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Sep 2016 · 387
Wave
Yael Zivan Sep 2016
And the day crashed down

Like a wave

Pulling away the certainty of newness

As soon as it had pressed its lips to mine.

And casting back all the things I thought I would never see again.

When you let stones go, they float and sink and get tugged away, free.

And loves too. But then they come back to you, when you want only the new.

Please let me be with you.

And forget the past

Like waves that become something

Like they've never been before.
Aug 2016 · 372
war memory
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
I wish i could erase you

from my history

and forget what it felt like when you touched me

and the rain on our skin when we biked past those pumping throbbing anxious houses...

the riots in the streets forgotten..

I would forget the wisp of smoke. the dotted line that connected at the mouth. the how to guide for first encounters

the holding on. the dancing.

the patience. the listening.

I would forget it all.

scrub it away.

delete the history

Because you did
Aug 2016 · 278
Happy
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
Is anyone Happy anymore?

Did they teach us how in the class rooms?

where we learned to be cruel

and pick at the open sores

and find the chinks in the armor...

Where we learned about love

and how it makes you weak

and we learned about Joy

and where it comes from.

Dominance and Praise, and adults who tell us we are

special.

And don't forget. to waste your time

filling all the gaps in your mind.

and schedule in success. But not too much.

and collect wealth until your mansion stands tall

and casts shadows on the green grass

and wonder if you missed the class

on how to be happiest
Aug 2016 · 294
To be a Poet
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
You can say anything.

talk about the trees. and the butterflies and how love feels

or some ****

But to be a good poet

you have to practice, think about what sounds better

learn the long words

or the advancement of gramar

bend the rules after you've learned them.

and take pride in the fact that I AM A POET

print business cards or some ****

buy a leather jacket and always carry a writing book.

tell lovers pretty things that weave you in mystery

but

to be a GREAT POET

just write the truth

and tear the world apart
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
Why do my poems

come true

after I write them..

When did it become the law

that you had to live the stories

that you wrote.

I wish I wrote fantasy

and not tragedy
Aug 2016 · 358
Honey
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
When I bloom

my skin is sweet

my eyes are brilliant

my words are music

and my lips are honey.

and when i cry
i bleed

and i'm alone.

the birds find roost

in a different tree

and the bees find nectar

far from me
Aug 2016 · 518
earthlings
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
we are earthlings

and toxic words drench our bodies

and clog up our rivers and arteries

with sugary fakeness and farcities

and smoggy neglect

and hate we elect

leaders that fail and fail

our kids who cut their arms

and smoke pretty rings of smoke to the sky

that hasn't had stars

in a long time.
Aug 2016 · 198
Untitled
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
I need everyone to be ok

because then i can be less

then ok

and it will be ok

because my foundations will be strong

but my walls are weak.

and you hang your sorry portraits

with nails
Aug 2016 · 223
Not since
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
today

words ran away

and i had none left to say

i love you but please go away.
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
My poor dear

You have forgotten how to love

and how to listen

to my perfect words.

You look away and your eyes blur.

You have forgotten me and the sound my voice makes

when i say i care enough. And you don't say anything

You are the soldier that comes back from war to find that life existed before death. But not after.

I have given up all of what i was

and then grew up

and out and away

from all the pain thats holding you so warmly in its arms

you'll leave when your ready..

but you are incapable of loving me right now.
Aug 2016 · 252
So I've been thinking
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
What if I dreamed you

Because I love you like I'm afraid to wake and find you gone
Aug 2016 · 236
The weight
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
If I let this heaviness sink me
Then I will do it alone

If I try and give it away

It will come back

Lonelier then before

Can love lift it??

How heavy is this love

It presses me to the ground

And doesn't hear the absence of sound

And the strings of pain that cocoon me from more pain

Wrapped like a present
For a later day

Unwrap my pain and lay it out. It's heavy existence to be admired and desired

Until you can pawn it off at a yard sale

Boxed away or broken

Pieces scatter to the sky

And free... Of its heaviness

Why. Can't. It. Just. Lift. Me.
Aug 2016 · 408
I won't become you
Yael Zivan Aug 2016
I walked through the town as an invisible ball of pain. And I said not a single word to you.

To that boy I saw today laughing

You are a child
You hurt people
You are reckless, selfish
And you feel like a grenade

And I just wanted to cut myself

I wanted to cut myself to release the feeling I had

I can understand the unfixable turmoil inside those who wish to die. The pain too great to bear. Like a soul inside a claustrophobic unresponsive submarine. Not knowing that oblivion will **** them out if they press the metal to their pumping veins, breathless, voiceless throats. You hurt me and make me feel like a motherless child. No. Worse. Like a childless mother.
When I

Am an INCOMPREHENSIBLE GODDESS

UNSINKABLE, UNTHINKABLE.

UNQUENCHABLE

God
I hate the pain you feel

That you can hurt someone who loved you and cast away a tiny beautiful thing.

