good friends will give you pens
and let you cry about the same thing
over and over
like it's the first time they've heard it

deaf eyes, blind ears, pens down!

two of my English Teachers,
from high school and college
from way way back when,
i requested, critiqued my poems,
cause they could, ex-teachers...et al

They said:
Your emails are too short,
your poems are too long,
we recommend that your
quit this, do what we say:

pens down!

Your poems are travelogues
to places in your mind, we’ve
got no interest in visiting, Egypt
and Exile, cemeteries in a privy,
time to get a new travel agency!!!

Your imagery, ars obscura to us,
everyone but you, despite too many
copious notes, which proves our point,
you need to
smile more and write less.

Just because you’ve got creases,
lines all across your face, doesn’t
mean any wisdom came with them,
nor did you listen in our classes,
we suggest, resolutely, give it a rest.

all the best, & do  not ask again

I gave the boy with the pretty frame-worthy eyes a pen the other day in class,

I switched the top of the black one I gave him to the blue that I used, and vice verse-a giving him a blue-black pen and me a black-blue one.

To him, in that moment,
I was just goofing off in class instead of listening to the teacher yap,

But to me, the pens and the colors meant something,
The day I made that blue-black pen, I was trying to make me and him,
The blue me, the black him, and together, us.
It was my heart,
And me giving him the blue-black pen was in a way, me giving him my love.

Maybe he missed the message in between the lines, or maybe he chose to by pass it,
Or maybe,
What I thought we had going on, was a delusion,
Maybe it was only one sided, and the connection was all in my head,

Perhaps I should’ve left the pens alone,
leaving my feelings unknown, and the lack of reciprocation would’ve hurt a little less,
But now my heart aches,
Especially whenever I see that cursed blue-black pen.

My pen is leaking
ink pooling into my pocket protector
the one I’ve had since before the new math
My uncle gave it to me – I remember
it’s got the logo of his insurance company on it.
that and, now the ink stain.

Ink running through the cracks in the pocket protector
leaking where uncle’s meat thermometer pushed through tight plastic
staining a once yellow shirt

Stopping by the dry-cleaner for pick up
the vendor says she couldn’t get it all out
but it’s better than it was.
Hands me a small plastic sandwich bag filled with strips of paper
the size of those you see on magnets
for fridge poems

“Don’t know where these came from” she says, “****** near ruined my dryer
spinning around there – clogging up the air exhaust”

words……
I whisper under my breath

From the ink.  
The words in the pen
would not go unnoticed.

I pay her – grab my shirt, my jacket, my tie
grab the baggie of words
in no particular order
thank her
and with the welcome bell’s ding
I head into the street
a very satisfied customer

****** pen is still leaking by the time I get home
It’s leaking tears by now
tears that fill the ink well of my memory
dip and scribble dip and scribble

Thoughts almost painful
long forgotten
or so I thought
Last days on Brunswick Avenue
knowing I would have to return to school
emptying that huge street-facing bedroom
I got a lot of miles looking out of those windows
if I wrote a lot
I don’t remember
Late nights, very early mornings listening to
the hourly chime of that nameless clock
that made up the entire downtown Toronto skyline back in the day

The words that dotted the paper sometimes
sometimes made no sense
my friends politely remarking
“That’s good.  I like it” were unhelpful

Further future desperation wasn’t far
just need a receipt or a bar napkin or
a box from a Big Mac ripped into 4x2x1x2x4
whatever I could get my hands on
just trying to appease the leaking pen
from getting too far ahead of my regretful memory.

IOUs, shopping lists, debits to society
love poems, goodbye notes, “I miss you”
they’re all there, we just have to remember what they are

Words write themselves.  
The ink, the tears
the blood, the fridge magnets
have already formed the words.
I am the one with the ideas
when I meet a new lover or
fall out of favour with an “ex” – yet again or
attempt to describe three shades of orange or
when I want to remember to pick up pickles

They are stuck in the pen
until I am ****** good and ready
with the roll of the ball-point
to see where the words land this time.

drip
drip
drip

Pens
were made
to remind me
that I still have something
to hold on to.

Pages
do exist
to make me understand
that they lived
for me to continue.

Words
are there
to show to me
that I am not alone.

Poetry
has its own ways
of telling me
that I am home.

there are days
i only feel like a burden.
someone who fills backseats
so that someone could be at the front.
and the weight of my own bones
are too heavy for a family name to carry.
heavy enough to crush a sorry girl.
my breaths are sometimes apologies
people refuse to hear.
im sorry if i am this way.
i wish i could be something more.

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 a talker.

There's dirt under my fingernails
There's pen marks on my hand
I don't know how they got there
I just don't understand
I'm curled up in a corner
My stomach is tied in knots
There's something crawling in my throat
I can't connect the dots
I've lost the feeling in my arm
From clutching it to my head
Crying up the distance
That they should have made instead
Faintly in the backdrop
They simmer in something mean
I wash my hand with soapy water
But the marks can still be seen
All I hear are glasses
They smash towords the floor
All I smell is putrid gas
From the night out just before
I'm getting kind of sleepy
And we're past the midnight mark
But it's difficult to dream
When the dreams you made are dark
But nontheless I'm sleeping
I move but make no sound
And I wake up in the morning
There's empty bottles all around
I don't know what happened to you
Because the laughter falls like sand
But there's dirt under my fingernails
And pen marks on my hands.

- Anisah Mariah