That night, jazz reigned by anapests-and-ink, literature
Literature
That night, jazz reigned
An elderly gentlemen in a tweed suit twirled a lit up hula hoop, borrowed from the twenty-something girl in cut off shorts and a blue wig next to him. A cloud of cotton candy vape smoke drifted across the crowd, blending with the scent of fried pickles and kettle corn. On the stage, an emoji robot face created from fluorescent tubes provided a pulsing backdrop to a pianist, a saxophonist, an accordion player, and a man working an entire bank of synthesizers. My French wasn’t good enough to understand all the lyrics, but Caravan Palace had me just as entranced as everyone else who had stumbled on this unique corner of the Jazz Festival. I bounced up and down like I was in a European disco, while a young couple made enough room to waltz in front of me and two of my brothers shouted lyrics back to the chanteuse on the stage. In this crowd of old and young, listening to this blend of electronica and big band, I felt myself soaring. My heart pounded; my cheeks ached from smiling so widely.
I lie awake in the middle of the night because Pain won’t let me sleep. There’s an emptiness on my left side where the ghost of ovary past rattles its chains and screams the endo is still eating us alive! I’ve been reassured by doctors that the endo is not still eating me alive. They stopped my periods, they sliced me open, excised, cauterized, and gently nudged organs back into place. What I’m feeling now is after effects. Side effects. Chemical miscommunication between body and brain, caused by decreasing one medication from 1500 milligrams to 1200. But the empty space won’t stop screaming. And the lance now perpetually piercing my side laughs. I lie awake and remind myself that these tears are a chemical imbalance, nothing more and nothing less, and the screaming stabbing aching hole is a memory, not a truth.
The Weight We Carry by anapests-and-ink, literature
Literature
The Weight We Carry
When I say my bag is heavy,
I don’t mean the fifty
pounds of textbooks
I stuff it with, filled
to bursting, then
take the stairs two
at a time to hear
my abdominal muscles scream
and feel my breath flee,
never looking back.
When I say my bag is heavy,
I don’t mean in pounds,
kilograms, ounces or stones—
maybe stones
the kind that Virginia Woolf
lined her pockets with
when she walked
into the Ouse.
When I say my bag is heavy,
I mean that Atlas staggered
under this weight,
and when my therapist asks
“Do you feel strong?”
I feel the crushing
of my collarbone
and answer truthfully,
“No.”
Paris is a vague childhood memory, the kind that floats like a wisp of cloud across your mind. Hot chocolate in a big mug, melted strands like seaweed on the surface; the bite and sweetness of mandarin oranges; a little pink bottle of l’eau de toilette— Real French perfume my parents told me. I still have that little pink bottle, even though now it smells like carbonated alcohol. The Paris I visited in my childhood hides there, in a squat pink bottle, waiting for the genie to emerge.
My Pain is Like an Old Friend by anapests-and-ink, literature
Literature
My Pain is Like an Old Friend
It’s the kind of friend
you can’t really remember
how you met, or why
you still hang out.
The kind of friend
who gives you a monkey’s paw
and tells you it works
just like a genie’s lamp,
go ahead, make a wish.
The kind of friend
your Momma warned you about,
who gets you hooked on drugs
and drags you down dark alleys.
The kind of friend
who takes you to the banks
of a wide river, and says
stay here. Float for a while.
Drift on the meditation of agony,
and tell me what you learn.