But I am darkness
I am empty places
After regret has plunged it's icy blade between both of yours

I am rocks on a harbor
with no lighthouse
I am sorrow
I am rage
And a thousand angry mama bears
I am a clear winter sky

So deep so cold so empty.
I would swallow you whole

Beware child

Mind

Where you Step
Aug 2015 · 437
Lucy
Yael Zivan Aug 2015
They say
"You look like her!"
But they don't really know what she is
And neither do I
Her sunken turquoise eyes are rarely open
Her thin mouth moves and food that has dried around her lips never finds its way in.

She has stopped eating.

She looks hollow

She looks like the end has come and she's still waiting by the door

Beckoning the scythe
But death has not taken her hand

She whimpers and smiles

And sleeps for days


I do love you
But loving and grieving and dying and living

They are not the same

Like my hand on yours
We are just bones
Then stories

Then silence
And time spent
On forgetting to live
And delaying to die

I do look like her
same cheek bones
Same nose
But different stories

Because hers she told so many times that it told her how the rest would go

And my story is untold
So boldly I unfold my life in front of me.
All the steps are open towards infinite grace

But all we are, is bones then stories, then silence except for the sound of the door
When I say goodbye for the last time
Feb 2015 · 599
Sail away
Yael Zivan Feb 2015
Sailing away

In my boat build for two

Cut down the anchor

Bailed the water
i'm through

And a new tide will take me

Because i leave you behind

You're love like the seasons
Conditioned with pain
Will rasp and fade
Only hurt remain

And i don't feel safe in your arms anymore
Nor will i with another, my bruises still sore

I'm sailing my boat built for two by myself

I'm alright with this,
More space on my shelf

More time for the music
The song of the sky

The chopping of waves
Rebirth ocean sigh

And i love you like the moon and the stars and the sea

But your love is conditional
And it won't abide me

So i sail in my ship,
To islands that hum
With exciting new secrets
Unknown lovers yet to come

But if i think of you fondly from time to time

When the clouds cast me in shadow
And remember a rhyme

I remember your love
Was too good to be true

So i sail in my ship
That was once built for two
Valentines day
Feb 2015 · 836
Time is a snail shell
Yael Zivan Feb 2015
If time is a tube,
my life is a spiral,
A snail shell,
Sea creature,
Peculiar and Viral

and I work hard and move fast and time gets quicker,
slicker, with the blink of an eye and the tapping of a finger.

The day off that i was supposed to have
but you cancelled it out
and penciled in other plans.

My time is meaningless, it belongs to someone else, but the faster i go, the smaller it gets, the inside out feeling,
of living without rest.

Time continues without me, i know this is true
yet the fact that I'm lonesome doesn't account for the glue,
that keeps me to my shoes and my shoes to the ground
and the world that keeps turning, with its ups and its downs.

But it's getting smaller, not the world but my life,

horizons are shrinking, cut away with my knife.
That cuts cake for my customer, and slices my bread,
till one day it cuts me to my bones till its said;

She sleeps with the fishes,
he muttered that to a girl
So the poem made sense, but all in a whirl
my poem is splotchy and dusty with time,

that keeps shrinking and shrinking,
until the last rhyme.
Jan 2015 · 427
Wings please
Yael Zivan Jan 2015
I bought it.

I bought it for more then i thought it would cost me.

And now it's all drawn, this month long purple line.

Will it take me? Will i be shaped and morphed and molded?

Can i come back bigger and better then i was?

Time to ride the paper airplane, and loose myself again

Adventures come, just like the tides

Lick my finger and check the wind.

Pages filled, photos trace the truth in tiny flecks of ink.

And I become lonesome in my perfect joy.

Joyful in my contented solitude.

And maybe a boy named Jesus with skin like the first
He'll kiss my eyes and smell like a perfect storm

and that can be my brief tomorrow.

Sinful sleep and fruit from stands.

and songs and magic of holding hands.
Jan 2015 · 364
Muse less
Yael Zivan Jan 2015
I can paint you in a few short strokes,

Imagined, designed, fleshed out in passionate paint.

I'll enjoy my time, i truly will.

Our tiny window of creating and consummating.

Relating, remembering, expressing, then releasing.

Then i have done what i can.

It's not my own anymore.

Maybe this work never was.
Dec 2014 · 467
wrapped in shadow
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
Lock her in a cabin
Turn off all the lights

She shines to bright
To be allowed

I don't shine
Not from within
I reflect

And behind that i am shadow

And it's what i do
I make shadow
Rubbed underneath the eyes
Charcoal hearts
Graphite glass of person

My hands are good
My mouth is prettiest when it's shut

The winter is the time when shadows are most common

Night sits atop his throne
And stars rely on tiny doubts
But my doubts have grown
They blot out the sun
And i reflect the night
Double the darkness
Contain the spirit
Or perhaps return it from where i stole it away

The night relies on the hope of morning
To keep its prisoners obedient and tame

But i know the morning never comes
To those with eyes wide open

And certainly to those who speak the truth
And those who wake the chosen
Dec 2014 · 396
Have I forgotten?
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
Look forward.

How beautiful is this life.
Dec 2014 · 477
Skeleton Wings
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
Suspended in ice,
Snow tastes like iron
I peel away the layers I have brought.

Bare chested, naked in the wastes.

White on White,
Pigment gone from my skin.
Only bones.
Skeleton Smile

I have stripped away all that does not serve me
Crawl into the snow tunnels.
Nestle in the season of night.
Kissed asleep by Polar bears

I no longer need you.

