Poetry

as if by accident

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

Nok_black_and_white

the way you are sometimes
Nokyoung Xayasane

There is something
about you
that I just can’t place.

Once, I asked you
if you had gotten a new hair cut.
You said, No,
you had gotten a new comb.
This made me laugh.
The way you are,
sometimes.
And then
we took off all
our clothes,
and fell asleep
with the fan on low.

You are very tall,
and masculine and strong.
You are very forward,
and crass and brash,
and very intelligent,
in my opinion.
But also,
you are that moment,
you know,
that moment
in a song
when everything
goes quiet,
and I wait
for the sound
of your voice
or for your heart,
breathing.

When you first
told me you were leaving
the country
in a few months,
I thought,
Okay, fine.
This will be a fun time
before you leave.

Then the last day came,
we laid in bed,
neither one of us speaking.
It is like this with us.
Sometimes, we hardly speak.
Finally, you got up,
put your clothes on,
went to the bathroom,
and I stayed
lying in bed.

All of a sudden,
I couldn’t move.
All of a sudden,
I couldn’t breathe.
I’m sad, I told you.
You smiled,
and then you left.
I laid back down on the bed,
then I went to my balcony
to breathe the air.

You are the sleepy mountain town
where I used to lie my head
when the world moved too quickly.

You are
the flashes of lightning
before a storm enters,
and I stand in the street
waiting
for the rain.

There are things
here
on this page
that I can’t say to you
or to myself.
This is how it happens
to me.
It always happens
to me
like this,
as if
by accident.

the person I tried to be

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

middle_distance

my to-do list
Nokyoung Xayasane

On my to-do list,
I’ve written down
about 15 things.
At the end of the day,
I crossed off one item
that perhaps
took me five minutes
to accomplish.
Tomorrow, I think
I won’t write
such a long list.
Maybe I won’t write a list
at all.
Maybe I’ll watch four episodes
of The Mind of a Chef
all in a row
without any feelings
of guilt or remorse.
Maybe I’ll read three books
while drinking a glass of wine
in the late afternoon
and fall asleep in my chair
like a grandfather.

There are days
when I feel
like lying in bed all day.
After a few hours
of listening to music
and writing in bed,
I get up
and I brush my teeth,
I make a cup of coffee,
I shower,
I put makeup on my face
even when I feel disgusting
and lonely
and unlovable.
I do these things
because Julianna Margulies
from The Good Wife
recommended it,
and I’ll listen to any ER nurse
who made out with George Clooney.

I’ll also get out of my robe,
put on some clothes,
walk downstairs
and get the mail,
take out the garbage,
the recycling,
and the green bin
like one YouTube vlogger
suggested.
I’ll wash the dishes,
make my bed,
vacuum and mop the floor,
do my laundry,
all the activities
that help me
feel as if I’m
a productive member
of society.
Maybe not of society,
maybe just a productive person
in my rented apartment
that I share with a cat
and one roommate.

I’ll try not to feel sorry for myself
except when I do
almost every other day,
especially near the end of the month
when my rent is due
and one of my freelance clients
refuses to pay my whole invoice.
It must be a breeze for him
to feel so safe almost all the time
when I struggle every day
to make a life for myself
in a city that forgets
so easily
and takes and chips away
so ruthlessly.
But I know
even with all my complaining
and griping
and outbursts
and tears in the bathroom
and falling asleep on the kitchen floor
with a glass of water
my cat beside me
the pizza I bought at 1:30 in the morning
burning in my oven,
I know that at least
I’m living a life of my own choosing.
It’s something
not everyone gets a chance to do.

When I sit out on my balcony
in the morning
in the afternoon
and when I walk the streets of Toronto
in the evening
to clear my head
to have random conversations
with strangers trudging to work
in the late hours,
I know I’m living a life
that I have only dreamed of,
and so I sit on my balcony
and watch the world go by,
and I try to write a few lines
here and there
with the hope
that when I die
someone will remember me
as I am
and not as the person
I tried desperately
to be.

What’s my name again?

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

perfect_slut

My name
Nokyoung Xayasane

There are times
when people
say my name
like spit
hitting the pavement.

My name,
it punctuates
the ends of sentences.
Comma, full stop.

My name
is a repetition,
drum beats
hitting,
a chant
calling.

