Nokyoung Xayasane

She wonders about people like this.

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

The play
Nokyoung Xayasane

Here I am
again
in heartache.
I tried to write
a poem of anger
and betrayal,
but it just
came out
trite.

Here goes anyways.

Boy meets girl,
girl is unsure.
She goes against
every doubt,
every instinct,
and she gives
boy a chance.
They say,
love grows
where pity lives.

Now let’s pan
to almost
four years later
and her doubts
have become
real problems.
I mean,
real issues.

I don’t think
about the future,
he says to her.
That’s the problem,
she replies.
I don’t want to have
children
now and maybe
never.
That’s the problem,
she replies.

But wait,
just wait for it.

So the breakup was hard,
but amicable.
The girl was sad
but she was
dealing with it.

Then one day …

Are you listening?

Boy
texts her for coffee.
Sure, she responds.
She knows
the news will
be bad.
Actually,
she knows
exactly
what he will say.
She’s known it
for quite some time.
She’s known it
before he could
even admit
to himself.

It’s not good news, he says,
you’re not going to like it.
I don’t want this to mar
what we had.

See what I mean?
Cliché.

It’s all been written before.

Oh well, here goes.

I’ve been seeing someone.
Not a stranger.
But someone you know,
someone you trusted
and admired.
I’m with her now.

I know, girl replies,
I’ve known it all along.

And the look
of shock
on his face
makes her
want
to
spit.

All this has been lived before,
she knows.

They spoke together
in calmness
in that coffeeshop
on that street
in that city.
She left for her home
while he made
his way back to her.

But then
the hours went by
and the days went on,
and
she
began
to
unravel.

She began
to revisit
every moment
every look
every word.
She remembers
the night
it all changed,
the night when
he didn’t come home.
The minutes ticked by,
the hours passed along,
and
still
he had
not
come home.
She read aloud
to herself,
to comfort
herself.
And as she read
the darkness outside
changed to light,
the sun rose on a new day,
and still
he had
not
come
home.

In truth,
it was over between them.
She’ll give him that.
It had been over
for weeks,
but they still
shared the same bed,
they still
kissed each other goodbye,
they still lived
with a dying, ruined love.

After that night,
he avoided
touching her,
and she pretended
not to notice.

In truth,
she was not
altogether sure.
Was she going mad?
But he was so
excruciatingly
obvious.

It was painful.

And when
he sat across
from her
with his tissue,
sniffling
because of a cold,
excusing himself
to use the bathroom
while bringing his
phone, she sat in
silence
and stared at
nothing.
She imagined him
texting a friend,
maybe texting her,
for moral support
so he could say
what he came to say.

Let’s get this over with,
she thought.

And when he returned,
he said all
the things
people feel
they need
to say.

In a nutshell:
What we had was great,
but now I’m fucking
one of your friends.
Thanks for everything.
My conscience
is newly relieved.
Now I leave you
to deal with that.
Also, I’m happy.
I’ve moved on.
It’s been three months,
but she’s met
my sister.
Maybe we’ll get a dog.

When did it start, she asks.
He says
they waited
until he had moved out.
How respectable of them.

What about that night
you didn’t come home?
I was with her.
Of course.
We didn’t sleep together. We talked all night.
All right.

She wonders about people
like this.

A musician and an actress
begin a sordid affair
before the end of the musician’s
relationship to the poet.
It could not be more
pedestrian.

She remembers
how the musician
and the actress met.
The chemistry
was palpable.
They could’ve showed
some kindness
some restraint.
But they are not
kind people.
She watched it unfold
like a play
and when the actor
spoke his confession aloud,
she was neither
jolted nor hysterical.
But the look of shock
on his face
as she stared out at him
with calm placidity,
that was
priceless.

She thinks,
perhaps his new girl
is a better actor
than him.
But she has seen
the actress perform,
and this is not the case.
There is a
desperation in the new girl
to be lauded and admired.
Perhaps
this new girl feels
a sense of
triumph,
but it won’t last.
This girl is fickle.
This play is
poorly written.
The characters
are placeholders
for ideas of
what it means to be
human.
They’re flat
and
played out.

He is out of her life
except when she wakes
in the middle of the night
and reaches out
for nothing, but a
dull ache
and the sweat and shivering
of a poor player
who’s forgotten
her lines, and she
shudders to know
that she could have
loved someone
so weak.