My wings will grow, and when the frost divides itself
and water rises back to these old trees.
Then I will take my leave.

Bright new wings need no one else to operate.
Panic is for ground dwellers
Depression is for cage prisons

That is not my Allegory.
Those tropes no longer serve.

Majestic, Mystic, Wanting none.
I exist
I grow,
I change,
I need the air beneath my wings,
I need the tide to tell me when
I don't need that which does not serve me.
Lies and useless pretty things
I don't need that which does not serve me.
That which never did.
Dec 2014 · 625
I was the Water
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
I was the water

And you were the sky,

we blended and sang

rebirth in a sigh


I was the water

and you were a boat,

When you were unsure

I would just let you float


I was the water and you were a jar

I cleaned you and kept you

and couldn’t go far


I was the water

and you couldn’t see

so i bathed your sweet eyes

and let you be free


I was the water

and you were in pain

the scratches and blood

were all that remained

So i cleaned off the blood
and the venom and hate

And you danced to a new fire
while I pondered my fate


I was the water

and you were the flame

and I boiled and I sparked till you said my name

then I was mist and fog in the air

And you remembered the off switch

but I was no longer there


I was the water

and you were the shore

Until I deserted you

when I could stand it no more


Now i am salt and pain and pieces of you mixed in

but you are arid and thirsty,
dehydrated again.

I was the water
and you were the horse

I came inside to quench your thirst

and there I remained till you died in the street

and i left you little carbonite to dust at my feet.


I was the water

and you were the sea

The moon and the stars

and eternity
i thought of this one in the shower
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
Sometimes you love something so much you want it all the time
and the website says it's good for you, and all your friends pay for it but you get it for free. And you get the best stuff.

The dark fruity bitterness fills you with energy
and sometimes creativity
But then it keeps you up
distracted and distraught

And it's 4 am and you can't end this endless wave of panic

and you realize the coffee is causing your heart to fill with blood
and explode onto every single page

and you try to cry but that doesn't work.
So you try to sleep but you can't quite breathe
and you call and Angels but they are protecting someone else


It's time to kick the habit
So you let it go
Empty your cup

and remember how lovely a cup of sage tea can be. <3

Sometimes the things you love, love you back in all the right places.
Dec 2014 · 466
Cold heart warm fingers
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
See it melt you
You're eyes see what you can't have
Stone heart and warm fingers
A struggle between easy and bad

Never Mind  what they tell you
Never Mind  the games that you win
Success means nothing to that one
To her you'll never fit in

There goes the young man who hurt you
He'll torment and invade your mind
You want to strangle and beat him to end it
But an eye for an eye makes you blind

Expand and contract for salvation
Surrender to what you don't know
Love takes and it takes and it breaks you
So you grab what you can and you go.
Dec 2014 · 358
Hold me
Yael Zivan Dec 2014
Hold you
Till your wings fall still
Till the light is shadowed
By the window
And the bees rest
And the blossoms fall
Till the graves are filled
And the notes stop ringing
Pages burned
Food consumed
And then through the long winter night
Where sweaty hands grasp each other
And pretend that monsters
Just live in childhood
And parents never die
Hold me
Hold me till this wretched air that fills my lungs has all but fled
Hold me till me ribs creak and crack
And painted faces with rosey fingers
Paw the pavement
***** the spinning wheel
Tell me the stories
That have happy endings
And kiss me till i wake
To find that true love
Isn't something sold by eharmony
Hold us
Till the sunrise
Dusts the demons and invites all
To return to the ordinary grief
Of day to day dying
Holding on to nothing
Because death
does not
Have a plus one
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Let me be calm

Let me be free

This is not all I am allowed to be

Let me be wild

Let me be proud

It does not mean I am always this loud

Let me be happy, let me be sad,
and occasionally
let me be unreasonably,
and furiously
mad,

Let me be Poignant,

Let me be deep

Yes I am sheltered, and yes I will leap,

Leap with no fear and leap with such force

Because art and purpose will serve its course

I am a vehicle of the soul, and a pardon from god

A label will brand me and cage me and blind me

But the labeler’s mind will lose me or find me.

I am so much more than a statistic or name,

So much more than a figure of a body or frame,

So much life,

so much breath, so much thought, so much depth, so much fight, so much light…

So much to learn and so much to know. So much to change, so much to grow,

So here i stand, alone and untamed. I am unarmed and silent and i am never afraid…

So don’t dare decide that i’m something i’m not, don’t dare cast me in your story if you don’t know the plot.

Let me define my own divine path. Your imperfections are teachers and i love you for that.

I know not my purpose,

i know not my goal,

but this is the song of the many sided soul
Nov 2014 · 614
Hibernate
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Still the winters clutch at straws
the stars reflect what isn't there.
Time is distant when you don't want to live.
And life is boundless when death sleeps in your bed.
It's time to start the bitter walk
past all that I once was.
And pick up the pieces that I forgot.
With frozen fingers tune the strings
And play the scattered notes.
Nov 2014 · 472
Forgive.
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
We used to talk more,
you and I.
When I was the sea and you were the sky.

