I have been hungry to write this poem ever since November clipped the days blue and short. The horrible thing is that… I walked past the General Grant Memorial defending a song by keeping it on, pausing only to remember when there was no snow. Two days ago a man catcalled me saying Hey! Relax! Some things are just human, like never drinking enough water, or always choosing the bench which faces the sun. Or wanting to feel new and different. As I sat there, a man threw snow at a tree and left walking west in the other direction.
Author Archives: Sophie Lee
End of January 2021: Bracing
I don’t know about about you, but the month felt long and full of endurance. I have been looking out for the small things. Now is when we brace ourselves.
I have been thinking so much about how important a feeling of “home” is. When that feeling gets destabilized, it’s easy to become insecure and anxious and lost. That label doesn’t have to be a physical place, nor is it even always the same thing. I’m no expert, but it must be different for everyone. And it must be destabilized at some point because those negative feelings are how we gauge what eventually feels right. Hm.
Also, recipes are so important. I like to think that I can trust my senses, but sometimes it is crucial to use a recipe. Take that as literally or as figuratively as you’d like.
Questions for the next month: How do you cope with longing? What brings you comfort? What feels sustainable for you? Do you feel ready to begin, again?
Untitled (In Winter)
Last year around this time it was blueish and wet, the same forks in the same rough road. The sun is soft now, frugal with light. If I could jar it I might grow whole, more humming, more snap! But no, the walk home is like crying on a train: all for show. All now thinking about suffocating in a cave, a drawer, a warm car… must be so miserable to seize your own breath, how the tongue can find nothing to draw on, nothing moving and supple like memory. These leaps are no accident, there are bright months, faint months, lovely months, months pulled taut. There are weeds on every corner and flowers on every other. Is there a right time to make a friend? Some new destination to move slowly toward? We watch deciduous trees then become them, mistaking empty with sleep and briefly with red.
New Year
I am seeing you in the broth again: the best days are rising to the top like good fats and clear onions. I almost bring down my tongue to taste, but I know it will only burn and take a week to heal, feeling numb like static when I count the backs of my teeth walking outside, brisk and alone this month, staying present but losing myself to sleep at night listing those things you might have given me— red stones, the number three, steering— and I feel like a tourist in my own strange city, leaning over a handrail and falling into the tigers to take a photo. I'll risk it to feel a rush of something, but I am not waiting for fruition unless it proves that time is a chord across a circle, or that the half-life of missing you is tonight's long dinner, where I lift the bowl again to my mouth and drink half, then half, then half, so as not to run it dry but instead to forget hunger. I don't always remember. Your house was full of those summer drafts.
start-of-the-year
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
-Sylvia Plath, “Mad Girl’s Love Song”
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”
I definitely feel some kind of relief, but I’m trying not to put too much pressure on 2021. Years are just numbers anyways. Who even says time has any authority? (Or is even real?) All I know is that something has shifted. It might not be what we think, but I’m glad for it.
So… what’s next? I think the past summer has trained me to go with the flow, which is a good thing overall. It was really great to not feel like I had to be or do anything in particular. But at the same time, I learned to expect less and feel less. I kinda miss manifesting and feeling those steep ups and downs. Though this past summer was not lacking in steep downs.
How are you? I’ve been eating a lot of sweets and I definitely feel the repercussions. I guess that’s what getting older is… which is more repercussions. More of your body reacting to things.
I’m excited to move to the city and relearn how to be myself. I miss being alone. It’s weird how cities make you feel more alone. And that feeling is so great sometimes.
things i’ve eaten recently
no one asked for this 😀
- pizza crust from Costco pepperoni pizza but only the crust
- chocolate sediment at the bottom of hot chocolate
- one and a half Beyond Sausages
- couscous (pearl variety)
- assorted 반찬 aka banchan
- Clear Mind kombucha
- white rice
- Planet Oat Original
- small butter cookies from Anne
- a snickerdoodle that I made but the family discarded the batch because I’ll admit it… they tasted bad.
- fried egg x 3
- my feelings ❤
- so many clementine oranges
- what I thought was a delicious rice cake but it wasn’t
- eggplant
- mushroom pasta
- various takeout that is always delicious
- marshmallow(s)
- the beautiful clean yummy pacific northwest air
- unripe mango
Self-portrait From Inside
I am more confident. I guess I decided two days ago when I woke up with the feeling that I was sweating sesame seeds. I heard a siren in the distance and did not think it unusual for this forested street. Before that, a family member gifted me seaweed body oil but I could not imagine putting on more oil. All of it, like the past months, wrings out of my bleach-sick hair and I would pluck it all out if I was not afraid. There is pencil lead living in my left thumb (which makes me a compass, or android, or rough draft) and in the back of my left eye there is something foreign. I couldn't tell you. I imagine an oddity caused by blue light and google "blue light glasses" or "am I sick with:" autofill. Do you ever check the time and look at everything but the time? No use lying unless it is down to sleep, of course it's all rain: how the words leave our mouths and cling to another, waiting for once to be drunk back hungry.
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