Asia

Learning How to Speak to You

How do I begin a poem about grief when it never had a beginning?
Infusing the past, trapping the present, lifting the covers for me to slip under,
And this is a cop out: It began precisely at 3 a.m. on 12/9/22 if you want numbers, However, I was grieving long before.

I still feel your fingers teasing my spine thinking I could reverse time: I was twenty years old. We never lived to see another autumn.

An imposition of me is still lying on the hiking trail dusted over, suspended in the moment to everything that came after;

spinning me around until you lost grip, bouldering, tickling cattails down each other’s backs,

confession, confession, confession, Then the drive,

Leisurely down the winding road, breeze filtering sharp through parted windows, symphony of trees competing with the radio, soft strength of asphalt hands yielding to rubber kneading my thigh - such a competent driver,
From the very beginning our hands were on each other and the sky was tumbling.

I have turned to science to explain your disappearance when literature couldn’t continue writing our story,
Then science-fiction to explore hope-sized possibilities,

I was in love, I was humiliated, I am lost, It’s time I woke-up. I wished for a car.

Roots navigating the ground we walked, I stalk, searching this bustling crowd for a glance, But just as suddenly as meeting - plucked from the continuum and teased in synchronicity, How do I manage not to run into you anymore?
Another said the same parting words in the same place - a hawk circled overhead as a sign of forgiveness and I mistook it for incapacity for love.

It’s possible to lead a functional life sleeping,
Sometimes, I see the headlights and everything scraps together into silence,
Tumbling over the windshield, punctured night sky kaleidoscopic, deer witnessing in the embankments - their eyes oil-slick suffocating yet nebulous and neither of us could decide if this was fate or a systemic casualty,

Recognizing the inevitably of plummeting in love, of oil catching fire, of understanding if you are a flight-or-fight person,
Or: tumbling over the windshield, shielding eyes to artificial lights hearing, “Can you hear me, ma’am?”, your penitent face witnessing my erasure in the driver’s seat.

To be the passenger driving through forest, to be the passenger screaming, “Watch out!”, to be the passenger flying through glass,
To be the woman lying in the intersection forgetting if she was a passenger.

I was walking to the grocery store as a errand on my way to work. I saw his military stride 100 yards ahead of me. I had sneakers on and knew I could reach him if I sped-up. I already was feeling the tug of his sweater and smelling his aquatic cologne that I forgot to look both ways. What would I say but to convince you that poetry was necessary and needed to recognize myself in those green eyes.

I wasn’t thinking about what would happen once I caught up with you. I only felt urgency.

Here’s a confession: I’m struggling to write without breaking this poem into a science.

1. Describe color, sound, texture, smell, hearing, sight, quality, emotion, sequence

2. Become comprehensible for a shared audience

Then, I realized our story isn’t linear.
Then, I realized I don’t speak my own language anymore.

I expected to be lifted and still had the audacity to be shocked when I was dropped.

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Muzzle
Your breath, a puff of proven existence to a light that has always been here before us.
My blurry eyes blinking open, confusing your bright, round face for my own star knowing the only difference in your kiss upon my forehead and the sun's is pressure, heat.
In response to breakfast, near-silent mornings where the scattered animals of the woods shake awake and we listen,
It could've just been the thumping of our hearts,
As if our own inner animals need to be shaken awake from hibernation.
Your shined black eyes silent in another world and I forget there's a life from your perspective and you probably see my stiff form a ghostly shadow flitting before your vision,
Putting away plates gently not to make too much noise, dusting window sills, pouring coffee and mixing sugar,
There is a symphony of thoughts composed behind your face, I bet it sounds like La Primavera or perhaps the end of As Ballad,
Still spooning yogurt and grapefruit into your cupped lips,
I think I'll forever remember you in that chair at the head of the table watching a window of color,
The rare afternoons, or nights that feel like afternoons with the lamps on and the curtains clasped tight, where I sat on the edge of the bed and you danced with each painted feather in flight,
My dripping teeth and sharp ribs where those same feathers could bat against its cage, I could confuse you for a bird, for my heart, for anything that moves and seems solid,
As pleading as my own coyote howl to the judicious moon,
The silken satellite who blows sweet smelling smoke into my doggy, furred face,
Before I scrounge from a dog's outdoor food bowl attempting to domesticate myself, my plate scraped bare as I eat alone on the patio facing the street watching shapeless nights shuffle and streetlamps burn,
I pick my teeth, I pant,
I know living with me is like living with a stranger.
I look up and watch your flitting form in the grove we loved the most, your speckled wings flashes of brilliance and the sun blinding me in-between your small dance, my fur ruffled and bristling as I side-step. I think you dance for yourself and I happen to be the lucky audience.
It's playful how I jump towards you, how I run around chasing you in circles, how I tumble. It's playful how your breast thrums with a song and your wings bat my face.

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Stamps
Dear Stranger,
I was blushing before I met you,
There you were waiting on the cafe’s patio
all politeness and shy smiles,
You filled my awkward silences and met my nervous gaze,
I asked every question in my eagerness to get to know you,
We talked for hours and laughed more full the longer we lingered in the other’s presence, Sunset hour brightened your eyes to sugary amber,
And your hands fluttered over the edge of the coffee bar,
I couldn’t help but noticed your clean trimmed nails,
Your foot would leisurely reach over to rest on the bottom rung of my chair,
I wanted to plunge into your open body language,
Surely you felt the same excitement too as you melted sweetly and gifted me your trust.

Dear Stranger,
I saw you walking towards me,
We were to coincidentally casually pass by each other on the sidewalk,
For once my eyes were lifted off the ground,
You were smiling a silent Hello and when I smiled back
I happened to catch your soft sigh and crimson blush,
My heart surged with the thrill of being the subject of your tender affections,
I’m certain we both have replayed this moment a thousandfold in our daydreams, People will think I’m crazy or maybe they’ll just already know I’m in love
as a silly little smile crosses my face for no reason at all.

Dear Stranger,
There are the little moments that I cherish,

How you gradually drifted off to sleep during a guest lecture in the academic hall then I slipped

my arm under your falling shoulder so you wouldn’t startle awake,
How your hands rest upon the steering wheel and your quick glance
because you wanted to look in my eyes and truly hear what I had to say,
How your sunglasses perfectly framed your face and hairline,
There are the little moments that I dream of coming true,
I can already imagine how it would feel to receive your gentle and hesitant kiss which you would lean into once you felt safe,
The dream of reaching out my hand to grasp yours and the rest of our life beginning, You are so beautiful to me.

Dear Stranger,
You are constantly on my mind
still seated next to me at the coffee bar,
I wonder if you’ll ever find this and realize it’s about you. 

Taylor Asia

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About the Author

Taylor Asia is a senior majoring in English Writing with hopes to return to school for a urban design degree and an MFA is creative writing. With dreams of being an urban planner as well as a writer and open to every opportunity. She is inspired by nature, the mysticism of love, and heartbreak through writing fragments of scene in immense detail. Taylor enjoys reading, writing, and taking long walks throughout the city with many more hobbies to come.