Nokyoung Xayasane

tight little thing

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

tight little thing
Nokyoung Xayasane

Stunning.
Gorgeous.
Beautiful.

What do those words
mean to me?
Why are they flung at me
like wilted bouquets
like gaudy tennis bracelets
and oversized, clunky charms.

Can I wear those words
to cloth my nakedness?
Those words,
they bounce off me
like rays of light.

Stunning
doesn’t penetrate me,
Gorgeous
doesn’t define me,
Beautiful
doesn’t mark me.

Those words
are alien things to me.
I reach out,
and grasp them
with my fingertips.
I place them
in the palm
of my hands.
I turn
these words over
ever so
gingerly
like a petulant child.

Object.
An object.
I am an object.

I look
ever so
closely.
I look
beneath
the words.
Nothing.
I look
around
the words.
Nothing.

What is in
relation
to these words?
What are they near?
Tight little thing.
Nice ass.
Cock-sucking lips.

Those words.
Numerous.
Abounding.

Tell me,
do I stun
with my beauty?
Tell me,
do I shine
with my beauty?
Tell me,
are you
grimacing?
How come?
How come
if I acknowledge
those words,
if I am aware of them,
I am no longer
a modest mouse?
I am no longer
a demure lamb,
sunning itself
in the open air?

Diva.
Vixen.
Femme fatale.

These words.
Must they be
awarded
to me, only?
These cheap trinkets
I found them at the carnival.
These
commonplace toys
I found them
hidden
inside bubble gum machines.

You speak
and I am.
Is that how it is?
You choose
the words
at your discretion,
at your leisure.
I exist
at your will,
through
your words,
this tight little thing.

it is like this with love

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

it is like this with love,
Nokyoung Xayasane

I see, I hear,
I feel you
drawing near.

But it is only
my imagination.

You are elsewhere
in another city
with another person.
You are happy
and you are living a life
of your own choosing.

Once, we used to live
within five minutes
of each other.
But we never
saw each other.
We rarely spoke.
I loved someone,
and you loved someone.
I was trying
to move on.
I was
earnestly trying
to move on.

When I moved
to Toronto,
you visited me
for coffee.
We were both
an hour late.
We both blamed
the traffic.
The traffic, you said.
The TTC, I said.
You had not changed.
When I speak
with you
it is
as if
we are
the only two people
existing.
We are
the only two people
fumbling and falling,
trying to understand the world
and the people
within it.

Sometimes
when my chest
feels heavy,
I think of your face.
You are always
laughing
and smiling.
You are always
young
and wise
and gentle.

I remember
when you first touched me.
You reached out
with a wavering hand,
trembling,
and you touched
my shoulder.
It was full of
hesitation,
and fear.
I was amused
by the way
you touched me.
It was
as if
l was something
breakable.
But now I think,
it was you
who was afraid
of breaking.

I admit,
I wanted to tarnish you.
I wanted to blacken
your lily-white skin,
your large blue eyes.
I wanted them
to see me
as I was
in all my ugliness
in all my beauty,
in all my desperate yearning
to know
and to understand
everything,
everything.
Suddenly,
I wanted to rip open
the covers
and read the words inside,
but I put that book down,
I put it down,
gently.
There was always
something about you
that remained unknowable.
There was always
something about you
that I wanted
to keep safe.
Sometimes
it is like this
with love.

And when I think of you,
I think of the summer light,
and the orange afterglow
inside closed eyelids,
I think of
cotton candy at the fair,
laughter at the park,
I think of a child
opening presents
full of wonder
and despair.

Many things
have changed,
I know.
Many things
that were done
in anger and anguish
cannot be undone.
There have been
new jobs, new people,
but they have all
come and gone.
It is you
who remains.
It is you
who is
unchanged
for me.
It is you
who I love.
After all this time,
I love you, still.

but we kept dancing anyways

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

This will always last for us,
Nokyoung Xayasane

So much
was happening.
Did we even know?
We did.
But we kept dancing
anyways.
We just kept
dancing anyways.

And I thought,
we will never be
this young
and this beautiful
and this free
again.

So we just kept
dancing.
We just kept
dancing
anyways.

This will
always last for us,
I said
but
I didn’t believe it.

Nothing lasts.

So I just kept
dancing.
I just kept
dancing
anyways.

The music,
it stopped.
I ran
to catch
the 1:30 train,
and I thought,
This will
always last for us,
but
I didn’t believe it.

