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writing is art still.
maintaining an honesty with language is important to me.
i write how i think. very fast.
in broken pieces that sometimes fit together.
because words are just words. not flowers.
Excerpts from in-progress chapbook, I Love You. I’m Sorry
a continuous collection of words in nineteen parts (so far). by aura b. emmanuel
1.2
my hand stems from yours as conjoined twins, life entangled
or until we let go
perhaps or not we do fit perfectly.
Adam’s hand and I’ll be Eve, your veins look dangerously large and your nails are more square
but that concludes the differences. Minus them, your pair could have grown from my wrists, and
belonged to me.
Best attempts not to push you from grace. but feed you
from my tree of life.
with my version of our hands I rain on us.
and if it pours, Adam carry me safe.
1.4
By the boat beach we lay and were explored by creatures small and small.
we had trespassed their domain,
On towels too blinding with color to have possibly grown from the earth,
we could not hide our foreignness.
The day was warm but still noses leaked.
And tissues like white peonies adorned the ground,
It didn’t matter.
we were hungry for each other instead.
Our sinful eyes burned greedily,
And our hands began to ache with longing.
Our stomachs full on pancakes made noise for rice.
And our feet entangled in our feet, made meandering walkways for caterpillars to dance.
We counted happy in the oddities of the strangers waltzing by.
Inventing stories of their lives the hours passed unnoticed, but time lingered…
Somehow we were young still.
The elements had not worn us,
Instead we emulated their vigor. Their radiance. Their calm.
Longing, to one with the water, and
journey the waves to places where beneath this dress was air.
And soft hums rang out melodically in rhythm to his drum.
1.6
Wait for yes.
(if you want it enough)
Knowing is certain as beautiful is tomorrow.
I know. I Yes you near or far, my heart sighs in relief. For its pulse now content on earth, since the form of your being near.
Deeply yes, though I keep secret this decisiveness.
You wait instead for graffiti on the walls as signs in the midnight hour. But while you wait, your heart is somewhere in Brooklyn, knowing.
The two of us stay patient hoping you’ll find your way home. Like a metronome since that April, it has persisted. And something outside of this sphere moves us in earthly orbit.
We wait for yes.
1.7
I wasn’t trying to love you like I do by accident.
Your smile told stories countless and with my days left on earth the sudden and overwhelming desire was to sit with tea under your fireplace and listen intently with my eyes to your everything told.
I like a good story. But, I don’t rememb-
Er
asking for this
feeling.
Peeling away from your neck, the only out was to run and don’t stop until you turn the corner out of sight.
Not giving chance for your version, which isn’t the same.
I’m sorry.
1.15
Today though, I am in.
sweet potato, carrot, lemon pound + cream cheese raspberry buttercream coconut.
(That’s what we are, mostly).
1.16
the wait
like rain collecting in a bucket, is laborious with each drop.
Yes solitude houses us in separate spheres and on occasional delight we collide, exchanging our solitude for ecstasy.
But the in-between is of years tarnished with aching joints.
And after running around the world, every distraction is exhausted,
but time persists and tortures me in your absence.
Perhaps you forget my shea flavored lips.
and
I plate you first like I saw ma do.
You must not remember.
For your world is enough. And I consume only those minutes allocated to my consumption.
But I can’t breathe without smelling you on my skin.
And I can’t close my eyes without tasting your smile.
Yet your ghost lingers spitting in my ear.
I can be my own half just fine.
But these days I’d rather not.
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