Love and Coffee Nocturne
It’s hard to understand the interplay
of when you are and are not here.
I can feel your absence sometimes when you are closer than my jugular
and feel your presence when I’m alone, staring down at city lights
from a rooftop, trying not to remember
that every person below knows you, dances a while
and moves on, even if they look like cockroaches from up here.
It’s a shame I can’t say “Vosotros” in my mother tongue.
“Y’all” just doesn’t sound the same, so I can’t say that.
I don’t believe in a trinity, I believe in unity
but
I see you in another person’s face, brightly as Polaris on a clear night
and in every spider web, clear as darkness on a white canvas.
And taste your presence in every kiss, as dark as black coffee and twice as sobering.
The Sufi poets have always talked about being drunk with love,
a feeling as alien to me as the ultraviolet vision of insects,
or the ability to see multitudes of angels frolicking in haystacks.
Love is as stark and as sober as the first clear, crisp night you can feel frost in the air.
Anyone who seeks it is mad.
And anyone who does not is dead.
--Dave Ashal
Goodbye
When I found out the truth about you
you ceased to be flesh and blood
and became something made of hollow glass,
brittle and fragile.
A vessel for lies and lust,
and clouded with cocaine dust.
The sharp exhale of my breath
knocked you off
my love-hewn pedestal.
You hit the ground hard, and
shattered in a thousand fragments.
I picked up a shard and cut my arm,
watched the warm blood drip.
It was something real…
I dipped a brush in the blood and
painted a picture of my broken heart.
I locked it in a drawer.
But I look at it now and then,
to remind me of the pain.
It will fade and crumble in time,
and vanish with the memories
of how I believed you to be.
--Anne Rettenberg
Mania
I feel like a rad motherfucker.
I am a rad motherfucker.
I will say it again and again.
I feel like myself. I feel real. I feel alive.
I didn’t feel alive before, I felt dead, inside and out.
My lungs had no space for any more air. Every breath was a slap to the face, a swift kick to the shin, a hurtful remark.
My mind was a swirling rush of insecurity and instability.
I feel now.
I can ride my bike forever and ever. I can fight any battle.
I am channeling revolutionary and righteous and sexual passion.
My colors are more vibrant.
The smells around me are so strong they manifest almost visibly.
My sneezes are all-engulfing.
I will stay up every night so I can be alive that much longer every day.
This is so real, it seems like a dream.
This is realer than a dream could ever be.
I will be awake tonight until the dawn cracks and then I will go through the day half asleep and breathing coffee.
My blood will be caffeinated.
My hair will be caffeinated.
My thoughts will be caffeinated, contaminated, and I will eventually crash.
I will enjoy every second of it.
I will notice every second of it.
It will all be forgotten.
Days will pass, as they have.
It was yesterday, yesterday, but now tomorrow is yesterday and I’ve made it through another month.
I will write, I will dance every moment, I will sing at the top of my lungs as I ride through the streets and I will be alive.
I will play.
I will be young again, inquisitive and curious and I will want to hug every beautiful being.
I will be a rad motherfucker.
I will be an eager schoolboy.
I will be an eager schoolgirl.
I will be sweet and cute and I will smell like peppermint.
My dexterous hands will grasp rungs like my wakened mind will grasp concepts.
My arms, exercised as they are, will pull me up ladders and climb me up buildings.
My legs will brace me, propel me, race me against a thousand steel and aluminum cars.
And I will win.
And I will drink tea to celebrate.
I am sanguine.
I like easy, laidback melodies that remind me of the coming spring.
I like punk rock that makes me want to smash windows.
I like adventure, blossoming trees and wind that chills bones and forests with virgin white snow and I like the dry grass of summer to play and fall in love and chase friends in.
Aloft on a cool breeze during a hot day I forget the bonechills of winter.
High on the clear, cold air that breathes so easy I forget the muggy air that weights my lungs.
Sweating in clothes of flannel and wool I forget the days when the air was hotter than flannel and wool and so were my passions.
Every challenge that comes my way, every obstacle is naught but another adventure, a story to tell my friends when I should see them again.
Every stranger is a friend waiting to tell me their stories, their adventures and then we’ll take each other’s hands and run to an adventure together.
Although it is still winter, my bones are not cold.
My bones have a fire that warms the air around me.
My heart beats and the arctic winds shy away.
I will not be frozen.
I hear songs that hearken back to old cities with cobbled streets.
My world is romantic; rose colored glasses separate me from a gray world.
Gray, but not for long. My world is a coloring book and my footsteps color in, color outside the lines.
My ideals lead the way for each footstep.
Nothing can stop my adventures, My feet keep pedaling the pedals that turn the wheels that bring me to a new place in this big city.
Nothing can stop me, not a thought, not a reason, not heartbreak or the burn in my legs that tells me just how alive I am.
Heartbreak is just another romantic story, one of those zephyrs to catch me and pull me along, a breeze that begets hurricane force winds that demolish my mental defenses.
Love is a nascent hurricane, all engulfing.
I can’t stop laughing.
Every situation that suggests the slightest humor brings me to tears.
Today when I was burnt out, my mind floated back,
parachuted slowly into the ocean of my emotions, and I remembered the feeling of heartbreak and fear.
Thunder and lightning are the closest metaphors for heartbreak and fear.
They inspire in our souls the desire to run for cover, to our mother’s bosom.
--Jacob Fahrer
About the poets in this issue
Dave Ashal is a university student, blogger and mental health worker in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Anne Rettenberg is a psychotherapist in New York City and is editor of Eat a Peach.
Jacob Fahrer is a high school student and blogger in New York City.