Sorry,
I apologize.
I wanted to write
a poem about
anger and betrayal,
but it just came out
trite.

(January 2016)

that expands and is everywhere

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

The Morning After
Nokyoung Xayasane

The light holds here
                        through the silken drapes
            hanging on your walls
            that separate
our murmured voices
from the outside world
 
I hold this memory
           like a   grain     of sand
                        encapsulated in time
                                    on the brink of            
                                                          falling
            through the overturned hourglass
 
The white sheets
                      still hold the brilliance
            of the night
 
Our laughter
                        effortlessly weaving
            a pattern on the ceiling
                        an open window
                                    letting in the evening air
 
Your books                on the mantel
                       ease me into
            the hollow
of your neck
the curve of my spine
           the small
                      of your back
 
Scattered        on the floor
                                 my blouse
                                            your jacket
 
Coming together
                                in the hours before
          filtered light enters
through curtained glass
that expands and is everywhere
 
           the warmth of the sun
                                    on silken drapes.

(September 2010)

like it all meant something

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

the streets I know / when you stand in the streets / watching the sky, until its colour / is a bruised place inside your chest

these days
Nokyoung Xayasane

these days
you find
are so full
it makes you recall
the days of idleness
full of unanswered
questions and emails
long drives to
nowhere in particular

and sometimes you recall
the places where you felt
your first heartbreak
when the sky and sun
were so necessary
you sought out their
brilliance
with closed eyes, tilted chin
towards the heat

and you recall the streets
like ghost towns
buildings where you watched
the local punk scene
all its characters
milling about
and laughing
playing music
like it all meant something

and the house
you used to occupy
its small rooms
full of light and
air and stained glass
windows
and the city
you used to know
where everything
reminded you
of the person
you could never be

you were always
looking for an out
but these streets
these buildings
these people
they meant
something to you
and somehow
they still do

(April 2015)

Make me into something, someone you want.

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

Release me

Release me
Nokyoung Xayasane

My phone lights up,
and I know
it is you.
You nasty,
filthy
creature.
Where did you come from?

The things you’ve said to me
make me wet with vomit.
I will come
to you
in the hours
before the dawn
lights up the sky.

What we have,
it lives in the dark.
It lives there,
doesn’t it?

When I wake
at three in the morning
to check my phone,
I hope you are there,
waiting for me,
anticipating me.

What will you have me do
this time?
What dirty, nasty thing
will you have me do?
I will do it.
And I will like it.

Tell me
how I should
position myself.
Tell me
which way
you like me.
And I will do it.
I will like it.

When I drink too much,
I watch the men around me
watching me,
wanting me
like animals.
They graze
their bodies
against me
as I make my way
to the washroom.

They are animals,
aren’t they?
Those nasty,
filthy creatures.
Make small talk with me.
Buy me a drink.
I know what they want.
What they all want.
Those nasty,
filthy creatures.

Bind me.
Make me
into something,
someone
you want.
It is performance.
It is
all performance.

But then
someone says
the releasing word.
And I am gone.

Set me free.
Say the releasing word.
Say it.
And I am gone.

(January 2016)

You will look lit from within, and lit from without

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

My not-so-secret garden

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Dear Ava,

I’ve been thinking about you lately. I remember sitting across from you at the diner, and you were full of questions for me. You were confused. You were unsure of what to do next. You didn’t know if you should stay with him or if you should leave. You looked at me with your large, lost, wide eyes. I could see an earnestness in you. You wanted to do the right thing, but you didn’t know where to start; you didn’t know where to begin.

Here’s what I want to tell you.

If you decide to take this path, to leave him, and to go out into the world on your own, it will be very, very difficult.

But the thing you will learn is that the difficult part is not making the change or of ending things. The difficult part is what happens afterwards. I’m not going to lie to you. It will be painful. Excruciatingly so. You will have memories of how you used to be together, like how he ate his pasta, or how he sometimes cocked his head to the side when he listened to you speak. You’ll remember those unassuming moments when you stood in front of the bathroom mirror and he placed his hand on the small of your back. There will come a time when you stand in front of that same mirror and you’ll remember the touch of his hand and you’ll feel the absence of it, and it will batter you open; it will batter you wide open. But it will not destroy you.

I want you to remember this.