I'd sit with you and hold your head.
And ask you how you like your bread.
and maybe kiss you on the eyes.
and let the winter hide your lies.
And listen to your sleeping cries.
and your heartbeats
your cavernous chest.
Your mystery waiting to be explored.
But others ignored.
And I grew
like i said i would never do

and so
i forget that I am in love with you.
But you are good.
You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.
And I miss wanting you.
I miss what you brought out in me.

I know the next will not know you like I did.
Because my beloved you are dying.
You're melting, bleeding, drowning body, will sink us all.

Or perhaps not.
Perhaps you are just the healthy body you always were and your fever is killing me off, like an infection.

Let me stay
I promise to worship you
once I have control of my limbs again
and can stand in your sight.
and love all of you
I can still hear it
The still surviving pulse.
Forgive us.
Nov 2014 · 285
Untitled
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Held my hand when fear was holding my chest.
Told me to be calm.
Remember to smile.
I am not for you.
I am not for everyone.
Do i edit myself?
To become more marketable?
Or preserve my value in smaller margins
Canvas.
I am yours
Paint what you will
Pain isn't permanent.
Nov 2014 · 261
Untitled
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Love,
the blazing fire at the center of it all

I shall warm my chilly hands and sit a while.

But lest i fall in,

I keep my distance.
Nov 2014 · 401
Caterpillar
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Autumn leaves and sunsets.
A world spinning
out of balance,

and the sluggish me slowing down to realize all that I am no longer.
I see a worm, a slug, a tiny massive thing.

Indolent, sallow, lost and afraid, I cling to what I can and eat to feel numb.

Working and waiting to feel something.
Meaning, connection, understand my purpose, and eyes get farther away from what it longs to understand.

This body gets long and heavy and tired, eyes close, and arms grab whatever is around. wrapping tight in heavy blankets.

I made these quilts. I made them with my hands when life was fun
and work a thought filled blessing.

I spun the threads that now encase me. I bury myself, deep down into the cold earth.
Hide from the lies, and the worthless feelings, and listen to the heartbeat of the goddess.

Her warmth will see me through.
To the next life
next form
Where I can shed this layer.
Emerge as myself.

Incarnate with colors to behold in the eyes of young and old.

Let me be winged, and the chrysalis not be needed anymore.

Rebirth this butterfly.
Nov 2014 · 5.0k
Wallflower
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Constricted in the tiny ***.
this plant has lost it’s will to grow
The lightness fades inside the room
the curtain shades the greenish brown
I forgot that i was more,
than this room. this house, this place

I forgot how to transplant.
I forgot how to grow

Don’t let me wither.
Don’t abandon me in the cold.

How can i survive this potted life,
this winter,

It was easy to love me when the spring was here, and i was bright and full of wonder.
I could fill a room with bright vernal sweetness.
And then i began to blend into the wallpaper.
a perfect little wallflower.
Tendrils constrict,
and branches droop.
flowers swept away,
and bark begotten by dust and moth

Who will inherit me?
Or perhaps just an empty ***.
your container, your arc, your tiny vessel, your cage and prison, is all a mind palace, where doors lead nowhere and i cannot become better. How will i be good enough when lost in a maze of loathing and indolence.
Nov 2014 · 1.3k
Fires in Ferguson
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Fires in ferguson
Bridges in Brooklyn
The youth in the streets cry out in unison
Hands up
Don't shoot
A young man took twelve bullets
Because he was brown
Battered bodies on the ground
This countries streets are paved in glass
and blood
The air we breath is tear gas
And polluted by discrimination
We are connected by rage
And in this day and age
We are convicted by fear
The civil servants drive armored vehicles
The oppressed pay takes to the oppressors
Who pays for the tank that the city bought?
Who pays for the policeman's bullets?
How hard is it to live without fear of death from your own government.
ISIS is less threatening
Than the grand jury
This story keeps coming back into our history books. Trayvon Martin,
Michael brown,
Emmet till
I am no longer proud to be american
We all live in
MISsouERiY
Nov 2014 · 544
Goddess blood
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Long white arms,
She had long white arms.
Almost glowing with their own light.

And long black hair. So black that the light seemed to be ****** into it's depths. It stole the lightness.

Eyes so stormy the sea bucks and brays when it sees the thunderclouds behind long thick lashes.

Her whole body is humming.

Deep powerful energy inside.
It's impossible to extract the nature of what's causing the convulsions.
Light or dark.
Milk or Coffee...
Or ancient pulsing rivers.
But it is causing her to crack and sway and cry and pray.
She took a razor

A razor so sharp it could cut through the worlds.

And she sliced a piece of pure white skin,

and out poured royal blue blood.

With hints of purple and specks of gold, and greenish hues,
with stars so old that you see the light of a million years ago, but it gets caught in your eye centuries after it dies.

The blood pours from her, trickle then a flow, expanding the universe.
Giving birth to galaxies.
And the energy is released from her.
The darkness and the light.
The demons and goddesses.
They all leave in a silent procession.
and she sways and topples, thundercloud eyes grow dark, then roll up and away.

Convulsions cease as she is submerged in the blue veined sea of her own creation.