Nothing lasts.

So I just kept
dancing.
I just kept
dancing
anyways.

And I remembered
you were dancing
you were dancing, too.

You too
were
courageous.

And we kept
dancing.
We just kept
dancing anyways.

one day, I was in love

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

one day
Nokyoung Xayasane

One day, I was in love.
And then I was not.
One day, I was living a life
that was at once familiar
and peaceful.
I remember
we made gnocchi
one early evening
while the music played
throughout
our one-bedroom apartment.
We stood in our tiny kitchen.
I remember the blue tiles,
the yellow paint, owl
teacups stared out at us.
Outside, the sky was slowly
turning pink.
The music played,
heart beats, slow and
filled with aching
and the pain of joy.
I knew the music
would stop eventually,
but I still looked at you,
and spoke words that would
vanish into thin air, into
the music’s heartbeat,
into the evening sky,
staining the concrete
with a blameless pink.
I’m glad you have good
taste in music, I said.
You have a nice smile, you said.
I laughed and the music played,
pure and tender.
One day, I was in love.
And then one day, I was not.
But the music
I can still hear it.
And it is still filled
with such sheer
blinding
beauty.

(April 2016)

We will call out to each other through the air

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

graft
Nokyoung Xayasane

I turn over
in my sleep.
Was it just
three weeks ago
when we first met?

These days,
time
seems so
condensed.
A lifetime
passes in
twenty-four hours,
everything changes,
distorts, evolves.

Things are lost
and found,
misplaced
and irretrievable,
people emerge
and fall away.
Nothing remains.

We are
the minutes
that tick by,
voices
sailing through
the air.

You told me
once,
that everyone is
searching for love
in their own
way.
Their loosened
hearts stumbling
through the darkness.
Their arms
outstretched
clutching
at the air,
hoping
to land
on something
soft and warm
and true.

I wish
I could’ve been
that person for
you,
for all that
have come
and gone.

I wish
we could’ve been
those people
for each other
all our lives.

Instead,
I’ll write you
these lines
and you’ll
put
pencil
to paper,
trying in vain
to graft
something
simple
and true.

We will
call out
to each other
through
the air.

(March 2016)

Do you think you’re the only one?

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

True or false?

The only one
Nokyoung Xayasane

When you asked me
to meet you in the library,
I went.

When you asked me
to go on my knees,
I did.

When you asked me
to bend over,
I did.

I may have met you at the library.
I may have gone on my knees.
I may have bent over.

But it’s you
who’s searching
through the stacks,
it’s you
who’s on his knees,
it’s you
who’s bent over.
Is it not?

Control.
You think you have it?
Do you think that?

I imagine you
reading this now
with an expression
of quiet amusement,
embarrassment,
lust,
always lust.

Do you think
you’re the only one
reading this
thinking these thoughts,
thinking these words
are about him?

Do you think
you are
the only one,
my only one?

Do you think that?

Okay, see you
at the library.

I’ll look for the one
on his knees,
you,
my only one.

(25 March 2016)

I will wake them when they are ready to be heard

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

The morning off, but first coffee

The right words
Nokyoung Xayasane

For the last three weeks,
it’s been hard for me to find
the right words.

I think the night was ‘resurrected’ for me.
‘Redeemed,’ you say,
and you are right.
Yes, the night was ‘redeemed’ by the last poet.
Her stories flowed from another time.
I could feel the history of it.
Its magnitude.
Like I said, there seems to be the right words,
but they’ve been eluding me lately.
Where do they go
when I’m not using them?

I hold up a thin candle;
its faint flame illuminating
very little.
The word is just outside the circle of light,
hiding serenely in the darkness, safe.
I move towards it,
and it moves too,
beyond my reach.

I don’t see how she can …
‘Reconcile,’ you offer,
and you are right.
I don’t see how she can ‘reconcile’ her independence
with moving across the country for someone.
Abandon everything for someone.
Is that what love is?
I wish I could find the right word to express
how I feel about that.
‘Bewildered,’ perhaps.
‘Incredulous,’ maybe.

I take a break from the words
and sit on my balcony, in the sun.

The words sleep quietly in the dark.
I will wake them
when they are ready to be heard.

(November 2015)

We shone just as we were

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

Indio, California (19 April 2012)

California
Nokyoung Xayasane

Do you remember
our car ride
through California?
The sun and wind,
those ten days.
All of it.

