pathways - rainer maria rilke

[luckyzukky]

Understand, I'll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.

I'll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:

You come too.

(rainer maria rilke)
(source)

september tomatoes - karina borowicz

[luckyzukky]

It feels cruel. Something in me isn't ready
to let go of summer so easily. To destroy
what I've carefully cultivated all these months.
Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit.

(karina borowicz)
(source)

sometimes silence is the loudest kind of noise - bassey ikpi

[luckyzukky]

Sometimes silence is the loudest kind of noise
Like sometimes it was best when
Girls were girls and boys were boys.
Like back when freeze tag was a mating dance.
Like back when "Do Over" meant you got another chance.
Like back when anxiety was worrying if Wonder Woman would make it out alive.
Like back when freedom was sliding backwards on a slide.
Like back when success was jumping off a swing and
Landing on your feet, then
Doing it all over again.
Like new shoes made you run faster.
Like getting Ms. Gross again for math was a disaster.
Like failure was a word we hadn’t even learned to spell yet.
Like promises were sealed and kept with pinky bets.
Like a challenge was a double dare.
Like ugly was a cock-eyed stare.

And you liked it...
Like when you flipped your eyelids inside out
To impress that boy across the room,
'Cause that’s all it took.
And there was no such thing as too soon,
As long as you checked the right box in that note from across the room,
The one that he... passed her.
Back when, "I don’t know, maybe" was a legitimate answer.
Back when, "I need space" meant he needed more elbow room to draw,
So he got on the floor and he colored outside the lines.
Like the lines of color were on the floor,

So we just existed in sandboxes and playgrounds.
And we hop-scotched and dodgeballed
And everything I needed to know, I learned in a shopping mall.
Like don’t wander off on your own,
Like know who you are,
Like know where you came from,
Like never let go of your mother’s hand no matter what you do,
Like if you get lost, just stand there until someone finds you,
And someone will always look for you
Because someone will always miss you
And someone will always find you
And when you cry, someone will always remind you
In that quiet, quiet lullaby voice,
That sometimes silence is the loudest kind of noise.

( reading )

(bassey ikpi)
(source)

the myth of music - rachel m. harper

[luckyzukky]

If music can be passed on
like brown eyes or a strong
left hook, this melody
is my inheritance, lineage traced
through a title track,
displayed on an album cover
that you pin to the wall
as art, oral history taught
on a record player, the lessons
sealed into the grooves like fact.
This is the only myth I know.
I sit on the hardwood
floors of a damp November,
my brother dealing cards
from an incomplete deck,
and I don't realize that this
moment is the definition
of family, collective memory
cut in rough-textured tones,
the voice of a horn so familiar
I don't know I'm listening,
Don't know I'm singing,
a child's improvisation
of Giant Steps or Impressions
songs without lyrics
can still be sung.

In six months, when my mother
is 2,000 miles away, deciding
if she wants to come home,
I will have forgotten
this moment, the security
of her footsteps, the warmth
of a radiator on my back, and you
present in the sound of typing
your own accompaniment,
multiphonics disguised as chords
in a distant room, speakers set
on high to fill the whole house
with your spirit, your call
as a declaration of love.

But the music will remain.
The timeless notes of jazz
too personal to play out loud,
stay locked in the rhythm
of my childhood, memories fading
like the words of a lullaby,
come to life in a saxophone's blow.
They lie when they say
music is universal—this is my song,
the notes like fingerprints
as delicate as breath.
I will not share this air
with anyone
but you.

(rachel m. harper)
(source)