The silent procession of her dark possession leaves on tiny ships into the dark horizon. Purple and gold galaxies.

We are all born from goddess blood.
Nov 2014 · 676
Remember me?
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Do you remember?
remember the sound
The million cicadas humming so loud
That we didn't remember they were there
Until we left Princeton  and could hear the silence again.
Those cicadas  were 17 years old.
Ten years older then us.
Just discovering life.
Just like us
Remember the day we carved the four faced Jack o' Lantern
Our artists mothers let us be messy
Paper mâché bodies never grow up

Can you count the times we jumped from the oak tree? On to the trampoline.
Your brothers were mean

The times we plotted against them.
The times we went on adventures to the woods
The time we tried to dig to china using spoons in my front yard.
The time i fought over you with another girl
The time you liked me back but never said
The time you got sick and couldn't play
The time the doctors took you away
And you came back with a scar on the back of your head
Stitches and bruises and blood on the bed
The day we didn't play as much anymore.
The day when we sold our house on palmer lane
The day your mom's fiancé left and never came back
The day we spent by the river
And the day after when your mom brought roses
And sprinkled them on the road
As we drove south with the big yellow moving van
Remember forgetting the time we remembered
do you remember?
Nov 2014 · 275
Untitled
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Cargo ship

fixing to go. Winds are a cleaning.
Sting the eyes of the passenger

He prepares his feathers.

Damns his past.

Wonders if he'll ever fly again.
But knows that it is floating that he will do until it's sinking he prefers.
Nov 2014 · 1.1k
Curious curious
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Curious curious little boy
When will you learn, little girls are no toy

Curious curious little girl,
When will you know, virginity's no pearl

Curious curious little politician
When will you learn my future is missin

Curious curious little consumer
When will you realize the world's getting poorer

Curious curious human beings
Stop with the blindness and start with the seeing...
When will you decide to stop the drilling, and the billing, and the mass grave sight killing? And the shaming and the blaming and the sleeping child maming?
The spying and the crying and the nature is dying.
And realize the truth that the cage is in your mind
Just go back to the wild
With the rivers trees and the vines
The oceans and mountains
Canyons and pines
Forget all the poisons
Remember respect.
The feeling of bodies that don't suffer neglect.
Breathe in the fresh air
Inhabit the earth
rekindle the spirit
You were given at birth

Curious curious,

Its simply you see.
Let's not let this end us.
Let's choose to be free
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
I’m writing to you because I miss you.

And you may be my one true love.

My first at least.

Though i didn’t know it when I met you.

I miss you

I miss the way you welcome me in

The way you understand me.

I miss the way you can see my truest self.

I miss the way I become myself when I am near you.

the way you are me and apart from me all at once

The way the stars look reflected in your eyes.

I never fear you though others do

I embrace your wildness

Your resilient good humor.

Your unique, nothing else like this, feeling.

The tear tracks on your heart from a thousand brutal fights and you still have so much love.

I kiss you and I can taste it

I can taste the fire, and the sunlight,

the trees and the vast distant rolling savannah.

When i touch you I can feel it

The drumming.

The gum boots, the stampedes, the thunder.

And when I close my eyes,

I can hear it.

The lions roar, the elephants trumpeting.

The thousands of tons of water at Victoria falls

The fish eagles cry

The singing boys at the choir school

The bushman's clicking language.

The cheetah's purr.

The wall of fire from the wild burning days.

The laughing.

The dancing. The singing. The fighting.

And as I breath, you breath,

As I rest, you lie awake, a quiet guardian in the night.

I lift up my hand and you take my fruit.

You silly little bushbaby.

I’ll give you my pineapple forever.

I hide behind the small acacia tree. and I see you.

I see the great king of Africa.

Isilo the Elephant.

The eyes so wise.

The tusks so fierce.

I am protected by you.

Beauty is to small a word to describe the way your body curves.

The blue of your skin. the green hues, the deep orange gold of winter hills.
The purple sunset.

The wetness after a storm.

The glowing embers in the night.

The dragons back. the most magical thing I have ever held in my eyes.
I miss you

Little grandmother on the hill.
Who bakes and meditates.
and drinks tea and gets her way
because *******, I deserve respect!

And little chocolate friends.
Your shandy on the rocks.
Your cottage in the woods.
Your cats and now your coming twins.

And the neighbors who play with eagles.

And Barrie who let me fly in his plane after only knowing his name five minutes.

And the witch who lived next door and could turn into a leopard.
And my grandfathers paintings that cover the old hotel.

The way people say my name.
The way I become myself.
And for the first time in my life,
I know who I am.
Released from my old stale life, I was rooted in magic, and earth, and love, and sacred eternal energy.
ADVENTURES so magic... I could cry.
I miss you so
I miss who I am around you.
I wish I could find you here.
I will find you again.
I will come back to you.
My beautiful country
One day
my one true love, otp, miss you everyday, home, africa, love, forever,
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Where has my light gone?

It used to be there.
Inside my chest.

You could reach in and peak at it. Glowing always.

Time is slipping

or maybe time is constant and I am falling behind.

Is it to late to save the memories, as time floods past me?

What was I when I was small.

That child so fierce and true.

Present, curious, always prepared, in training for a life of wild possibility.

