23 Emotions: Altschmerz

(repeat)

a record,

the same groove over and over

(and over and over)

wearing a canyon into the vinyl.

same same

our twins "both alike in dignity"

as with you - it is with me (too)

my friend.

in this darkest time of the year,

you nipping close at my heels,

heed not the dark thoughts,

in those extra hours.

o sister

I'm weary of this circle

(as are you, I know)

this dusty groove we shuffle in...

I will blow out your candles this year.

Altschmerz

n. weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had—the same boring flaws and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for years, which leaves them soggy and tasteless and inert, with nothing interesting left to think about, nothing left to do but spit them out and wander off to the backyard, ready to dig up some fresher pain you might have buried long ago.

23 Emotions: Anecdoche

seven minutes approaches,

but for now,

cacophony.

we did this,

oh yeah, me too

except.

that sounds like,

last summer,

magical.

he was there,

i wasn't,

occasionally.

and then layers and words all mashed up and sandwiched together a jumble like unsolved puzzles just tipped out of the box hands grabbing at the pieces like tongues tasting the words.

(minute seven)

silence.

anecdoche

n. a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening, simply overlaying disconnected words like a game of Scrabble, with each player borrowing bits of other anecdotes as a way to increase their own score, until we all run out of things to say.

23 Emotions: Exulansis

The edges start off blurred,
an inauspicious beginning,
but those who were there, marked the moment.

Words cannot hold the truth,
though the experience did,
at least for some (I  believe).

The flatness of language to convey,
sharp contrast to the roundness of reality,
that curvaceous form of being.

Pale powder between my fingertips.
all around a vibrant monochrome,
enveloping us into unity.

But these words mean nothing,
to (aside from that band of few) 

you, who were not there.

exulansis

n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.

23 Emotions: Onism

a whirring tick,
like an overheated heart. 

this, a fluttering, falling noise,
and sensation.

next destination...
(too many choices).

a leap that twists,
catlike, in midair. 

a heart divided too,
arms reaching in all direction.

i stand here, the hauptbahnhof of my life,
and wonder...which train?

once decided,
the whirring/fluttering will fade.

wind in my hair and face,
no fear of fomo.

just the desire for more time,
real gold is the beauty in a moment.

onism

n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

23 Emotions: Énouement

This sorrow you hold now, close, 

it no longer has sharp edges or angles.

Raw has been rubbed down to a blurred sepia,

the wash of florescence, turned to warm glow.

A jagged spike, one of only a few,
in that otherwise arabesque line, of life.

Radiating out from the center contact,
each line, life, moving in kind, ever outward...

...but that one, almost parallel,
the line dancing, a twining counterpoint.

Such sweet melodies...

...and I am here to tell you (your sometime self)

hold on

hold on

you will get there, 
and with such magic.

Énouement

n. the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, where you can finally get the answers to how things turn out in the real world—who your baby sister would become, what your friends would end up doing, where your choices would lead you, exactly when you’d lose the people you took for granted—which is priceless intel that you instinctively want to share with anybody who hadn’t already made the journey, as if there was some part of you who had volunteered to stay behind, who was still stationed at a forgotten outpost somewhere in the past, still eagerly awaiting news from the front.

23 Emotions: Vellichor

Dust motes swirl around me
in a novel they would catch the golden sunlight, 
but this is not that.

Outside it's raining
drops spatter against the grimy window,
but the squashy chair is cozy.

Settled back against the cushions,
the light may not be golden,
but the feeling is.

Inhale...
a thousand stories are held in that scent,
(not just the printed words) but that of how they got here.

One blink of my imagination,
and I'm back on the other side of the glass.
(time has moved me forward) but the books are still there...

waiting,
waiting for a (glorious) dreary day,
of tea and reading.

vellichor

n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.

23 Emotions: Rubatosis

Home.

Shell.

Head tucked in,

burrowed.

The whisper of a heartbeat.

"Happy Anniversary"

it taps out in four-four time.

The cool night reverberates around me.

Home.

The dark canvas stretches above me.

(tap-tap)

The syncopation isn't here.

