yakiree

[yakiree]

“Modesto, Palestine.”

Why do the stars move so fast tonight?

i ask my dearest, oldest friend, but she cannot hear

so i answer for her,

“most of those are planes, and drones.”

i crane back my head, wishful for binoculars,

to follow the path of the drone,

so close, so fast,

but not fast enough and i think of falustin

there are stars there, and planes,

but mostly drones

killing us from overhead.

[yakiree]

“tzimtzum, maybe.”

we are driving to her bar

i say i haven’t taken my medicine yet

and she asks, “is that why you seem melancholic?”

i say no, and flounder for some half-truth.

the moment passes but the weight remains.

she pulls into her partner’s driveway

& this time i wait in the car,

unwilling to again transgress the border

of another woman’s sanctuary.

why don/t i say that when she asks?

my mouth stuffed with sadness,

i mumble “emails to answer.”

where are the words to describe how i feel?

for once

not melancholic,

not reserved,

—just myself—

sometimes quiet

sometimes chattering—shattering—

even G-d withdraws sometimes.

i am myself,

the woman who creates herself

/moyocoyotzin/ as i wrote to ginevra

all those years ago.

[yakiree]

Ira Bordo

her website

[yakiree]

Sylvia Plath, Ontario, Canada, 1959

more

[yakiree]

i dreamt about him last night. or rather, i dreamt i texted him accidentally in a group text, and he responded. i feel like i saw him in my dream, but either way it was so vivid when i woke up i had to check to see if i had actually texted him or not.

[yakiree]

day 8

no contact.

i wasted so much time thinking about him, all these months. and that is my fault, not his.

when will i learn?

[yakiree]

day 8

no contact.

i wasted so much time thinking about him, all these months. and that is my fault, not his.

when will i learn?

[yakiree]

day 5. no texts to or from.

woke up very early to go to the lake and take photos. i still don/t know where the OM-1 came from, but at this point i don/t care.

it feels inevitable that he will text me, just a matter of when. and depending on when it is, i don/t know how i/ll respond, but surely he must realise this kind of drop off into the ether isn/t conducive to any kind of comraderie. i will always take it into consideration.

[yakiree]

day 4.

everyday is easier.

[yakiree]

"You survive this and in some terrible way, which I suppose no one can ever describe, you are compelled, you are corralled, you are bullwhipped into dealing with whatever it is that hurt you. And what is crucial here is that if it hurt you, that is not what’s important. Everybody’s hurt. What is important, what corrals you, what bullwhips you, what drives you, torments you, is that you must find some way of using this to connect you with everyone else alive. This is all you have to do it with. You must understand that your pain is trivial except insofar as you can use it to connect with other people’s pain; and insofar as you can do that with your pain, you can be released from it, and then hopefully it works the other way around too; insofar as I can tell you what it is to suffer, perhaps I can help you to suffer less."

- James Baldwin, The Artist's Struggle for Integrity

[yakiree]

day 3

no texting, to or from.

this is working…my mind is on other things. how? i find it hard to believe that writing little snippets to the great unknown on my progress actually keeps me committed. but it seems to.

[yakiree]

day 2. not texts to him or from him.

maybe he knows its better this way.

maybe he only thinks about me when he’s masturbating.

he doesn’t like that word.

women “touch themselves”

i don/t usually revel in the pseudo-clinical obtuseness

of terms, but i embraced “masturbation”

early on in life. something to sour the pleasure

trip over the word, on yr way to my cunt.

not that you say it,

when are bodies were together.

but they haven/t been in seasons

SEASONS

and you can live like that

so i should, also.

day 2.

[yakiree]

🪺 Ornithological Field Diaries of A. Graham Brown. 1947-1957.

[yakiree]

i didn/t text him all day. and it really wasn/t that hard.

and he certainly didn’t text me.

[yakiree]

Wols (Wolfgang Schulze) Nina Engel 1932

[yakiree]

i love you lauren.

[yakiree]

i haven’t heard his voice in months.

let go

let go

let go.