You have friends and family who you can talk to you. They’ll take you out for dinner, laugh and cry with you; you will feel loved. Sometimes people will do the smallest thing like save you the last bit of honey for your tea, and you will feel your heart fill. Sometimes it will be almost more than you can possibly bear. But you will bear it. Just those pure simple acts of kindness from people — it will batter you open.

And sometimes when you go for walks, the sky will light up with a light so harsh at times and so beautiful, and the wind will pick up, people will walk by laughing and talking and you will be so far away from them but so close to them at the same, you will feel as if you are part of everything. It will be painful. It will hurt so much. Your heart will ache and ache.

Maybe you’ll see a small sign at the edge of a park that reads “nature trail.” You’ll walk past it, and the entrance will dip into an almost surreal world. You will walk these intertwining paths almost every day. Perhaps there will be a babbling stream, shallow water and rocks, a wooden bridge, and endless leaves of yellows and reds will pirouette from the sky. Perhaps the ground will be blanketed with autumn leaves and foliage that crunch beneath your boots. It will be your not-so-secret garden.

You may even look out over an expanse of trees, or you may be sheltered within a canopy and the light, the light, will come streaming down, and you will feel breathless, alive; you will feel time moving; you will feel the movement of time and how random and passing and fleeting and beautiful it all is; and your heart will ache; it will just ache and ache.

But then gradually, without you noticing it, the pain will lessen. The memory of his hand on the small of your back will not rip you open. The song that played while you cooked pasta together will not make you ripe with pain; it will not double you over. You’ll remember how sometimes he would say your name aloud and the sound would make you stop short. You’ll remember the look he gave you of reprimand and of kindness. His compassion would have floored you. That memory, that look, that single word — your name spoken aloud by someone who loved you — it will no longer batter you open.

Soon you will feel a lightness. The memories will reoccur less often. The dreams will wane. You will wake less often in the night; you will stop seeking solace in other people. You will not drink so much. One day, you will feel fine. Just fine. And the initial lightness will stretch; it will stretch into hours. Then into days, then into weeks. Then months, then years. And when you’ve finally learned to be alone, when you finally enjoy your own company and you wouldn’t have it any other way, you’ll meet someone new. And that person will make you laugh again. He will make you laugh until you cry. He will make your skin feel as if it were made of tissue paper. Transparent and open and light. Whatever was hiding deep inside of you will rise to the surface. You will look lit from within, and lit from without. That’s what love will do to you; it will transform you. You will be beauty intensified.

And all that has passed will seem like an apparition; it all will seem like a story you concocted, a story you told yourself to help you fall asleep. And you will be happy, you will be so utterly happy.

I send you all my love as always. And all my hope.

Your friend,
Nok

I am not beautiful

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

With you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler
(Lines Depicting Simple Happiness, Peter Gizz)

I am not beautiful
Nokyoung Xayasane

When you told me
you were fucking her,
I felt nothing.

Not much has changed
since you left.
I still wake up in the morning
and make my coffee.
I still laugh with friends in cafes.
I still find beauty in the pink light
punching out from between
condos and high rises.
I flick the light switches
on and off
to watch the shadows
emerge and disappear.
On New Year’s Eve I kissed a girl,
and it was fine.
All weekend, I fucked a stranger.
I drank all night
and threw up in my wastebasket.
I feel nothing.
I feel everything.

Sometimes when the loneliness
presses hard
against my chest,
I lie my head on
my own splayed arm
and with my other arm,
I cradle myself.
When my head feels hot,
I lie my face against the vanity
to feel its coolness.
I hope it will
enter me
and I will be refreshed,
renewed,
someone different
from myself.

I stood on the corner
of Broadway and Yonge
and watched the snow
carefully descending,
pirouetting from the sky,
and the darkness
a backdrop
for a city living.

I felt alcohol and weed surge
through my blood as I made
my way to the subway
with condoms and fresh panties
in my pockets.
Semper paratus,
as they say.

I fuck strangers
and wake from the sleep of them.
I am weak, I know,
and vengeful. I am not beautiful.

(January 2016)

What we talk about when we talk about love

Posted on February 6, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

cobweb in the sunshine and the last Sunday I sat on this particular porch

What we talk about when we talk about love
Nokyoung Xayasane

I think I miss laughter the most.
I miss laughter, induced by another person,
or should I be more specific?
Induced by you.
Sitting on our front porch,
there were those tinkering wind chimes
our neighbour hung that annoyed you
but charmed me.
Do you remember them?

