at some point during the night my friend handed me a long scroll of brown scraps of paper sewn together and secured with two bobby pins. she said: this is a poem to welcome romance into your life, but not just relationship romance, but romance of all kinds. somehow, i knew the poem was not of that moment, it was not something to unroll and read then, in front of others, and particularly not when i didn't have the proper place to put it. still living as a nomad, i lacked walls to call my own to give it a proper display so i told her i would save it for when i had a home of my own again. save it for some time far away in the spring.
so the winter passed, the play opened, the play closed, the holidays passed and then it got packed up with the last remaining things already not in storage where it would live untouched in a box for a while i traipsed about europe and beyond. as you know, i came back, found a home {or rather it found me} and still the poem waited patiently as i traveled to see thom & the gang. it waited until i came back again. to a home. a place to put things. a place to return to.
but it wasn't an easy transition. searingly hard at times. lonely. scary. weird how something i cried so hard giving up i cried again coming back to. a home. hope. responsibilities. change. these things could break anyone's heart.and in those first days, i unpacked this scrolled up collection of paper and words, unrolled it, read it and dissolved.
it was perfect. this small time capsule from november, waiting for me on this day, at this time, to remind me of where i have been, where i am heading, what i have to look forward to, and most importantly, how much i need to step out of the tightly reined confines i have built to give myself the illusion of control.
a few days later, a dear friend of mine came to return the plants he had so lovingly tended in my travels, and as he stepped into the space for the first time, as he took it in with a quiet gasp of surprise and awe, i said not of my own volition great things will happen here. not great things that will change the world per say {though i would not mind if that were true}, but great things in my life. great changes, great growth.
later that night over dinner and conversation, i spied the poem behind him and said: i am going to read you something. and spoken aloud for the first time, the words had a weight and cadence i missed on that first read and i knew i needed to speak it again. speak it with an audience to help hold its weight, help hang its phrases from the high ceilings of my new life, shine the words out the windows, and sink its meaning down deep into the floors.
and a few weeks ago, i did. i gathered a few people around me and opened these words up to my life. the beauty, the passion, the false loves, the true ones {oh to be a backwards angel}, the bold recklessness i want to learn in my art and art making, the feeling of being unleashed. we welcomed it all in.
i wish i had recorded the words that night, spoken in my red dress, but i didn't and can't seem to capture it again, so here it is, written for you.
milos by anis mojgani.
let us take a sack of spray paint and spray paint over the paintings
let us dance through paris
kiss in the shadow of the louvre
crawl inside its windows
scroll manifestos over the canvasses
write morse code on the sculptures
roll a sleeping bag on the floor to sleep inside of
tell one another a story by flashlight
unearth everything from before
bury each other inside the other
feed grapes to the ants
light fireworks in the fists of sleeping kings
kill the monarch
break back outside and
find a wall to do all these same things to,
up and upon, against
break the bricks
climb over them
and when the sirens scream
laugh loud
hold my hand
and run fast
run through these streets with me
with a bunch of bottles
a bucket of gasoline
a mouthful of matches
a pocket full of paintings
and a fresh faced batch of policemen
who will chase the fires we are lighting
with a laugh and a shoulder of gold
and i thought that the museums were cemeteries
that the dead paid the walls to hold what we have
so that we could walk through what we once were
where the children take their skulls to turn into gardens
to pluck for forefathers
and farther stars that on some nights resemble an armless mother
praying for her arms to return
every tooth we tear from our jaw
to fling at the black gloved riot soldiers
is another shadow we are trying to lose
where every giggle is filled with lust
let us laugh this night away
and i will fuck you like you were a prayer
that could save me by having my mouth around you
and i will hold you afterwards like
you were the pulpit and i was the sky
and this love that danced between that hardness
was the telephone line of holiness that those two things spoke through
take me into your heart like i was a saint
and you were a face of forgiveness
blooming in a valley destined to sink further
be a river with me
be the storm
the bend in the path
the front porch
the heat in the south
be a boot full of banjo strings
a fist full of written songs
a mouthful of chocolate dust
when they come to take us
stab them between the eyes
do not take your hand from around mine
make a fist with the other
and punch spines like guilt
spit sweat kiss them like a grandmother
howl open mouthed terror love filled
and when they come to cut our hair
and ask to hear penance come from inside of us
say with me loud and trembling
but loud and clear:
i have already emptied myself.
i kissed regret goodbye, took the hands of another backwards angel
and rode backwards into the rain
when the hangman of morrow comes to hang the sun in its daily execution,
say this with me:
sarah
we are apples,
our love is an arrow
i'm unbuttoning my shirt,
painting a circle over my heart
please
just
shoot straight
here is anis reciting his poem {very differently than how i speak it}.
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