No road
could hold us.
I didn’t care
for roadmaps,
and neither
did you.
We existed
in this
closed box,
headed on
a journey
of no return.
The wind
and air
and sky
all around us.

We shone
just as we were,
didn’t we?
You saw me
just as I was.
I loved you,
boy,
I loved you,
didn’t I?

We drove along
the streets
of Los Angeles
in our rented car.
Remember,
I didn’t want
a roadmap
and you never
cared for them.
We rented a hotel room
in West Hollywood.
The room was lit
by a single
bare bulb,
the sheets
were thin
and itched,
the carpet
was threadbare
and worn.
We threw
the sheets up,
and hurried
beneath them.
We were
never so close.

At night,
we met a man at a bar
who told us
we must go
to Venice beach.
We did.
We shared fish tacos
on the boardwalk.
We ran
along the beach,
the seagulls
glittering in the sky,
the sand endless,
our laughter
effortless and wide and clear.
We shone
just as we were.

Later,
the deserts of Indio
opened up for us.
You in your rolled up jeans,
me alongside
in high-waisted shorts
and an oversized hat.
There were
endless throngs
of beautiful people
in sunglasses,
white fringe,
expounding on cleanses,
contemplating yoga stances,
bare-breasted women
and musicians
tongue kissing on stage.

The music
began,
the stages
flooded
with lights.
You looked at me
and I felt
the world
beginning
and beginning
again and again.

The sun scorched our
bodies brown,
we glistened
with the midday
heat,
the music
never ends.
It never stops.
We danced
and danced
and danced.
We smoked
with strangers,
we laughed
until we cried,
we kissed
until we were sore.

When night fell
our second wind rose.
I heard
the music
pick up again.
I was
who I always
wanted to be,
there with you.
You were rain
drenching
the cracked desert
earth.
We were
who we
always
hoped to be.

I love you,
I said.
I’m glad you exist,
you said.
And the world
kept beginning.

(1 March 2016)

and I can see your light

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

Heal
Nokyoung Xayasane

when I was younger I clung to you
the roots of a tree gripping the riverbank
shifting waters could not move us
enveloped by mosquito netting and protected
while balmy breezes blew within a decrepit shanty
the cracks would not let in the pain

shards of light reflecting mirror side up
bruised forearm, broken finger
I cannot find you in your dark
hidden by your rage, I search for you

the splashing, laughing pool
flipping through the pages of a torn photo album
you call out to me from your hiding place
a quiet voice beneath the fists
loving pain, gentle brutality
comforting violence

sometimes, glimpses of you emerge
falling rain, glimmering laughter
and I hope for your light

my image in your eyes
my movements in your stance
quiet rage
shifting below
whispering madness seeps into light
mosquito netting, broken finger
morning grass, afternoon tag
and I remember you
as you were, as you are now

soft folds of a blanket
and the radio hums within the hut
hammock swaying
cradled in the softness, protected in the netting

soothing cooling
ointment glides on the burn
healing tissue replacing cut
a soft scar in the shadow of forgiveness
and I can see your light

(2009)

language would never be a barrier for her

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

Thailand, 1984

the things she carried
Nokyoung Xayasane

I remember what my mother told me
when I was eight years old.
One day, we decided to exchange
a Super Nintendo console for the
one that came with the Donkey Kong game.

In the Zellers parking lot,
she gave me the box to carry.
I walked with that box in my tiny hands —
my mother by my side.
The box grew heavier with each step.
And the closer we got to the electronics section,
the heavier it became.

Meh, I said,
(‘Meh’ is Lao for mom)
Meh, I said, can you carry it for me?
I gave her my most helpless look.
She looked at me then and said,
Deep
(‘Da deep’ means ‘little eyes’)
Deep,
you’re just afraid.

And yes, I suppose I was.
We walked up to the Zellers employee —
a shaggy-haired fella
who stood behind the counter
organizing double A batteries.

My mother stood by my side, wordless.
She didn’t speak English that well,
but even at eight, I knew that language
would never be a barrier for her.
I want to get the one with Donkey Kong, I whispered.

Afterwards, we walked outside to the car.
The sky was this purple and pink colour —
the same sky I’d paint in my art class years later.
I held the new system in my hands —
this one included the game.
I played Donkey Kong all summer long,
and if you were wondering,
I can lift that console quite easily now.

(June 2015)

Bird of Passage