It was, once.

Round, and around

and back again.

Here.

Home.

(is it?)

rubatosis

n. the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat, whose tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself, the kind that people compulsively hum or sing while walking in complete darkness, as if to casually remind the outside world, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

23 Emotions: Liberosis

...when it's gone past midnight,

the other side of twelve,

unlucky thirteen looms large.

A glance backward,

the rear view, an unbroken path.

A single tire mark into the vanishing point.

Was something lost, in that moment past the tipping hour?

(...more than a decade means you rend things wrong)

Niceties are impregnated with imaginative intent.

Step off from imagination,

the world is not in there...

but in the chosen subjective reality between.

Let go of nothing.

Let go...

)nothingness can't be held(

Time folds in on itself,

across the chasm,

You are there.

Dawn comes,

morning shatters the horizon with light,

illuminating that unbroken line.

liberosis

n. the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

23 Emotions: Adronitis

A puff of wind...

and it's gone.

Pulled in both directions,

time, coupled with here, and now.

A flash of magic that races through,

in a heartbeat,

tracing a physical course,

down mental pathways.

...and in that heartbeat,

I would tell you my deepest unknown.

My heart beats into the air,

and the moment is gone.

Wishing for an eternity will not grant one,

but I wish anyway...

(on stars, as is the custom)

one wish, floating,

spiraling up on coils of dust, and smoke...

adronitis

n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.

23 Emotions: Rückkehrunruhe

Dan said,
now is the season for remembering what's past,
along with other words calling forth a world of glass.

Immersed in the now, and also before.
Calling up on one, two, three...

Some things are fading and some, sharp and clear.
Stones thrown in this glass house still shatter more than air.

One is fuzzy, distant, ok. We use our words as we work and play.

Two is clearer, yet distant some how... It's shifted in to neutral and moves without push or pull.

Three is the kicker and is kicking still. Perhaps that stone wasn't thrown after all.

This Now, that just happened, held so much love, but also the heartache of oneness (three, two, one).

I count it down, always back to one, remember, reset and wonder, when...

When will I share the adventure that doesn't fade.
When looking back means a fixed forward gaze.
When what I see now, I see in the morrow,
and the day after that,
tomorrow's,
tomorrow.

Rückkehrunruhe

n. the feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness—to the extent you have to keep reminding yourself that it happened at all, even though it felt so vivid just days ago—which makes you wish you could smoothly cross-dissolve back into everyday life, or just hold the shutter open indefinitely and let one scene become superimposed on the next, so all your days would run together and you’d never have to call cut.

23 Emotions: Mauerbauertraurigkeit

Sorry I haven't been here, 
and that I've gone away.
I know my absence hurts you,
but I just couldn't stay.

You know how much I love you,
and that I always will,
but in the moment, right now,
I can't swallow this pill.

No matter where I travel,
how far away I go,
though oceans may divide us,
I'll come back again somehow.

But please, just in this moment,
while pushing you away,
know this (and know it fully)
someday I'll come and stay.

mauerbauertraurigkeit n. the inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like—as if all your social tastebuds suddenly went numb, leaving you unable to distinguish cheap politeness from the taste of genuine affection, unable to recognize its rich and ambiguous flavors, its long and delicate maturation, or the simple fact that each tasting is double-blind.

An Invitation

I am more than the sum of my parts...

and you, you boy, are not aiming at my heart.

Your question through Bumble is not "cheeky" or kind.

I'm surprised that you didn't think that I would mind.

Yes, I know my smile is white and straight,

but that's not an open invitation for us to mate.

My eyes are sparkling in the photo, it's true,

but they aren't (in this case) sparkling for you!

You see, you don't know me, don't presume that you do!

'cause when you do, it makes me really, really not want to get to know you.

Just because this app reduces us to a swipe left or right,

it doesn't me that I'm going to sleep with you tonight...

We've both been flattened into 0's and 1's,

and this modern dating, it just really (really!) isn't any fun...

But I am interested to see how your mind works,

and discover if we can coexist without turning into jerks.

