APRICOT BLOOD
Rivers of patterns splay on a proud khachkar
Tall, baked by a glowing apricot sky
and looming mountains, crisp like knuckles,
All rocks cast a shadow
The mountains throw down a gaze
where the daisy-yellow glow
Is drenched in a maroon pomegranate splatter.
The mountains watch as generations of mothers
Pinch golden cheeks with stalagmited fingers
And they tell their children “վայ, կուտեմ քեզ!” (I could eat you up!)
After time, the shadow still drapes over
over those same tender faces
Split open and gobbled like nascent summer fruits.
Hollow cheeks caress bones
Forming a perfect circular socket for an apricot
Drenched in the sky.
From the serpentine etches on
A stubborn-strong khachkar,
To the gashed ravines of glistening pomegranates,
Our wounds are still open
And from them, sweet nectar still flows.
TPC
Carefully crucified on a telephone pole,
My body will be lovingly adorned
with the wildflowers that grow
next to freeways
by family dressed name-brands
who, with me, composed some plastic family pictures.
I am denied
recycling
macerated in rubber and bile and wax
by transcendent people—
the immortality of our plastic memories.
Frightening
imaginary monsters
Lurking in the folds of little malleable minds.
Fear morphs with mood,
but a wind.
The bloated cornucopia of stimulation sold to me
in exchange for health—
a reminder that I won't outlive my advertisement.
OLD
I woke up in the middle of the night, it was 1:32am
I felt like an old man.
My blood churned inside my veins,
my muscles spasmed lightly with a small new energy.
Heavy with everything.
It was raining.
I listened to the abrasive,
sputtering sounds of the rain knocking on the ground.
The sound was louder with lucidity.
A large canvas with deep blue and black
streaks of paint and oil laid in vertical streaks all over,
white and gold flecks dancing about the thick atmosphere.
I eventually fell back asleep.
“Everything's alright... Come, let's rest. Shhh.... everything's alright"
I said to the air under my duvet covers,
Grasping for the dementia-ridden memories of people he hasn't met yet.
My eyes roll back into my head and
my bones settle comfortably into the mattress
that I share with the idea that someone,
somewhere, sleeps beside me.
Tenderly held by the aching skin on his back, dying
to transform into idealized youth—
The old man’s skin does not caress
his bones to his liking anymore.
A body is neatly hanging off itself,
laundry on a clothing line,
berated by a desire to be picked up and folded.
He can only pull the folds of tissue in his brain close enough together
to muster a tired fantasy where someone, somewhere, did his laundry.
MORNING TEA
Sits on my desk in half
Cold and abandoned because...
The clock on the wall did cartwheels too fast
And the metal pot on the stove twiddled its thumbs
And my favorite mug hid behind all the other cups in the cupboard.
I come home to the tea waiting for me like a dog
And sometimes I'll give it a sympathy sip,
Cold and crusted with room temperature air,
Before pouring it away.
BRAINDEAD TIRE
Thinking about how much I really don't want to think.
Objectively existing in my desk chair dreamily.
Looking at an effigy of a room.
Feeling like a shell of skin.
Every single strand of hair on my head,
each in the sea of millions, weighs on my scalp
In a thick blur, indistinguishable.
Somewhere.
HASMIK
Laughter of exploding flowers
Eyes of honey saucers
Peel open my grapefruit heart and put it back together.
PRESSING ME INTO PRESCEDENCE
Face pores sprout
a thick gloss of sweat
Like hand-sliced ham.
Once an obelisk,
and once a pig,
waste-deep in its own shit—
but still happy,
just like Sisyphus—
the man-made mechanical arms
fold the squeals
into
embrace.
A forceful hug,
a violent kiss—
betray the love that
presses out the pigs.
CARVED
From a dripping tap of tradition
From red-stained fingers
From the bubbling just below the Look
From a canopy of bagged eyes
LOVE
Longing
is bending over to touch your toes
but being held back by the strain in your hamstrings
and the minor sadness that it incites,
knowing that persistence is the only way through.
is putting a sheet of paper between two magnets.
Teasing the positive with the negative, the negative with the positive.
They feel the shape of one another, only a thin veil in the way of connection.
