#intersection
I am not up on the bima
A cantor sings in his baritone voice that I do not have and I am not up on the bima
I am not up on the bima
“What’s the right choice to make as Jews?” the rabbi asks and I am not up on the bima
I am not up on the bima
I cut my hair and I “don’t have time” so I am not up on the bima
I am not up on the bima
It isn’t fair I’m scared of what’s mine and I am not up on the bima
How can I be up on the bima?
Sacrificing myself? Do you want to cut me in half so I can be up on the bima?
How can I be up on the bima?
I stand back by the shelves, away from the staff and I am definitely not up on the bima.
When will I be up on the bima?
Next Shabbat or years from now when I am welcome up on the bima?
When will I be up on the bima?
When my life is taught, all of it, not just some when I am up on the bima
I see others up on the bima
There’s never beings like me up on the bima
I see others up on the bima
Then I start seeing YOU up on the bima
I am not up on the bima
But YOU are. You’ve cut your hair, but you are not scared and YOU are up on the bima
I am up on the bima
Through your spirit because we are all one when there is someone up on the bima
I am up on the bima
Because you are there and we share not only a G-d but a pride in ourselves standing tall up on the bima
I am up on the bima
And if there is one place I belong, it’s: UP ON THE BIMA
Mar 28, 2020
Mar 28, 2020 at 6:39 PM UTC
two points hurling through the void
both independent events
happening to overlap
just a moment
thus I am content
with a mere intersection
of your plane with mine
Jun 13, 2019
Jun 13, 2019 at 12:58 PM UTC
The ruins between my ribs held us static
We were parallel lines that were never coincidental,
A could-have-been intersection that ceased to draw itself
Just before the point of tangency.
You told me it was I who stopped pursuing you,
That it was I who fashioned these rusts in my own gears.
Apathy was my choice,
Until I saw the concern that lay beyond your hostile mask
That left me wanting for the unknown.
Sep 15, 2018
Sep 15, 2018 at 4:30 AM UTC
He is an exponential function.
Small rate of change at the beginning,
But he grows fast when he reaches a certain age.
I am a function of a straight line.
A big constant slope since the beginning,
But I also have a y-intercept way bigger than zero.
Let our age be the inputs,
And our maturity be the outputs.
At year zero,
We didn’t know each other.
We didn’t know we would cross each other one day.
We have been working so hard.
We have been living in different countries.
We were like two parallel lines,
Which would never meet each other.
But at year 20 for me,
And at year 30 for him,
We finally crossed each other,
And we were smart enough to find our intersection.
We are still growing into different directions,
Because that probably will be our only intersection.
But we only need that one intersection,
Because we are all independent now.
We don’t need other people to input data anymore.
Oct 17, 2017
Oct 17, 2017 at 11:44 PM UTC
*i want to kiss you
at every red light
both figuratively and literally
i want to kiss you
when life gets hard
and when **** happens
i want to kiss you
in the 30 seconds we have
at each intersection
i want to kiss you
always.*
Jan 28, 2018
Jan 28, 2018 at 4:12 PM UTC
*That kind of kiss is an intersection
Like a small stream
Where two oceans meet
How they’ve tossed and turned
Precariously
And endlessly
End over end
Until afterwards
Experienced vicariously
Like the saltwater winds
Which whip and whirl
And swirl the sand
So I am turned at the intersection
At the memory which ends
Where the ocean began*
May 4, 2017
May 4, 2017 at 2:46 PM UTC
These buses sound like dinosaurs
With screeching brakes and engine roars
Dec 15, 2016
Dec 15, 2016 at 6:41 PM UTC
My mind is a thousand rooms lit on fire,
a fuse crawled on every window,
pins and needles holding up posters of blank faces,
for the person that belonged in that body is not the same as the memory.
My mind is the intersection at dawn,
lazy cars drowning thoughts,
red lights on all four corners,
until the light turns into a green frenzy.
My mind wisps like tendrils of coffee,
sweet bitter dreams,
that never does quite come alive
when it only leaves a faint taste.
My mind cannot erase the doors you walked in,
or the smiles that blew my way,
and the air you scented in your perfume
of hay and horses from your Saturday hobby.
My mind likes to pretend that I hated you,
that I despised how we sat two desks away and we never said hello, even though it’s been three years since we’ve spoken a word.
I’m doing all that I can to not crumble when I see you have moved on.
My mind constantly replays that night at the football game,
and the conversation we had a week later that said
“I don’t want to say it. But we can’t be friends anymore.”
It broke me like a summer hurricane.
My mind doesn’t know how to let you go.
It, and I, are having a hard time
finding something to fill the space
you have left
in my mind.
Sep 28, 2015
Sep 28, 2015 at 1:17 AM UTC
I'm scared, lost, and tumbling
Tripping on my shoes that were never tied
Walking blind.
Bollywood movies flickering,
Warm greeting during Eid, putting on my best
The innocence of not knowing what was ahead but still swimming into uncharted waters
The times we ran past the security guards wearing the shoes of adolescence
how we sung high voices, breaking the silence and laughing away the drowned voices and the dead that were never able to cling to us
the colors got burned but the door was still colored against the tree of stupidity; in between the houses we walked through old trash and a bare bed to look back at our acts of defiance
We got high on the words we slurred that meant friendship to us
Walking home everyday until the point where we had to part ways at Woodhaven Boulevard
Now, now, now I hate that word
I'm the only one walking alone; cracked pavements, and potholes steer me from what was always the path to fantasy and the youth
I'm growing older, and older and I know
The key is slipping from sweaty finger tips and I have to choose the right door
My mind has gotten sober from the future in my head to the reality that stops me with its red light
Time is so small and I haven't still found faith and I'm searching walking back to the same intersection, empty handed but finding scathed pennies and hungry dreams greet the soles of my torn shoes
People will leave me and I can't stop them
Why, why, why
Did I hit the walls that were so far apart but now make a square around me pushing and jamming me against the bricks
I want to see past the mist and know the truth
Is it written on my palms or held in my hands where I can clutch it or let go of it
Slowly faces of ordinary are falling under 6 feet and I have to carry the dirt on my back and remember there is a future
A future I'm scared of welcoming
and I get lost and lost in my own fears and swallowing the guilt of not believing and falling to honey dreams only waiting to be stung by a bee
The bee dies
Leaving me lost at Woodhaven Boulevard
Apr 26, 2015
Apr 26, 2015 at 7:04 PM UTC
Here I stand on the intersection
Blocking every apparition
That appears before the collision
Of my unearthed passion
The debris it scattered
And the fragments it recollected
Did no good for our Russian Roulette
And my black dress that sweeped
Aiming blade to each direction
And shadow-chasing apparitions
Here I stand, on the intersection
With the devil’s spawn in front
The sinner angel on my left
The lost brothers of long-ago arts
And the mourning ladies behind in red
If I let my blade slip in front
Inferno is the runaway paradise prepared
Yet if I let my blade to my sides
Heaven hold no place for my stained black dress
And the mourning ladies in red
Have no colors that resembles mine
But that is just an extermination
That won’t even matter
For tragic is just a trapped magic
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 10:31 AM UTC