Tag Archives: poem

Gone

Quiet was always a niche for me to reside, sleeping in the crook of the elbow,
It had your face, your ease, the lack of noise when correcting the faults of our inevitable humanity;
When you left, even your footprints were hardly there, a ghost coming and going forth,
Just a breath of “goodbye” when someone noticed your leaving,
I thought I could see right through you like the holes in your earlobes, Eventually,
I thought,
I would hear the sound of your life–still sealed behind guarded lips–
But I suppose I’d also hear the demons stomping on eggshells, laughing and crying, having a ball;
All I ever heard was quiet from you, gentle and soothing, an anchor to our storms,
I basked in the way you ate at my clouds, took the lead;
You stood firm, and I–we–admired your posture.

When you left, I breathed “bye-bye” and you said “goodbye” and I thought I’d see you again,
But a text two days later and an empty space where you ought to be were all the byes you left;
An apology, but you were already gone;
A period instead of a comma.

That was when
Quiet became silence.

-Mien

You and I,

We die every night
Picking apart the picture frames on your wall
Trying to help you remember the names of every face as we lay breathing.

You stand apart from me across the room, fully clothed
As you undress me with your eyes,
Every lick of hunger that haunts the bones of your cheeks and the curve of your lip–

I had always known to stand by the window
So I could feel the endlessness of the stars against my back,
Or the one between us, separating our pretenses.

At night I hear their calling, thin-lipped words trapped in wood and paint and lingerie sprawled across the floor, strands of hair in dark spaces turning and turning and turning–
Just bodies in a grave.

I never asked why you chose to bury them in your bedroom,
Or why you hang them from the wall,
Every pair of soulless eyes betraying the smile painted with teeth clenched.

Me,
I am new every moonrise, naked and shameless while your skin is still shut in behind glass
Sheets.

You hate repetition,
So I die every night for you, to be new.
I’d like to think that you die with me.

But you snap a picture with a flash of smile
And usher me out while the card is still developing,
I can practically feel wooden frames closing in, can smell the varnish so toxic.

I thought perhaps we could be friends,
But I suppose your imagination ran away with you, when your eyes lingered a little too long where they shouldn’t,
When they settled on others who shared only one thing in common with me.

So I die every night
In hopes that when I wake up I don’t hate you for who you are,
For the wall of nameless faces of your conquests.

In your room, between you and I,
I would break the window glass and hurtle myself through space,
Breathless with the wonder of stars than to be undressed by you.

I die every night hoping you die too,
The flames of our phoenix flight incinerating wood and wall and paint and lust
And then you and I, we can admire the universe together.

-Mien

Late Night Rain

2:05 AM.

The rain is slapping down on the ground, hard.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” a girl outside says in hushed excitement, “it’s, like, really wet.”

At first, I thought the sprinklers had turned on, as they do every night, and ignored it for a while. It didn’t occur to me then that the sound of water seemed harsher, angrier, like the water was attacking the state-wide drought with a vengeance. I clamber down the bed frame–the stacked beds provided footholds–and nudge my feet into slippers. Like a ghost, I hover over to the window, careful to keep quiet. The snores of my roommate continue on in ignorance.

Before I pull back the coarse curtain, I glance backwards to reassure myself of sleep behind me. I peel back a section of the fabric. A faint reflection of my face gazes back at me in wonder, then the rain comes into focus.

The walkway from my dorm to the rest of the campus is wet. The puddles have no beginning or end, and the split-second ripples from the rain appear livid and with purpose. There is nice lighting outside, yellow-orange and dim, reflecting off the water. The scene is almost picturesque, but I don’t linger. I leave the window open; the screen ought to deflect some of the rain. Withdrawing, I climb back to the top “bunk”, and sit against the wall, listening.

I close my eyes.

When I open them I’m in the music building, standing on stage in the concert hall. The lights are bright, yellow-white rather than orange. I can’t see any faces, but the red plush-lined seats are filled with bodies, black and anonymous. I am with my ensemble–I don’t know who or which one, but I know they are my people and we are one and none and everyone.