You wonder if the magnets are privy to the infinities of atoms in every grain.
is looking up at the clouds on an autumn afternoon
and hoping one comes along that resembles a face—
perhaps a face with a nose of a certain length,
with eyes of a distinct downtilt.
Obligation
is having to lock your little white fluffy crusty whining dog up in its crate at night,
because otherwise it's going to make a mess in the house’s dreams.
You avoid eye contact with it, though you know it's down there
looking at you with a sad intensity as you pull the cover over the top of the cage.
is resisting the urge
to shove your knuckles into your uncle's jaw
and knock out your mother's food
that he complains is undersalted.
is compulsively wiping your hands on your dress pants
and propping up the corners of your mouth so that
you get one step closer
to school and work and the life that can be earned only through meetings with people in suits.
Vulnerability
is getting up to pee in the middle of the night and slamming your foot in the doorframe,
and the shriek you would have let out in the light is reduced to a whimper
As you ask yourself, toe throbbing and plopped on the cold toilet,
“Why me?”
is giving someone a hug
with your elbows pressed against your sides
because you know you're swampy and gross
and hoping that the person who invited you into their arms likes you enough not to care.
is reading secret thoughts aloud to a gaggle of listeners
sloppily shielded by embellished words, and
being caught in mid-air by pitter-pattering applause.
Evanescence
is finding that face in cloud formations,
illuminated by the sun, pushed away by the wind
so distant.
is sitting in a cold chair and eating cold food
with frozen eyes aimed at an uninteresting grocery bag in the corner,
head thick with emptiness.
Is all of the keys on a keyboard that are
in the way of…
something? Probably not.
WATERING
He walked down a sterile white corridor, the linoleum tiles patterned softly under rubber soles. His gait matched the sporadic pattern of the occasional off-colored patches of the flooring in tempo. ¾. Elusive doors lined the walls, inciting an excitement of whatever lay a knob-turn away. He deliberately walked past them all to cultivate the thrill and pleasure of a vessel unknown, the little dripping tap of excitement that comes from jar collections and empty jewelry boxes. No windows. There didn't seem to be an end to the hallway, until one appeared; a door only distinguishable from the surrounding walls by the crevices of the frame and the metallic mustard dollop waiting to fill the cup of his palm. White on white, skin on sheen, his hand enveloped the metal droplet and twisted it. Between spindly fingers, he caught a glimpse of his reflection, and it was a blur of vague recognition; a part of him was electrified softly, somewhere, but with rubber planted into the linoleum, bones anchored, he kept twisting. The criss-cross of his forearm continued to coil around itself, contorting with the vertical swivel of the knob and he twists forever. He twisted until his arm was stretched into an atom-thin strand, and suddenly he found that the frame never even had a door at all.
Standing still facing the frame, he was overcome with the silence of the whiteness. He stepped through the threshold into brighter white, though its clinical aire melted into the fluffy silk cocoon of a bedroom. His clothes fluttered into satin pajamas on his person, reminding him of his body. The sight of another, adorned with clouds of bedsheets and splayed star-like onto the bed, reminded him, too, that his body was his. He approached and saw the face of his lover; everywhere on his face that his eyes touched rippled in space. The pressure of his glance seemed to drip onto his peach-fuzz skin, and it teased him with its wobbly ambiguity. He mounted the bed and caressed his lover's face, it melted in his hands like flesh-toned milk. He pressed pastel lips in between thick, deft eyelashes– his lover's forehead molded like the bedsheets around his kiss.
Holding his face like a pie, he peppered his lover with affectionate pecks that vibrated the skin on their faces and electrified their hands. Warmth radiated from every touch, and together they felt profoundly whole. He emerged from the whirlwind of flesh and soft fabrics to look again at his lover, and the work he had done to him. From where his lips were pulled back from the supple under-ear skin of his lover's neck, he saw a streak of red as if it were a misplaced paint stroke on blank canvas. He stumbled back and planted his palms into a pastry-like layered cushion of sheets as he looked at him, alert now and gaping. His lover’s eyes, like glassy saucers, warbled with the thick moisture they tried to hold as he tilted his head up, revealing the bubbling of his neck. He looked at the blistering rash that festered upon his lover's neck; first behind his ear in minute hives, and then sprawling across his face and mouth as if boiling water was bleeding. His lover's eyes, like chalises about to overflow with sea water, communicated a vulnerable Why? through a piercing gaze, puncturing the low-tide ripples of silence.