Now alone, sick, and lazy, uninspired and utterly unmotivated,

I search for the spark that lit me before.

That light that I knew was unique to me.

I am special. I am meant for great things, I am the hero.

Who whispered these false words to me as I dreamed.

Was it my own strange ego elixir that I concocted and fed myself daily?

Was it angels who told me these things?

Are the still true?

Will they ever be?

Where has it gone. That light that fed me and kept me alive and angry...

Caged and dependent; I was still free.

My mind is in a cage now.

attached to wires that beep and pulse and need constant energy.

I want to cut them away from me, but those wires are the only things connecting me to my world.

Do I want to be a half dead battery leaching away at my own life?

Could I escape before it’s to late?

I search for pleasure, distraction, entertainment, stimulation.

Make me feel again.

Anything.

Approve of me.

I have to escape this maze. Rip out these chords, let the blood remain on the ground.

Time to run to the silence, let me hear silence.

My ears will have to break the addiction too.

No more white lines blocking their sense.

Time to be alone with myself and finally hear the universes heart beat within me.

But what if my boss calls?

What if i am too late?

I will open the tiny box inside my chest, and it will be empty.

Darkness.

No light remaining.
Nov 2014 · 396
Uncertainty
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
How strange to let a word become completely what it is, letting its lineage speak for it's use.

He was good.

She was bad.

He was angry,

She was a *****.

I am a good mother.
I am a bad husband.

So we turn the word into bland and indisputable fact.

You hurt me.

You love me.

I am afraid of you
I want you.
I know you...

What does the knowing feel like?

Will it ever come?
If i am unsure if i am good and bad, how shall i make my mind up about the rest of the world?
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
Catalyst catalyst catalyst she said as she circled round the tree

Please someone explain to me these massive squishy mushrooms

Sounds in the distance
Sounds in the close
She thinks of hot toddys and Guatemalan wanderings


GUNSHOT!! Live fire!! Death is clos.

it sits beside me chewing bark and throwing stones.

My orange armor guaranteed nothing because a gun cannot see colors.
Temperatures rise and ride and run and rip the clothes from my back,
Down down, soaked to the bone and seeing nothing but floating lives and absent ducks.

Hidden, breathing through a hollow reed, streams of consciousness once a pulsing river, disperses and separates into anothers eyes. For oxygen is no longer a comfort but a rare and fleeting commodity.
Without the breath i may as well bite the bullet that cannot see colors because it goes too fast to remember that things that move are alive in a way that it can only dream. In it's dark holster, a little tiny womb, it awaits its destiny, to terminate life, to embed itself in muscle and flesh.

What if we are bullets, that quiet womb our schools, being trained to fire, pay no attention to the colors. Do not ramble; rest until the trigger is pulled, then do your duty. There's another one behind you to take your place, go die in another battle.

Or sink where you cannot be seen, and breath no more.
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
The lights that were infinite,
dance across time and space, but they didn't also.
because when all you are is unconscious consciousness. Matter without form. Energy without inertia, time and space are not things that you can comprehend so you just are, and then you decided that you were apart from other things and so bodies happened, and well... here we all are...


And now a different body is in her freshman year of high school . She is not unlike the many other bodies that attend high school or have attended high school since high school existed so we shall not compare her to you or I or anyone else. Or romanticize her inner turmoil so that she is special and heroic. She is human. But we will feel what she feels. Because though it seems now she is separate, she is merely the pinky on the universe of unity and the strand of hair on the giant goddess that is all of existence. But I digress...

These souls have bodies now. And they line the halls like ghosts in purgatory. Some lucky ones have adorned themselves in precious things, and walk with bold and bouncing steps. Most of them however let their necks drop, their shoulders hunch, they drag their feet toward the next place to sit and let time die for an hour. Eyes dart nervously or stare off into distances that from the faces expression of mild distain is a distance of people that are neither interesting or pleasant.

And our little friend is lost. Lost in the trappings of an unnatural place. The need to be excepted, the fear of being rejected.
The pain of being in a place that doesn't value your gifts, but trains you to adapt your own thinking to please someone who doesn't care.

Sometimes our little friend is kind, and sometimes she is cruel. But she doesn't know what she wants. She knows that people send her videos on her phone saying she is ugly and taunt her even though they used to be friends. She talks about the friends she has behind their backs. They are boring she says.

The never have anything to say.

We are all thoses pieces of pain. Every decision is watermarked.

Balast and bait.

For every painful moment we nurse well into our 40's,
we cut a thousand bitter words into another.

Our quiet thoughts breed hate and envy.

Our callus hearts beat with the blood of our ancestors.

My ancestors are the oppressors and the oppressed.

Haunted chased Jews of Europe,
Haunting hunting Afrikaaners,
after black blood.

How do we grow, will it make a difference?

Of course it will.

Pull open the blinds and let in the light.

Smash down the doors, rip holes through the roof.

Shut off the grid and see the stars reflect in every surface...

Or just forget that you are apart from anything else,
take in the darkness, and the lights that were infinite.
Nov 2014 · 378
3 Short stories
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
He was old, but in a way that made it clear that he knew that growing old was a privilege.