We sat in the comfort of each other,
reading and not speaking
while the hushed streets barely
whispered in the summer wind.

I miss the ease with which you live
your life,
the lazy energy of Saturday morning,
when there was time to say nothing
and do very little.

Sometimes I would look over at you
and I would try and remember
the sunlight streaming through the evergreen tree
beside our porch,
and I could barely contain myself for joy.

I miss the lazy car rides where I didn’t
have to talk and you didn’t have to listen.
We shared a silence
that only two people can share
who have said all they have to say
and need not say one word more.

Yes, I do,
I do, miss the easy laughter,
and I miss those lazy summer nights
when we were young and free
and full of something we could not name.

This morning,
riding back to our old neighbourhood,
I realized I missed
the wide-eyed enchantment
of things to come,
not knowing what was next for us.
Do you miss those things too?
I wonder,
but am too afraid to ask.

The man beside me on the streetcar
murmurs something incoherent
and I miss the ease of not missing you.

I know I can return
but I can never go back
to that place we shared
where laughter came easy
and the days were sweet and pure
and full of possibilities.
Do you remember that place
as I remember it?

I guess missing is all we have.
Those memories we shared from long ago,
they become as audible
as our old neighbour’s wind chimes
and as bright as the light streaming
through the evergreen trees
where two people read in the hush of summer.

And I realize far too late,
this must be what we talk about
when we talk about love.

(November 2015)

whatever it is we remember, we’ll remember this

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Nokyoung Xayasane

The last lights of summer
(Little Italy, Toronto, August, 2015)

whatever it is we remember, we’ll remember this
Nokyoung Xayasane

whatever it is we remember
we’ll remember this
that once we were happy
and we held on to some sort of belief
in something beyond our bedroom walls
we once strained against the glass
that looked out onto the world
and we hoped for magical nights
when the air was warm but the wind was cool
when we gathered with friends underneath Christmas lights
that sparkled
even though it wasn’t Christmas

whatever it is we remember
we’ll remember a time
when we were young and beautiful
the world bowed to us
everything was possible, attainable
everything could be measured by the span of our hands
we held the world in our palms and
swung high into the air

the stars pushed out above
the songs from our childhood
our singing was no longer a form of helplessness
we remembered that once we knew nothing
and we still don’t
at least, at least
we are no longer afraid
at least we are full of wonder still
and the lights that glittered on that patio
that night
in that city we called home

we remember we loved and were loved
and all of it meant something
if only for a little while
if only for a brief moment
and we’ll remember nights
when time was within our grasp
but we lost it all the same
we spoke in fake British accents
in 24-hour phở restaurants
we held on to some kind of freedom
that was fleeting but we held on nonetheless

what we know now is this:
we’ll always be okay
we are sometimes surprised when
we hear our voices lifted above the tumult of noises
the traffic careening down streets that led to places
we thought we would never see
but stepping out into the street the wind lifts
our hair sticks to our lips
our bodies are nothing more than
air and dust and bone and breath

what we are we know
this will always last for us
what we know is time will stand still for us
but we wander nonetheless
we wander nonetheless

(August 2015)

why shouldn’t something I have always known be the very best there is

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Nokyoung Xayasane

Peanut Butter by Eileen Myles

I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
If you get right
down to it the new
unprocessed peanut
butter is no damn
good & you should
buy it in a jar as
always in the
largest supermarket
you know. And
I am an enemy
of change, as
you know. All
the things I
embrace as new
are in
fact old things,
re-released: swimming,
the sensation of
being dirty in
body and mind
summer as a
time to do
nothing and make
no money. Prayer
as a last re-
sort. Pleasure
as a means,
and then a
means again
with no ends
in sight. I am
absolutely in opposition
to all kinds of
goals. I have
no desire to know
where this, anything
is getting me.
When the water
boils I get
a cup of tea.
Accidentally I
read all the
works of Proust.
It was summer
I was there
so was he. I
write because
I would like
to be used for
years after
my death. Not
only my body
will be compost
but the thoughts
I left during
my life. During
my life I was
a woman with
hazel eyes. Out
the window
is a crooked
silo. Parts
of your
body I think
of as stripes
which I have
learned to
love along. We
swim naked
in ponds &
I write be-
hind your
back. My thoughts
about you are
not exactly
forbidden, but
exalted because
they are useless,
not intended
to get you
because I have
you & you love
me. It’s more
like a playground
where I play
with my reflection
of you until
you come back
and into the
real you I
get to sink
my teeth. With
you I know how
to relax. &
so I work
behind your
back. Which
is lovely.
Nature
is out of control
you tell me &
that’s what’s so
good about
it. I’m immoderately
in love with you,
knocked out by
all your new
white hair

