Where the world began and ended
Nokyoung Xayasane

There were these branches that reached up into the sky,
arms uplifted into the sun that I would climb.

There was that ease of a summer day,
the hot breath of the wind, a heat and a blanket on the grass.

I was there, walking along the asphalt underbelly of the bridge,
the train above me on some journey somewhere far from here.

I wondered where it was going, I wondered if one day
I would know its destination.

The sidewalk came up and met my sandalled feet,
and even then I dreamed and even then I did not know to want.

I was a blink of someone’s eye, I was a laugh ringing out,
I was the running of hands along a chain link fence.

It was there where I learned to ask unanswerable questions,
and to ache for tastes and fragrances and sounds,

for things and places that I did not know had names.
It was there where I learned where the world began and where the world ended.

it was safe to let you go
Nokyoung Xayasane

You were standing by an open window,
your hand on the frame.
You were looking out onto the street,
the curtain billowing.
No witness but me.
You were walking in the afternoon sun,
just a memory in time.

And that memory of you,
it was safe to hold on to it.

I was standing by the subway door,
my hand on the frame.
I was looking out onto the street,
blurs of colours, yellow and blue.
No witness but you.
I was walking in the afternoon sun,
just a memory in time.

And that memory of me,
it was safe to hold on to it.

We were running down cobbled streets,
our laughter
like a thousand stars
exploding
in the sky.
No witness but us.
We were walking in the afternoon sun,
just a memory in time.

And that memory of us,
it was safe to hold on to it.

Somewhere you are laughing,
your hands moving though the air.
Somewhere you are running,
your legs blurred and strong.

I am smiling,
my face lit up, bright and free.
I am running,
my breath long and deep.

The curtains shift,
and you are standing there by the window.
I did love you,
but you knew that.
Nothing
and no one
changes that.

The doors open,
and I am standing by the subway opening.
I reach out for your hand,
your hand across space and time.
I feel the pressure of your palm
against mine.

I am walking along the subway platform,
my legs moving, my breath steady.
I see the opening of the subway exit,
and I make my way towards it.
And that memory of you,
it was safe
to let you go,
and that memory of me,
it was safe
to let me go.

Somewhere I am emerging
into the afternoon sun.
I am walking slowly
along the streets without you.
And that memory of us,
it was safe
to let us go.

main concept
Nokyoung Xayasane

Idleness is a gift
you give yourself,
I say
with a glass of rosé
in hand.

I want to write a poem
about justice and love and revolution,
you know,
those grand, unfathomable concepts.

Main concept: person, place, or thing.
Sub concept: politics.
But then I think
that poem is for someone else,
you know,
the spoken word artists
and the singer-songwriters
that hide power and the ties that bind
in their lyrics
about a late afternoon in Prague.

I want to write about Europe,
baroque architecture, grand sweeping phrases,
glittered and coating the balustrade of a golden staircase.

Main concept: person, place, or thing.
Sub concept: culture.
I wonder
if I don’t write about Berlin or London,
will it matter?
Locations don’t really move me
I find.
I have no feelings of sentimentality
for a broken wall someone else climbed over,
the steps of a museum where someone else
walked up and saw the afternoon light
bathing a dark haired man
who would become their lover, their enemy.

What I have is this—
Main concept: person, place, or thing.
Sub concept: boredom.
What are we but bored people
reaching out to each other?
Not even the drama of heartache
or treachery—betrayal—
no, just plain boredom.
And so I write nothing.
I feel neutral.
All signs pointing to a healthy mind
and an idle pen.
It’s the gift I give myself.

to feel something
Nokyoung Xayasane

In the evening,
about around 8:30pm,
the sky transforms
into a landscape of pink,
touching the walled buildings,
blushing the trees billowing
in the summer heat.

The AC clicks on,
a swirling sound like the rivets
of steel of the subway tunnel,
the sound of something falling down the stairs,
a swirling wake in Hanlan’s Point.

There’s the pink sky in the evening
that purples into night fall,
that blooms into light
peeking and chirping with bird calls.

There’s this place, this street,
walking down Yonge
that hugs and presses against my skin,
the embrace of life and noise and sound,
the sound of giving up
and the sound of going on.

The morning reaches into the sky
following the line of a crane
hoisting a metal crate,
the building blocks of a condo
a skyscraper a home a business.

I said out loud, to no one in particular,
“I want to feel something
like really feel something.
Don’t you?”

And the sky and the trees, the birds,
they answered my call,
and they breathed and they laughed
and they whispered,
“Yes, I do. And I have. And you will, too.”

And the sky changed shape and coloured pink
reaching out to the edges of the city,
touching the cracks in the pavement
where a man and his dog sit
with a cardboard sign.
A man in a cowboy hat stands in front of the Chipotle
and watches passersby.

I want to feel something
like really feel something.
Don’t you?

history whispers
its quiet words
trumpets its war call into the air
and we are bystanders
beside a roadside accident
we are standing bare feet in grass
wondering about the stars
and global warming and North Korea
and how we’ll pay for all the weddings in our calendar
we are sitting on a fire escape
watching the world go by
and history whispers to us
but we are too busy
too busy being happy