He smelled like the rain. Like clouds and thunder, and he felt like sunshine when he touched my skin.

She could appreciate the thousand stories and million memories from a room full of detritus, keepsakes of a life lived without concern for colouring in the lines. A life of an artist. Not always happy, but lived in such a way that your whole world is a story worth telling.
Nov 2014 · 330
No time left
Yael Zivan Nov 2014
My heart beats rapidly.

Alone i always am

My nervous hands are shaking

My body wants to run

To flee, escape, to hide, to shut the world away.
Driving, miles and miles, must not be late.
Fill the tank. No time to eat.
Always looking over my shoulder.
Wishing to sleep
Wishing to escape
To be warmed my the sun
Maybe by the light of your flame.
Maybe to find my own blazing fire

Must find the door. Driving. Ghosts haunt me: Call my name.
Want my attention. Scream in the night.
Wake up sweating. Time for work. Time to move
No food now. Drown in the music
find joy in the hope that tomorrow is lucrative. American dream. Slave ship destiny.
Prove yourself. Be strong, be a warrior.
Be remembered.

Long tall grass. The road stretches before me and time stands still for a moment. It looks at me, its eyes reflect infinity and it turns its heavy head. Antlers catch the moon. Then turns and runs. Faster and faster. Leaving me to wonder where it's gone off to.
Im stressed dude. No more
Coffee for me.
Oct 2014 · 397
Dying Wish
Yael Zivan Oct 2014
I wish i didnt exsist

I wish i had no body, maybe just for a moment

I don't wish it in an emo depressive way
I'm not one of those poor countless souls that cut their wrists with razor blades in hopes
They can spell out help in blood.

I'm no longer the girl who hates the curves that surround her, and wishes herself into a skeleton.

I don't have a wish to end my life,
I wish to be completely part of all existence
Instead of separate in this one body.

People look to me as a friend or neighbor.
A girl or woman. Size me up. Size me down.
Tell me to smile, ask me to speak.
Beg to own pieces of my spirit and identity
Request that their relationship with me be significant
Or exclusive. Shame my choices or my prudence.

I want no part in this. It belongs to us all.
I just want to be. My face in the sky.
My hands in the fire
My feet in the moss
My eyes,
Let them belong to the sea. The salt water tears and the eternal blue of crashing waves

If my body were no more, i could hear the earths heart beat. If my body were gone
My spirit could inhabit every mountain waterfall. Every friendly word. Every lovers touch. Distance doesn't exist if you are nowhere and everywhere at once.
Without my conscious, i could think of many things. Without the insecurities of self and ego. I could wonder at the complexities of life.  
I could breathe in stars and echo and dream with the imagination of a sleeping moth.

I could exist in every dimension. In all possible futures, in every world .

I could exist outside the shell of all that is in that beautiful in between. Where all the things that have happened, are happening, and will happen exist side by side in a cluttered jumble of the impossibly true.

And i could sit beside you. And hold your head in my thought hand. And brush your hair with my thought fingers. I could kiss you with my thought mouth. And take you flying with my dream wings.
I could be ****** inside your every breath like specks of light seen in dusty sunbeams. I would flood your body with every beat of your heart. Warm your every extremity. Circulate through your mind and flash your brain with dopamine.

I want to exist completely. I want to blur the edges. From me and (you)niverse.

My wish to die is my greatest love poem.
My words lie down on the page in prostrated adoration of all existence.

But I love this mortal cage, this beautiful miracle of life and breath. These lungs these legs, this bounding heart. It stops one day. It melts away. It feeds the ground. It makes no sound.

My heart will deflate, a nail will rust and moss will cover me.

And i'll have gone. Become the wind.
For now this place is my truest home.
And i care for her and let her grow,

And try and hear the earths heartbeat
But instead my stomach growls and my fingers twitch. And little plastic toys go bing in the night. So let me sleep.

And dream of oblivion.

And when i wake i'll accept my existence with grace and gratefulness.


For Angels wish for flesh

And i wish for death

The wind wishes it was a kite

Blind wish for sight

Owls beg for night

And shadows wish for light.

And I wish...
Yael Zivan Oct 2014
I feel the exhaustion,
It creeps in.
My eyelids sag and flicker
I should have boundless energy.
My mind is getting sicker.
I'm tired.
Choices wound around.
Devices bleep.
All i want to do is sleep.

The balance of candor and forced affection
I meander from metric reason
To blissed indulgence

But between the desire
The good and the fun
The gap through the wires
Of who i become

I want the addiction.