why shouldn’t
something
I have always
known be the
very best there
is. I love
you from my
childhood,
starting back
there when
one day was
just like the
rest, random
growth and
breezes, constant
love, a sand-
wich in the
middle of
day,
a tiny step
in the vastly
conventional
path of
the Sun. I
squint. I
wink. I
take the
ride.

Read more about this poem and poet on www.poetryfoundation.org.

for a life that is real

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Nokyoung Xayasane

Hello, dear friends. I know it’s been a while since my last post — almost a year. Sometimes we have to wander a little bit before we come back to what we know and love. In my case, my truest loves are poetry and music.

Bluffer’s Beach in August, 2014

Since we last spoke, I moved to Toronto and I’ve been living here for nine months now, but I feel like I’ve always been here; this place has been a part of me before I even looked out my apartment window on St. Clair Ave.

The people, the voices of friends calling to each other, the cacophony of blaring horns, screeching tires, music playing in the streets, the way the afternoon sun punches through the clouds, the hush of a September morning, and the smell of fresh rain; these things I will always remember.

I was walking down St. Clair Ave West and Dufferin St, when I realized there’s only one thing I want now. It isn’t happiness, wealth, fame, or even peace of mind. What I really want is this: I want a life that is real.

Happiness
Susan Griffin

Happiness. I am not used
to this. (There is always
something wrong.)
Look at it
the bright early tree.
(I am trying to find out
how you fell.)
The leaves have already turned.
(I want you to see
this, how they
glow outside the glass.)
Morning light strikes
differently. For so
many years I hardly
had time to know such
moments. They struck me
with such intensity
I would have said
battered me open.
I never understood
they were mine.
I was panicked.
Unhappiness caught up with me
all the time.
Did you know
the speed of light never alters
even when you go faster
it will be
still that much faster
than you?
(I am thinking that in your fall
something momentous occurred.)
What I see as beautiful
I want you to see too.
Next door, the workmen are hammering.
Very soon we’ll go to lunch.
For some reason this moves me to tears.
How life is.
(One does not have to explain
what occurs. One only need say
it has meaning.)
Years ago, when I was young
I traveled to Italy, took in
the great sights. I was in awe, yet
I did not understand
seeing Masaccio’s frescoes
fading like shadows into the walls,
this would be the only time
nor that
I would never forget.
Those muted shades are
still with me, as possession
and longing, and the view too
of the square before that church
the air, newly spring,
that day, all of it.
Life, I have finally begun to realize,
is real.
(All this time you recover
from falling
will sink indelibly into mind.)
The leaves
may fall before you are able
to see them. Science
has recently learned
the line
of existence is soft
and stretches out like a field
wind and light shaping the grass
energy
of sight giving consciousness
force. In the meantime
we live out our lives.
(This morning we talked for so long
everything became lucid.
How can I say what I see?)
At each turning
perfection eludes me.
One moment is not like another.
Last spring
the house next door caught fire.
There was the smell of gas.
We thought
both houses would go.
I vanished up the hill,
went to the house of a friend
where we listened for flames
and to that aria from Italian
opera, was it the one of love,
or jealousy, or grief?
My house was untouched.
Now the one next door is painted,
fixed. In place of
perfection, the empty hands
I turned out to the world
are filled.
With what? A letter
half written, the notes
I make on this page,
this new feeling about my shoulders
of age, that sad child’s story
you told me this morning,
the workmen’s tools sounding
and stopping. What? As time
moves through me, does it also
move through you?
I keep remembering what you said,
ways you have of seeing (and that
light must have curved with
you fall.) This
is the paradox of vision:
Sharp perception softens
our existence in the world.

1986

Susan Griffin, “Happiness” from Bending Home: Selected and New Poems. Copyright © 1998 by Susan Griffin. Reprinted with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townshend, WA 98368-0271, coppercanyonpress.org.

Read more about this poem and poet on the Poetry Foundation website: http://bit.ly/16iQxIs

Bird of Passage