New York Memories
A collection of poems
When I was 21, I moved to New York in the dead of winter. Two metres of snow had fallen the day before I arrived and I was due to start college in a week. On that first night I moved into my dormitory alone, my American house mates yet to join when the semester began. It was beyond any type of cold I had ever experienced and when I located the thermostat it was in fahrenheit. I had no way of checking the conversion but knew that 30°F was 0°C. I dialled it to 50°F assuming that it must be at least a little warmer (it wasn’t at only 10°C). When my apartment didn’t warm up I wore all the clothes I had packed and hoped for sleep to envelope me into the unconscious realm. That time in my life holds the sweetest of memories, some incredibly innocent and naive, others deeply troubling and germinating. I unearthed a bunch of poems from that time nearly ten years ago.
A chill I had never felt before
A thermostat in another language
With no sheets or blankets
My view was a garden of tombstones
I was alone
To babysit the dead for the night
He plays football
That means something here
All I have to do is turn my glance into a gaze
from across the room
We’re lying in my bed
I ask about his tattoos as I trace his chest
I don’t really care about his answer
You find me on campus
Even though we have been beneath each other’s skin
the tension remains
You ask me not to tell anyone
That you’re back with your girlfriend
My cool girl swells
I know how to play this part
Martinis and spaghetti
I forgot my jacket and snowflakes landed in your hair
You gave me yours
Your new,
better
Considerate,
interesting,
loving
Nothing could have changed me like the warm crush of your lips
I love you
You said those words
Openly, willingly
and I laughed into the cold air
You say what you feel
Is what I really meant to say
Laughter again
It was my way of saying I love you too
You had big dreams and I just wanted to get through each day
Our worlds should have never brushed against each other
I felt like Noah
You were Allie
They found a way back to each other
I don’t think this will end the same way
My mum is on the other line
You wag your finger at me and I see a little square printed with a strawberry
I hang up and you finger my mouth with it
My arm touches the wall and it reaches my bones
When we fuck I can feel everything
My body becomes a terrain for you to navigate
I close my eyes,
the hallucinations begin
We go to New York City
We step into our rented studio apartment
and I catch a glimpse of the future,
can imagine what our life could be like
Everyone wants to know me
I am foreign and similar all at the same time
I learn how to fly down the mountain
You tell me about your mother and the cancer
Maybe in another life time
Niagara Falls is nicer in Canada
Everything, is probably nicer in Canada
Except for you
We swapped homes, and
I think we’ll always be friends
Someday you will die
and somehow something is going to steal your carbon
A Modest Mouse sang through the reverberating walls of the New York cathedral
We were drunk and pushed up against each other
The wet of your shirt dampened my clean skin
Someday you will die
and somehow
something
is
going
to steal
your
carbon
In a bikini gravity feels different on me
In the extra layers of fat is your love
And so,
I do not care
Perhaps that was your intention
Serve me seconds
So that you can have more of me
Walking through a cactus desert
The darkness descends and we’re not sure we will make it
I’m used to the snow now
It has become a part of me
My footsteps crunch through ice that is softly shaved
Then one day
it has melted
but not flooded
Where has it all gone
Grass sprouts like the days after freshly shaved pubic hair
Thick, separate, some still underground
For a moment I think it has snowed again
on the growing green quad
Tiny white crosses staked into the earth
Thousands of them
Maybe millions
A graveyard for ants
“They’re for all the murdered children,”
A stranger tells me
I ask what genocide killed so many
A retort so violent it may be a tic
“Abortion,”
Your religion cannot condemn me
For an act I have not yet committed
But I want the chance
To gut myself and let my blood flow early
If I want to
And you can stave the soil
with my blood covered cross
She comes back to visit
Everyone laughs because she had hundreds of lovers in my bed before me
I don’t mind
I kind of want to make love to her too
I have never known a pain like this
And this is all I have
Words
Pathetic, agonising, empty words
The airport is a lonely place
I don’t know if I can live without you
I’m not sure I will make it
without
you
This made me feel all the feels of travelling solo at 21 through Canada and Mexico, the love gained and lost, the innocence, the adventure.. except I think back to myself then and absolutely did not have the poetic ability/ skills to put it into words. In awe of your 21 year old self! I loved this, thank you for sharing
Omfgggg I am obsessed. What a journey. So hung on to every word you shared!!