The pleasant and sweet
The entertainment, the lazy
The chatting and treats

I want to be someone
A person of greatness
To write and to compose
And comment and state thus

But i stop for a minute
And look to the west
What should i be doing
Not working
no rest

I've fallen down the rabbit hole
My life is flying past me

The gentle dance of existing
Perceive me as you will
We all become dust one day

What difference is my will.
All that matters is my kindness

How i live each day
With presence
Joy and mindfulness
With silent smiles i pray

Thats cute and all, but not the truth
The truth is far more deep

I wish i could divine it's worth
But all i do is sleep.
Oct 2014 · 466
Filling the void
Yael Zivan Oct 2014
Music suspends me...
This moment, half present.
Infinitely conscious,
Flying,
Grounded,
Held
Remembered.
Vibrating at the same frequency as the music
At the same rhythm as you.
We fill the empty spaces
Cascading
Parading
Serenading
Through the hollow places
Replacing dust
and air
With ******
And care
Filling vast and distant futures
With promises and plans.
Filling empty streets
with kissing silhouettes and lovers trance
Together with hands held fast
We explore the darkest torments of our past
And rebirth those stories, give them new shape.
Remembering the raisin
is still a grape.
We liberate ourselves from from historic grief
We find
we wield the power
to our future souls relief

If now i could fill the empty spaces between your music and mine,
So that the strings of our instruments
We braided fine
So that nights like this,
So dark
And cold
Could fill with stars with lights so old
That they reach us
even after they've gone out

Now the year is dying
The colors getting lost
Taking one last bow
Before the winters frost
Now I'm remembering glorious days
When we were stars
And lovers and busked on bridges
With passioned kisses ablaze

I listen to nature sounds,
write letters, pluck songs
Do my rounds

And think of that moment
Suspended in time
Were i was yours
And you were mine

We don't own each other
And never will
For i am not a bank and you are not a till
Be we were one and made up of light
Like pinpricks in the night
Made up of stars
A star with no name
Suspended in music
Octaves apart
We vibrate
The same
music, stars, souls, lovers, feminism,
Oct 2014 · 320
Children again
Yael Zivan Oct 2014
Many times I've circled the solar system,

And as I age the colors fade. My world is old to me,

The magic leaks away.

The oppressive thoughts crowd and clutter,

Corporate Slavery takes president over fairy houses and tree climbing.

So when I see the world through the eyes of a lover,

It's as if I am a child again.

The pain has been washed away.
The monotony of this old world belongs to the true adults.

I'm light as a child, and free as a bird.

Through the face of my lover I see the whole world.

I guess that's what love is.
What love's meant to do.

Make us see the beauty again. Hear the music, feel the breeze, wish to soar,

Maybe it gives us wings to try.

And even the pain. The shattering of a beating heart.

The pain is potent
and real
and beautiful.

It's a child's emotion. Raw and important. We need it.
We need it to remind us that we aren't stone,
we are bodies that heal and regrow and adapt every day.

Lost souls, last words, Separation and the prayer for reconnection.

Kisses and being held, Feeling safe in the arms of another.

Being seen as a soul of purest light.
Staring into the eyes. Two bodies, one universe.

Makes me feel small and safe. Like a child again.
Being loved unconditionally.
Oct 2014 · 902
Doppelganger
Yael Zivan Oct 2014
The frozen river,
Grey mist and cold air escape from little thankful lungs.
I hold your hand.
Your body walks beside me,
Our shadows blend to one.
On the outside your figure looks unscathed,

Your face is bare and clean, your eyes look out clear and blank and mild.

Your hands unclenched and loosely draped,
arms sway slightly from side to side as ballast
for the steps you take.

Broken though. Broken so very deeply.

So that every step your body takes,

you hear the sound of glass.
The ***** and jangle, the music of an utterly shattered self.

I hear you breaking, though you drown it in your headphones.

As you pass me in the street I hear the squelch of your shoes.

Soaked in your own blood so your socks are brown like mud.

And your eyes, they are unguarded as you gentley start to topple.

Vortex of pleaing pain and weighted silence.

A tornado of anguish inside your iris.

As you inhale, your scars are whiter than your teeth.
You pull me in, You want to grab me and beg for help.

For mercy, for release, for suffocation. But you have no voice,

Your tears are gushing but they don't feel wet.

You're flat, and shiny and utterly destroyed,

Beyond repair. The damage is done.

And so I release the mirror,

till our shadows blend,

and the blood is dried,

and the pieces scattered, and the shattered mirror will rest at the bottom of the river.

Only I stand on the bridge.

One body, not two.

Nothing to remind me of you.

But the shattered hole
in the frozen river,
Oct 2014 · 675
Restless spirit
Yael Zivan Oct 2014
My spirit doesnt fit for long
It needs room to wander
For all of my many lifetimes
I meander and merge
Migrate and congregate
Relate and perpetuate

i breath
And i shift
My soul doesn't settle
Feathers frantic, curving rains
Tops of mountains, secret caves

It doesn't understand weight,
Light and free forever wandering
Forever lonesome, but relishing the clean stinging pain,
The solo sunrise
Boots on the ground.
New smiles to see
Best friendships lasts 5 minutes
Get a bright flash of me.
Thats all you need.
A streak, a shooting star
to pierce and uplift and connect and remember
Then off and out and alone

Sometimes my soul thinks it belongs
It holds on
It exhales
Breathing out all the air and tries to sink
To touch the bottom.
To remain, to be heavy and constant
A stone not a leaf,
But then no air. The drowning feeling. Panic and pressure and then the numbness creeps in. Conform, accept. Belong, work, remain, stop flowing, stay the knowing.
The weight of the water is warm and dull, crushing, aching,
Forgetting the joy of breath,
And lightness.
Forgetting my nature
Only taking comfort in the constance of depression
The hopeless relief of daily dying
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