There are times
when I hear
my name
like a bullhorn.
The Jesus freak
on Yonge and Dundas
with pamphlets
shouting
from his soapbox.
The homeless woman
at Yonge and Bloor station
who pleads for help
but really
wants money.

No, my name
it is no weapon.
Sure,
shorten it.
Use it
at your will.
Whatever makes
you comfortable.

Say it
if you wish
if you so desire.
Repeat it
over and over
again and again.
Hold it
sweetly
in between
your tongue and canine.

Cherish that name,
my friend.
Cherish the sound
it makes
hitting the open air.

Okay, good talk.
I’m sorry,
what’s my name again?

When we fall in love

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

it is like this with love_black and white

When we fall in love
Nokyoung Xayasane

When we fall in love
there is a part of us
that is historian.
We go back
in time,
and we recreate
that first moment.

I was 16
and working as a cashier.
You asked me
to go
to the work party.
I said,
I had other plans.
But then
I said,
Yes, I’d go with you.
When I was 24,
you asked me
to marry you.
I said,
Yes,
but then I said, No.
I had other plans.

I was 24.
I had decided
to become
a writer.
I was already a poet,
secretly.
I fell in love
with poetry,
and I fell in love
with you
by accident.
I told you
how I felt,
but you preferred
girls who listened
to Taylor Swift,
exclusively.
I remember
when we hugged,
you’d lift me
off
the
ground.
My head would spin
and the world
was full of light.

I was 27
and I was reeling
from three men.
I now
call them
attachment,
love,
and lust.
I told you
I wanted to learn
how to play the guitar.
I wanted to write songs.
You played me
your creations
and sat
a respectful
distance
away.
I never learned
how to play the guitar,
did I?
And we never wrote
those songs together,
did we?
Instead,
we created
a life
together
until we realized
we could go
no further.

I’m 31
and I’m not sure
if I’m in love
with you.
I don’t know,
to be honest.
I never know
right away.
It always happens
to me
as if
by accident.

Maybe if you invite me
to your work party,
I’ll tell you
I have other plans.

Maybe if you invite me
over for tea,
I’ll go
and lie my head
gently
on the sofa.

Maybe we’ll write
songs together,
but you’re not a musician.
No songs
will be written.

Maybe this,
maybe that.

They say,
there is a part of us
that is historian
when we fall in love.
Is this true?
Yes, I think
maybe,
just maybe,
it is.

The perfect slut

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

perfect_slut

The perfect slut
Nokyoung Xayasane

The perfect slut
likes to take photos
on its camera phone.
It positions its body
just so
the way I like it.

The perfect slut
is the right combination
of cute and hot.
But this slut has a brain.
It’s a librarian/model/art curator.
It knows its grammar.
It speaks five languages,
but it knows
when to shut up,
it knows
when to go
on its knees.

The perfect slut
adores sex,
but it doesn’t talk
about it,
not in public,
online,
and never on social media.
You see,
I like my sluts
to be classy.
Take note,
my perfect slut
is GGG
and always DTF.

Oh me oh my,
I like a lot of different sluts,
sometimes more than one
in a week, in a day,
but if my slut hints
at its own body,
its workings
and its needs,
I tell my slut,
Be classy, slut,
be classy.

I let my slut know,
Hey, all my friends
want to fuck you.
It finds this satisfying
because this is the
highest compliment
I can give my slut,
to acknowledge
its desirability.

I like my slut
to talk dirty to me,
but its problems
at work, with its friends,
with its family?
No thanks.
My slut doesn’t have
these problems.

I tell my slut
it can message me
all it wants,
it can sleep over
if it wishes,
I’ll give it some cab money,
I’ll pay for its Uber.
I may even drive my slut
home in the morning
if I feel chivalrous.

So, hey, I’ve just dropped
my slut off at its house,
and I promised
I’d text it later
soon.
Maybe I’ll wait
three to five days.
But until then,
I wonder,
Where’s my next
perfect slut?
Where is he?

good little girl

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

quiet_little_mouse

quiet little mouse
Nokyoung Xayasane

I told my Dad’s friend
I like to play
video games.
My Dad’s friend
told me
he likes to play
video games, too.

I showed him
my collection.
I showed him
my favourite ones.

He showed me
the best way
to spread out
a blanket
so that both
our bodies
were covered
snug and warm.

