{"id":3044,"date":"2017-07-24T00:42:08","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T00:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=3044"},"modified":"2017-07-24T00:42:08","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T00:42:08","slug":"alainah-aamir-summer-2017","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/alainah-aamir-summer-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Alainah Aamir, Summer 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Airport poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>airports always remind me of someone \u2013<br \/>\nbut never a Someone.<\/p>\n<p>The thought is always<br \/>\nvariable, always a different one<br \/>\nfrom the one I thought of the last time<br \/>\nthe plane took off only to settle a short<br \/>\nforty-eight minutes later,<\/p>\n<p>the dust settles soon enough, and so do I<\/p>\n<p>The last time, she had black hair<br \/>\nnot an easy-to-stomach brown<br \/>\npitch black, kind of like the way<br \/>\nwe left things.<\/p>\n<p>The time before, he was empty<br \/>\nand we meant nothing to one another<br \/>\nbut every time he called<br \/>\nmy conscience didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The summer before last, he was nothing<br \/>\nbut a manifestation of all the things<br \/>\nI couldn\u2019t have but<br \/>\nasked for anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Vancouver, it was the boy<br \/>\nwho sat with me when the rain fell<br \/>\nsomewhere near Shaukat Khanum<br \/>\nand stayed even when the storm cleared<br \/>\nalthough our cars were parked in the driveway.<\/p>\n<p>Every road trip I have taken comes with a subplot<br \/>\nUnravelling, undressing in the footnotes<br \/>\nthe boy with an ache in his bones and his ego<br \/>\nthis boy, that boy, the stench of mediocrity<br \/>\nkings of entitlement &#8211; singing buzzing calling<br \/>\nfour in the morning or as the sun begins to set<\/p>\n<p>This time, though \u2013 it\u2019s a little different.<\/p>\n<p>I know my identities, priorities<br \/>\nshift like the decade\u2019s last eclipses fast forwarded<br \/>\nand played on a loop, over and over<br \/>\nuntil even the blood that pours out of me resembles moonshine<\/p>\n<p>but here\u2019s a thought<br \/>\nI am a person with a shifting axis<br \/>\na compass in the desert in the heart of a sand dune<br \/>\nyou know how it goes.<\/p>\n<p>It is always a different chapter<br \/>\nwhen it is my life<br \/>\nalways a funny story always and<br \/>\nit\u2019s complicated, and see I could<\/p>\n<p>take my identities and compartmentalize<br \/>\nthem based on the level of glitter oozing from<br \/>\nthe poems I was writing<br \/>\nabout the newest dalliance<br \/>\nthat I knew I would be wrong about eventually<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cthe bomb is going off no matter what we do,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>might as well just sit and watch it happen\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>All I remember is the person I am<br \/>\nevery time the latest horseman approached me<br \/>\nwith a looking glass to my face<br \/>\npronouncing us carpenter and work-in-progress<\/p>\n<p>maybe the poems have never been about anybody else,<br \/>\nmaybe each time it was a new fairytale concocted<br \/>\nby the girl who first read <em>La Belle Dame Sans Merci<\/em><br \/>\nfrom her sister\u2019s course book when she was ten years old.<\/p>\n<p>maybe I am everyone I have ever written about.<\/p>\n<p>Today I am hurling thoughts into the abyss<br \/>\nat lightning bolt speed \u2013 each will cause damage<br \/>\nset forests aflame<br \/>\nalter lives and perspectives<br \/>\nchange the night to day and back again<\/p>\n<p>but today the abyss will stare back<br \/>\nand play the devil\u2019s advocate<br \/>\nwith two faces<\/p>\n<p>1. one is a carpenter<br \/>\n2. the other is its work-in-progress reflection<br \/>\n3. I am both.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>McLennan Library, 3:30 AM<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Each time your equations fall through<br \/>\nyou click your tongue impatiently,<br \/>\ntear off the page and you start again.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder,<br \/>\nwill you do the same to her?<\/p>\n<p>All of this wood and I am thinking<br \/>\nof all the coffee I floated into<br \/>\nall the Urdu poetry I walked into<br \/>\nall his traps I fell headfirst into<\/p>\n<p>A little wooden soldier beats a drum<br \/>\non my heart tonight. Then he cages it.<br \/>\nI breathe deeply but it is to no avail,<br \/>\nthere is no air left in the library or the planet<br \/>\nand maybe I should go home and sleep<\/p>\n<p>but if I am to let the sea sail my ship, what use am I?<\/p>\n<p>I imagine a brown eyed woman<br \/>\ndrive to the ocean in a bright blue car.<\/p>\n<p>I imagine that she stops the ignition, opens the door<br \/>\nand steps out to breathe for a moment.<\/p>\n<p>I imagine that she starts the car once more,<br \/>\nbut instead of driving away she drives into the ocean.<\/p>\n<p>You are a different story.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine an ocean, empty blue clear water beautiful<br \/>\nthen imagine hellfire, scorching filling burning reminder<br \/>\nof every sharp edge you have ever run your fingers on<br \/>\njust to see what happens, even though you already know.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine the lovechild of those two feelings \u2013<br \/>\nmultiply it with either infinity or all the universe\u2019s stars<br \/>\nwhichever one scorches harder.<\/p>\n<p>I like the way it hurts almost as much as life itself.<\/p>\n<p>Do you see it,<br \/>\nall those white hot red hot colours streaking the sky tonight?<\/p>\n<p>Feel the pain with me for a moment,<br \/>\nf o c u s m y l o v e<\/p>\n<p>that is how you make me feel.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Airport poetry airports always remind me of someone \u2013 but never a Someone. The thought is always variable, always a different one from the one I thought of the last time the plane took off only to settle a short forty-eight minutes later, the dust settles soon enough, and so do I The last time, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3044","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alainah Aamir, Summer 2017 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/alainah-aamir-summer-2017\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alainah Aamir, Summer 2017 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Airport poetry airports always remind me of someone \u2013 but never a Someone. 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