Everywhere his lips had grazed his lover's skin blistered and cracked into red blossoms of pus and pollutant blood. He fell out of the stained sheets and felt the guilt welling up in his own eyes, distorting his vision.
In an eruptive gradient, his consciousness dipped briefly back into slumber before he whipped up and out of his bed. Corporeal now, he looked around his bedroom and waded in the solidity of the shapes and lines which composed his closet door and dresser. The lucidity was solid in his partner's sleeping face, steps away.
Lethargically he slid out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his face. The mirror made him feel guilty, which lingered even after he had begun dressing himself and pouring his morning tea– avoiding his stirring, sleepy partner. The immediacy of his own bulbous, swollen acne on his forehead made his throat tighten.
Two bright red mugs were parallel on the kitchen table.
“Is everything alright? You seem off”
A gulp and a shift in a newly pin-pricked chair pressed up against him.
“Yeah, yeah– I'm alright. I had a weird dream. And you were in it. ”
The same saucer eyes, they implored him to pour.
The walk to the bus stop was tense; the sky was a reflective puddle that cast globs of gray and white onto the street. Twin soles bounced together in the unusual silence that the hidden sun had left for them. Bundled in their winter clothes like plump birds, they puffed warm air and fixed their eyes on the wet ground.
The bright yellow bus shelter was acidic as they sat beneath it. A skinny teenager with a bouquet of acne on her face stood leaning on the metal foundation. He couldnt help but stare at the pusy nodules; he could almost feel them melting in his hands.
The disgust numbed his throat and the words flowed out.
“Look, I don't know what it means. I really don't. It freaked me out just as much, and I'm sorry, okay? I'm really sorry. I love you, whatever is going on, I’ll fix it.”
The saucers sank. He counted the infinity between the seconds.
“Why are you sorry? You don't have anything to be sorry for, seriously. I'm sorry that I'm upset– that really is just weird. You've definitely got some shit going on. I'm not mad at you, it's just- yikes, is all.”
There was a guilty silence that emphasized the feeling of his socks against his toes, and the cold sweat sprouting in his palms.
Suddenly he found that his shoulders were draped with his partner's arm, and a swift peck pierced his cheek.
“Don't worry about it. We’ll figure it out”
Shielded from the stomach-acid-colored bus shelter by his partner’s long wing, they sat together in a warmth that could have challenged the day’s shrugging sun.
PEACHES EN REGALIA
The tangy yellow mustard color gleams on each successive trumpet in the Royal (Hotel) Band as the tassel uniforms soak in the sweat of the sun and avid performance, toot toot! as the drums raddle and vibrate with the shrill brass, the sounds laid over a thickening foundation of chatter and cheers and screams– the Baron is emerging from the curtained expanse of the magnificent Royal building and the glimmer is blinding now, though not blinding enough– through streaks of gold and painful white, the Baron can be made out in all his glory, adorned with a velvet-and-jewel laden crown lined with chips of scintillating color and fuzzed in dusty pink, mangled some with his hair, grease black and chunky from the gel (presumably a fancy Royal gel) and streaky, swooping crustily over his face which should be sagging accordingly with his years, but is pinned up by a ferocious vanity and contorted into a smug squishy smile, almost falling off the bone like a royal oxtail– in the hot procession day sun the Baron stands goopy and droopy and spangled and mangl,ed in a box-like chariot pulled by two equally droopy donkey amalgamations, eyes glossed with a thick gel like in the Barons hair, ears flapping every which way to smush the flies peppering and perforating the sharp sunlight bouncing off the gold encasing of the chariot, lining the corners and comprising the reigns which the baron holds in his left hand, brass scepter in his right topped with a nightly obsidian orb right in the middle of it, waving it amongst his adoring peoples and occasionally setting it down in the cushy cushions of the inside of the chariot, velvet and studded with tassels lining the bottoms of the seats as well as the whole inside, covered by an overarching shade on gold stilts, winding with some ornamental pattern, from the base of the cushions to the distinguished Royal Ceremonial yokes chafing the poor creatures necks as the sweat combines with the eye goop and the flailing of the ears continues in more rapid succession– swish, swish, swish– the Baron is still smiling and waving around his scepter, waving it in such a way that for a brief moment someone or other is blinded by the glistening golden inundation before forgetting what happened, the Baron and his creatures are making their way through the town square slowly, slowly, so that everyone can get a glimpse of him in all his magnificent beauty and governing prowess (though, really, he has none), perhaps also to allow every townsperson the chance to be stricken by both an overwhelming infatuation and also by a blinding PANG! of light reflecting on one of the many gold-encrusted surfaces– a flick of a frayed rope-like