I want to step away from this flattened binary code,

and with you by my side, hit the open road.

23 Emotions: Kuebiko

The middle of the middle,
day becomes the morrow.

Alone on the balcony.

Air forms my companion and has as much substance as one.
Hot.
Humid.

Dry lightning flashes in the distance.
(over the mountains)

Silent.

A world apart.
(come apart)

Wide awake with tired heaviness.
Quiet lightning at the dividing point.

One separating out into two,
and though it doesn't seem possible,
sleep comes.

The violence of the storm slips behind the front ridge.

...beneath our surface.

kuebiko n. a state of exhaustion inspired by an act of senseless violence, which forces you to revise your image of what can happen in this world—mending the fences of your expectations, weeding out invasive truths, cultivating the perennial good that’s buried under the surface—before propping yourself up in the middle of it like an old scarecrow, who’s bursting at the seams but powerless to do anything but stand there and watch.

23 Emotions: Jouska

Jangling 'round my head, 

a jouska, following the usual thread.

'round and around in circles I go.

A one-sided conversation, I know, I know!

It can't be helped, this dialogue of one.

I wish, at least, that it were fun.

The control is all mine, in this mono-dialogue.

Ha! ...and of course it has ended up on my blog.

I've reduced you, first, to words in my head.

Oh, I wish that it were somewhere else, instead.

Reduction continues, it plays along.

You've become a binary code, it seems just plain wrong.

Once you were a man, flesh, blood and bone,

but now you're nothing (just bits of code).

and I am alone.

Alone.

one

jouska n. a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head--a crisp analysis, a cathartic dialogue, a devastating comeback--which serves as a kind of psychological batting cage where you can connect more deeply with people than in the small ball of everyday life, which is a frustratingly cautious game of change-up pitches, sacrifice bunts, and intentional walks.

23 Emotions: Chrysalism

In that moment,
chrysalism shattered.

Mirroring nature,
ourselves so, too.

Transitions require a break,
within,
and without.

Fluid movement, of moment.
Soft welcome fracture.

It started raining inside.
Fat drops falling from the ceiling.
(above us)

Water, 
washing away the dust from the broken wall.

We move to the other side.

Beyond the rubble.

A other space.
One in which to examine what built it.

The promise of water.

The promise of dust.

(the process of both)

You k(no)w
I know.

Promises require stones.
The "after-rain" requires stones.






Chrysalism n. the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain pattering against the roof like an argument upstairs, whose muffled words are unintelligible but whose crackling release of built-up tension you understand perfectly.

23 Emotions: Monachopsis

The Metro heightens my monachopsis,
pulls that lurking shadow,
forward.

(Shakespeare said it better that I.
"The time is out of joint.")

my time is out of joint.

The pendulum swung wide
when the clock tipped over,
stuck.

and there I am...
a bird, on a bike,
pedaling out to sea.




A life line,
from an unexpected source and I am temporarily unstuck,
free.

and then it landed,
that soft heavy weight,
the midnight-purple-blueness of sorrow.

The world will never rest easy with you...
(i did)

Stop.
he sang,
stop "tryin' to throw your arms around the world"








Monachopsis n. the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach--lumbering, clumsy, easily distracted, huddled in the company of other misfits, unable to recognize the ambient roar of your intended habitat, in which you'd be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home.

23 Emotions: Opia

The sky split, 

in both sound

and form.

Layers of concrete,

an unexpected oasis

dissolved.

The sheets were white,

crisp,

now rumpled.

(outside it rumbled)

A moment of decadence...

caught,

held in the forever-now.

Thunderstorms pass,

irises

soon forgotten.

I alone,

felt the storm.

Opia - n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out.

23 Emotions: Sonder

The pavement is wet.

Sodium orange reflections sparkle up at me.

Golden squares hover, head hight.

Intimate.

Warm.

Damp Air's fingers play at my neck.

Oneness.

Always.

Sonder, my ever companion.

Come.

Walk (again) with me, tonight.

Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway...

2017 Poetry Challenge

...to write one poem for each of the terms listed below...