

i can’t let go

because i do love

that you’re still holding on to me

and it was just putting pen to paper,

that was the hardest.

but its because i want to be good,

sometimes for me,

and sometimes for you.

but the words don’t come easily,

and my write hand trembles,

the pen in my hand, so unfamiliar

an attachment

not an extension

because i don’t like to disappoint

the ink doesn’t kiss the lines on the page

and the words don’t dance

because there is no music

to my thoughts

but then there you are

the symphony that floods my head

 then all i can do is listen

i’m drunk on your rhythm

please give me more.

because my thoughts can  hear you now

and my words do the tango across the page

and the ink stains the paper

like smeared lipstick on lips

that have been kissed