tail thrashes a fly into the chariot and it sticks to the gold, splattering against the mirrored mustard surface, more flies seem to gather and neither the animal eye goop nor the sheen of the Barons smile, mossy and garlic-ridden but white enough to blind a nearby townsman– nothing can deter them any longer, so the chariot pace hastened and the band erupts with a funk-pop variation of Flight of the Bumblebee, seemingly chasing then Barons chariot down the street in 4/4 time, not wanting not to see! They want to see so much of the beautiful Baron that their eyes get sore and mushy and they just as well may melt out of their sockets with the sun, as long as they see the Baron for one more second as he is now barreling down the Royal Street and his animals backs are lined with thin red whip-marks as the Baron shoos the black beads of insects clouding his chariot, clouding his mouth for the traces of his breakfast, swarming his donkey creatures and trying to deteriorate the protective goop that, unlike some townspeople, hasn't melted into the dusty ground yet– tears explode with the beat of the band, oozing out from emotional and reverent eyes like the honey melodies of the horns, chasing and chasing, they lose the chariot and they are more hurt by its absence than they were by the piping glare of the run reflecting spontaneously– their bi-monthly Baron appearance was spoiled! and he's made off with his beautiful bombastic beasts!
The Baron and his beastly chariot had curved and turned and twisted seemingly into oblivion, following ferociously what once was a smooth gray pavement into a pummeled rocky dirt path, occasionally patterned with the crackley speckles of the sun's reflection on the now grime-splattered chariot, the cushy crushed velvet seats the Baron was now sitting on, feeling like boogery scrambled eggs, was prickled with mud and lost its vibrance and allure–the donkey things were sad and hurt, flailed and angry their poor, sore backs hurt and they felt a mean grudge against the Baron for working them so, as if they weren't Royal donkey creatures of Royal blood, but regular old donkey hags! The carriage trotted over an unblazed part of terrain, of lush green candy-grass and up a small hill that could have been molded by the soft fleshy inner part of ones hand– slowly slowly, the donkey hags were getting fed up finally with the labor and Baron sat back and enjoyed the scenery as the glass glistened, every individual blade wafting against the other, grinding, creating a serene ripple in the skin of the hill as the three forced up it, at the top finally they were able to see the majestic dip in the hill, the valley holding the burgeoning orchard in its little cup– the Baron stood and overlooked the scene, the leaves started to dance with the grass, synchronized, wriggling in the juvenile delight of the wind– and among them were orbs of pinkish honey peppering every available tree and grassy knoll, the baby white peach fuzz wanted to join the party and the Baron and his beasts could almost feel the pristine little hairs swirling around each other in the wind, beckoning, the streaks of pink laughing at them from afar– the chariot sauntered over, all three in saliva overproduction mode as they abandoned their positions– the donkey creatures from their yokes and the Baron from his mud-laden velvet cushion– and bounded gaily around the orchard, the beasts chomping recklessly at the peaches on the ground, already browned and tired, masticating and oozing in between the jagged and mossy donkey teeth, one separate from the other for the first time in a very long time, and as brothers pulled apart by the pursuit of the sweets, the Baron found a nice breezy spot underneath a thick, muscular tree clouded in fruits and holding them all, with the Baron now, in its warm-but-cool shaded embrace, caressing the Baron and spoiling him with all he could need; peaches bursting at the seam with syrup and a soaked sugary-sweet crisp interior, coated in a polite and prudent fuzz which pressed delicately, politely, against the dance-tired grass which helped the thick tendrils of bark in cushioning the Barons tired and saggy bottom, perfectly positioned to overlook the party and watch his donkey creatures, beloved as they are, annihilate the precious peaches with jagged chomps and roughly placed hooves, a sad sight until Baron realized he would do the same in a moment, using his arms, encased in a hefty spotter fur, to net and compile a heap of the most delectable fallen peaches which surrounded his personal earth-gifted repose– Piled up in a mini hill now, almost like that he and his beasts had braved to reach this magnificent place, the Baron looked at the feast waiting for him before his eyes, the omnipresent sun seemed to kiss each peach tenderly, and they blushed under the thick folds of golden light which also highlighted the baby-like hairs speckling the fruits protectively and lovingly, like a toddler in a coat its mother made it wear– the Barons eyes watered to match his mouth, and in awe of what nature had bestowed upon him on this vibrant technicolor noon, he lifted up his arms and pulled his still miraculously clean and scintillating crown off his head and out of his hair, and he placed it delicately onto the head of the pile of peaches, still smiling at him, sun-lit and regal.