She told me
she likes to play
video games.
I spread the blanket
over our laps.
She laughed and
looked at me.

Once
her dad came in
but she was quiet as
a mouse,
a sweet little mouse.
Her eyes
gave nothing away.

Dad’s friend
says good little girls
keep secrets,
good little girls
shouldn’t speak
about things
they don’t understand.

One day,
I laid down
and I couldn’t get up.
I couldn’t talk
anymore.
I felt bad,
but I didn’t know why.

He told me
good little girls
are quiet
little mice.

This is where I come from

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

femme_fatale

This is where I come from
Nokyoung Xayasane

Are you Japanese?
Korean?
Chinese?
Thai?
Are you half white?
Indigenous?

What’s your background?
I have a degree in health science
and professional writing.
No, what’s your background?
Where do your parents come from?

My parents
they come from a place
rooted in joy and loss
where the streets flowed
with water and blood
the air is alive with laughter
and the full-throated groan
of hope dying.

My parents
they come from a place
where bombs fell
and flowers bloomed
screams ripped through the night
and the sigh of breezes
entered an open window
the sound of a thousand
feet running for cover,
the sound of a thousand
hands clapping for peace.

My parents
they come from a place
of astounding beauty
as if untouched
a place of
deafening quietness,
modest dwellings
and open fields
of lush green.

My mother
she sold and bought items
on the black market
to feed her family.
She stood behind wrought-iron bars
and escaped into the night
while gunshots rang
clear and hard.

My father
he taught children
in a schoolroom
with a dirt floor
and a dusty blackboard.
He was a boy
who cried too much
who felt too much.
He learned to harden
his heart, to endure.

My mother
she birthed a child
in a nameless place
a place where people
stand in waiting.
My father
held that child
and dreamed of a place
where his family
could breathe,
unhindered.

They dreamed
of a place
where all people
from all walks of life
could reach out
and embrace their neighbour,
a place where people
could reach out
and clasp the hands
of their fellow brothers and sisters.
They dreamed of a place
where love endures
and fear
is nothing
but a distant memory.

That’s where I come from

this is the sound of your heart, breathing

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

lift_up_and_take_off

the sound of your heart, breathing
Nokyoung Xayasane

There are nights
when the city opens up.
I enter it
and become
the woman selling necklaces
in Kensington Market.
I am the man on the metro
at Broadview Station
in the late afternoon,
speaking Spanish
in calm tones
while we plunge into
the light, emerging
from the darkness,
light slanting,
alternating patterns
against the
face of the woman
staring into nothingness.
I want to reach out
and brush the stray strand
from her face
and secure it gently
behind her ear.
There is a child
who stands with
her father, speaking
endlessly,
the pink stripes of
her dress a backdrop
against her skin,
sure and beautiful
and pure.

I exit the subway and
become the ferryboat
that would carry me across
to Hanlan’s Point.
I am the white fluffy dots
of pollen, floating,
the give-offs of flowers
in the summer wind.
I am the girl
submerged in the cold
waters,
floating on her back
in the sunshine,
her skin is bare and golden.
She is free,
free as a child,
the sky above her,
the boats all around her.
Her naked body
dries in the sun
as she stares out
into Lake Ontario,
waiting for the answers
to wash ashore.

I am that night
we met
when you turned to me
and I turned to you.
You kissed me on the corner
of Spadina and Queen
as I tried to decipher
the meaning
behind your accent.
You were only four weeks
in the country,
but I’ve been waiting for you
for quite some time now,
I believe.
I am all those first nights
looking across
at the sleeping body beside me
holding my breath,
waiting for that moment
when you feel your life
just lift up
and take off.

I know there will
come a time
when I will hate this city,
but until then,
I will enter it
and become the girl
who fears nothing.
This girl,
she believes in nothing.
She who walks the earth
without a map,
her face hardened
with time,
her eyes pierce
the enamel of human nature
and enters its darkest
and richest centre.
She is everything
and she is everyone,
she wants nothing
and she wants everything,
everything.
She will hold them inside
her heart,
beating
quick and alive,
slow and halting.
She will walk along
Bloor Street
until her legs give way,
until she feels
no more pain.