We are lined up in front of our instruments, hands in front, smiling, looking out to the audience. It is night time and the concert had just ended. There is no trace of the repertoire we just performed in the hall, just the sound of thunderous, livid applause.

I open my eyes and the applause is still in my ears, great and unceasing. I know by morning’s light it will be gone.

I also know that the upcoming concert hall will sound just like the rain when I am done performing three nights from now.

Nestled in my covers, I begin to drift off to sleep. I dream proud and vivid.

—

I like to dramatize things. I should really be doing homework.

No Difference

Erase
Late hours of a day just gone by at a desk
Rainy weather of sunlight under an umbrella lamp
And ink on paper where words should be
But can’t take back, can’t
Erase.

When morning comes natural and good, un-plug
Un-know the advancements of men,
Just taste the darkness for an hour more, all quiet on
The front when dressed all right in inked clothes wet from
Sleepless nights burning bright with ideas,
Lightbulb.

Take whispered words of oak of a desk and weave into
The fabric coarse, so at first touch they kiss the worst,
So they don’t forget, don’t erase
The possibilities of lamp-light nights filtered through paper
And un-erasable ink, the knowing that one is unraveled and lain bare,
Skin full of beauty marks that blemish and blemishes that fade into 
Porcelain or ebony; still gives the same shine from lampshade heat.

What happens in shadows on the walls in the wells of the night,
Inked in by lamp-light so mortal fingers can’t even smudge,
Nor erase.

-Mien

Imperialism

They came in from the waves, brine and fresh,
To the brave new world, with sores on their shoulders
Left to tell an old life back in the homeland,
And hidden tears in hardened hearts at the thought
Of shedding old lives for the sake of fortune.
They were rats making a home in  a freshly built
Mansion, scavenging for leftovers to bring up families
Left in the old world, with holes in shirts and sleeves
To remember mothers by. Centuries later here I am, with
Salty tales of legends and folklore to keep up what has been
Lost amid paper people in paper towns, built on wood pulp
And sweat and tears and skin roughened by the insults
Of those too colorless to know any better, with soul swayed
By ships out to sail not people from the port, but now riches.
Oh, how we have grown and still they don’t see our legacy,
Those misguided doves who think they are untouched;
Unbeknownst to them, their flower petals are soaking up
Our genius while they damn us.

-Mien

Vanitas Vanity

Choke them out
Before the birth.

Red lips that breathe bubbles and
Smoke.
Throw flowers on the face,
(Collige, virgo, rosas…)
Tuck them neatly in black locks,

Bury their eyes well
With lemon peels on lids,
A color that can only be described as:
Carpe diem.

Sweep the volumes off velvet tablecloth
Before the vipers come out
Through empty-headed skulls
(“Gaudeamus igitur!”);
Misplaced brains left in
Cracked jars, tipped on sides
And set on display for the
Vultures clothed in silk,

Let the lady dance on carpets
From across the world,
Let her rot her apples gleefully,
Spinning with laughter to the sound
Of violins and pianos
The clack of heels too reminiscent of clocks,
Tapping closer to an imminent appointment
(memento mori).

Smiling lips, a ghost of a shell,
Last breath, a shudder
Reaching out to tomorrow and yet
Holds back into the night,
Lemon-peel lids and red mouth relieving
A soul-seeking phrase before the end:
“Vita nostra brevis est,
brevi finietur.”

Choke them out
Before the birth.

-Mien

Pickpocket

Let’s say you and I
sitting in a room
               But
there’s a clock on the wall:
Timebomb

Look, wrist bare

Feel the lines on my hand
touch– can you feel the reverberations
               ?
your presence conforming
to Mine.

Breath-taking, don’t mind if I do

Listen carefully, my words,
they are Important
can’t you feel the spheres
dropping from
their weight?

Got your nose

Figure it out
               Yet?
Directing your attention;
Aircraft marshalling.
I could do so much more
if I could control your delicious mind

I would undress you to the core and
               Steal you.

-Mien

Inspired by Apollo Robbins TED talk.