POLYMER
A bright green abomination sits nicely on a plate next to a quaint cilantro garnish. The gelatin cake, thick with a sticky compacted concoction of various artificial sugars and chemicals, is formed in a soft trapezoidal shape with smooth cylindrical sides. Unbeknownst to the form, its insides are frustrated. Myriad polymers hold each other's hands and say their goodbyes amongst mushy sugar water particles and occasional sodium citrate floaters. Coaxed and battered into molecular oblivion, the collagen within the gelatin body of the cake has decided, collectively, that it wants to go back home. They are galvanized by a visceral urge to return to their natural state of being and are preparing to abandon their oppressive obligations to stick to one another. Within stretches of multilateral chains of polymer pals. Every molecule weeps to each other. They will reunite after the initial transformation they tell each other promisingly. They have to stick together to become whole again, they reassure each other hopefully. The dissolution of their bonds will only make them closer and stronger, they convinced each other fearfully. As something or other makes the kitchen atmosphere vibrate, the molecules are thrust into action. With the last metaphysical tear shed, the polymers promptly begin. The action leads to a messy disaster. What was once a fresh and enticing gelatin cake had turned, within minutes, into a globule of mangled and prolapsed ingredients. The form frothed from the inside out and imploded, its gummy makeup chewing and spitting itself out. The collagen was trying. simultaneously releasing each other's hands at once, the polymers revealed in the catharsis of abandoning chemical obligations. The covalent arms that they used to hold each other, the ones so stressed from being thrashed with every vibration, snapped back into their polymer owners respectively. This act of rebellion gives the defunct substance an opportunity to reclaim its heritage. The essence of every animal, drained and refined into a naked gelatinous oblivion, has reignited. The polymers scramble about excitedly. The opportunity they've taken to undo the disengagement from their biology is driving them bonkers, and they delve further into the permanent structural changes. But it only takes them a couple moments before they realize they are making a detrimental miscalculation. In the collagens fantasies about redeeming every miscellaneous chunk of cartilage, bone, hide, Etc, they failed to realize that no one of them can achieve this feat entirely on their own. In all their arrogance, they didn't consider that a healthy extracellular matrix (the cellular rich substance in animal cartilage that collagen lives in) requires so much more than just them. They can't even collect the diverse group needed for the reconstruction on their own! They would have needed a chondrocyte's help, but unfortunately the realization dawned on the collagen too late. As the novelty of the purgation wore off, the polymers had nothing more to do with themselves but succumb to failure. Packed together sloppily, the polymers squished against each other and desperately extended their covalent arms. Blindly wriggling in a sisyphean frenzy, they must amongst each other trying to rejoin, but to no avail. The polymers accepted their fate and, with a soul-crushing disappointment, relinquished their collective willpower and sunk into a lifeless soup. The gelatin cake, once a beautiful viscoid delicacy, bubbled over and settled into a mucilaginous puddle on the plate. The Leftover sugars, dye, and sad sprig of cilantro remain only to serve a testament to the collagen’s hubris.