She will meet a woman
in rags who will tell her,
All roads lead
to the border,
all paths end at the beginning.
Then why did she walk
all this way?
She had to,
that was the only way
she knew how to be.
Will you take me home,
the girl will ask her.
The woman places her palm
against the girl’s chest.
You are home, she tells her.
This is where you live,
she taps her beating heart.

Suddenly, a window opens up
and I am the city,
I am the cracks in the streets,
I am a child crying in the night,
the woman pushing her
shopping cart filled with
all her belongings.
I am the man on Bay Street,
stark and immaculate,
I am the server
standing on the patio
dressed all in black,
waiting for his real life to begin.
I am all those people
all at once and
I am no one,
no one at all.

This is the sound, she says,
of your heart, breathing.
This is the sound of your heart, healing.

poetic justice

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

middle_distance

The Leprechaun
Nokyoung Xayasane

you cut your hair
short
and all respectable like,
you decided to go
to the doctor
for the first time
in years

and you felt the need
no
the perverse desire
no
the wide-eyed yearning
to mention her name
to me
in passing
out of the blue
without any context
all nonchalant
all casual like

you didn’t come home
one night,
and I didn’t see your face
for another few days

then you began
maneuvering
around my body
as if it were
an ill-placed
bureau
as if it were
an unwanted guest
who had called
on the wrong day

I hope you’ve learned
after all of this
that I’m not
an idiot

I hope we can be friends,
you say
I hope you find
your lucky charms,
you
little
Leprechaun

it’s the end
that sets the tone
for all
that has come
and gone

I hope
you’ve learned this,
you Leprechaun

if only
you weren’t
so foolish,
I said once

that cut you,
didn’t it?
that cut you
deep
right to the bone
now I wonder
who was the real fool

perhaps you and her
can chat it out
work it out
at the end
that is

my apologies
perhaps she can direct
your every thought
your every move
your every whim
because we both know
it takes someone
of character
to direct their own life

and yes, we all know
there’s nothing
she enjoys more
than the sound
of her own voice
authoritative, blunt,
and exhausting

she is shiny and bright,
is she not?
you’ll both stand
on your separate stages
and watch each other
from afar
waiting for the applause
of a thousand hands clapping
waiting for the sound
of a thousand voices praising

oh
and when she finally
breaks your heart
or you hers,
I’ll have
just two tiny words
for you

poetic justice

you
little
Leprechaun

and we will know no pain

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

evening_train

you and I
Nokyoung Xayasane

If I had been
25
I would’ve fallen
in love
with you
straight away.

The wrecked boy
with a
tender heart.
He is lost
in this
big ole world.
His bark is
worse
than his
bite, as they say.

And the girl,
she was
always in love.
She was
always in love
with love.

She looked for love
in libraries
and in bookstores.
She lies in the grass
in the park,
a little bit
drunk.
Her skin eats
up the sun
and the air.

She tries to recall
a time
when she wasn’t always
saying goodbye
to the things and
to the people
she loved.
But she can’t
remember that time,
not at all.

It was a story
someone told her once
from long ago.
That love mattered.
Love lasted.
People never changed,
people never disappointed.
Those are fairy tales
she stopped believing
when she turned
6
years old.

So, you see,
it was inevitable
her
and
him,
you
and I.

Let’s sit on
a patio like
it’s the
first time and
the very last time.
Come with me, he’ll say.
And she will say,
Okay,
I will follow you.

Where should
we go, I wonder.
Anywhere, you say.
Everywhere, I say.
Okay, take my hand,
and I’ll take yours.
We’ll be fine,
just fine.

We’ll be like
the city lights,
bright and sleepless.
We’ll be like
the groggy
summer days,
a cold beer
in the park.
I’ll meet you
after your shift
as evening sky
seeps into morning,
and the drunks
make their way
home, battle worn
and weary.

We’ll walk the streets,
ragged and broken
and
young and reckless.
I’ll bend over
to tie my laces
and you’ll look
at the curve of
my body.
You’ll brush your
callused hands
along my face
and we will know
no pain.

We’ll be
beautiful
together
you
and I.
Just you wait
and see.

The morning sky
will open up
at last,
bright and clear
and endless
and true.
We’ll forget
that we were
ever lost
and that we
were ever broken.
Our laughter will
ring out in the sun.
I will hold your hand
in mine
and we will know
no pain.