I hold memories of my mother
dearly
I tuck them away in
my woeful womb.
She says that men and women are at war
have always been at war.
Look at me
she says.
I look.
Look now
at your grandmother.
– Meysa Addeh
Toying with 26 letters
I hold memories of my mother
dearly
I tuck them away in
my woeful womb.
She says that men and women are at war
have always been at war.
Look at me
she says.
I look.
Look now
at your grandmother.
– Meysa Addeh
I have soft spots
for broken things
broken people.
My finger
teeters around their wounds
sometimes the wounds
they tell tales
and sometimes
the wounds
they swallow my finger
whole.
– Meysa Addeh
Like flirting with a cigarette, studying it
teasing it between these slender fingers.
Turning it this way
that way
and putting it out after one
measly puff.
You know,
before the cancer seeps in
like that.
– Meysa Addeh
my lover
he once told me
that he would like to be tattooed onto me
but between my ribs pounding with the octaves of his words
my skin delirious for his curious touch
and my mind
immersed with the thrill that he brought forth
I forgot to tell him
I forgot to tell him that I didn’t like tattoos
– Meysa Addeh
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
you feel a storm in your stomach
you move fast
you etch his name above your navel with hungry fingers
– Meysa Addeh
I am a writer
and I’ve always known it.
Even when my feeble self-esteem conspired
against my urge to pick up a
pen. I carried it around
like you carry relics, my pens
remained tethered to them,
I write now.
Perhaps because I am not much of
a talker.
– Meysa Addeh
Poetry doesn’t belong to those who write it; it belongs those who need it.
Mario Ruoppolo