Poem, But No Update

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Hiiii everyone,
I know that many of you have been waiting for an email update about Indonesia, but sadly, I've been way too busy/tired to write much about it! I like it, though. Honestly it's a lot like Hanoi, but with more trees and prayer calls. Plus, I think best in the middle of the night, and when I'm up at 7 for class every day, there aren't too many middles-of-the-night to be writing through. But tonight my insomnia went to a whole new level, and I HAD to write something. So I got up and wrote a letter to my friend James. And then for some reason that just brought up a million other words I NEEDED to say - RIGHT now - and for some odd reason, for the first time in eight or nine years, it came out in the form of a poem. So I'm going to send that to you all instead of an update, because that's all I've got right now. It's really quite a long poem, though. Like I said, I had a lot of words.
You might see yourself in it. You probably won't even have to look too hard.

So this is for James, who always asks me if I've written anything lately.
______________

I used to write poetry, but
after a while it just felt forced.
It fell short.
You know?

I'd look at the words on the page
eloquent and tragic, or
effusive with joy, it depends.
But the words were always too smooth
and monochromatic, and somehow slightly...lustrous.
Like silk, green or yellow, a bolt of beautiful, unformed,
ethereal material that catches the light
in a way that's simply...perfect.
Poetic, if you will.

I didn't like those words because
in the end, they just weren't me.
Because let me tell you, man, I'm
just nothing like silk.
I think probably no one is, not even
people who look like it
from the outside.

If I were a piece of fabric I'd probably be
cotton.
And I wouldn't be formless
I think I'd be a shirt.
Not the one you wear on special occasions
but the one that fits you no matter
how much weight you gain or lose.
The one that just seems to love you
no matter what you feel like on the inside
The one that takes your imperfections right
out of your hands and swallows them whole
And in the end I show you only what I want you to see.

If I were a shirt, I'd want to smell like home
Wherever, whatever and whoever
home is to you.

So that's why I don't write poetry.
You see?
It's an issue of cotton vs. silk.

And even aside from that
There are some things you
just can't fit into words
like dough into a cookie cutter
Because you mix and mold and shape and
don't get me wrong, cookies are delicious but
they're not quite what you started with
are they?
Of course not.
Everyone knows cookie dough is better than cookies.

But there are things I'd like to write about,
sure.
Who wouldn't want to capture the way Thailand
smells like coconut milk and wood smoke
and heat?
Or the smiles of people you don't know, whose
language you don't speak, whose
lives you don't understand
and the singular way those smiles
make you warm inside?
Things as complicated as avocados, or
the sun on your face
As simple as love
As near and far as home.
Like the prickle of good champagne,
the stickiness of ripe mangoes,
the crisp taste of anything cooked over a campfire.

I'd write about how funny it feels to
rub my nose on your nose while
I'm smiling and my face is all scrunched up

Or when I'm lying on your legs in the dark, and
you were upset but
now we're reliving our most embarrassing memories and
God, it's hysterical and
I could stay here forever

I’d like to write about
your head on my shoulder in high school, watching
the National Geographic Channel
Do you know what I was thinking?
I remember. I thought, "I adore this person
with my entire being."
Verbatim.

Or that little chat in the desert that night, soooo
many years ago, now
And so many since
You've shocked me, and I've shocked you
And somehow it all works out.

Or when your mom told me to lick the plate
of mango and sticky rice so
you wouldn't take it from me
and I did
Right there in the restaurant
And once, you played me guitar.

That time when you walked in, in the middle of the night
and you were a little bit drunk, but
only a little, and
I was crying and coloring and I probably wasn't wearing pants
but of course you never care, and
you read to me.
Zen Shorts.
Your feet were dirty.

I wish I could explain to someone who doesn't know you
the way you tell stories
and just exactly why they make me laugh until
I cry and my whole body hurts and I can't breathe
Because it's not them, it's you
And in the end I can't explain you even when I try.

I've never had words for our conversation in the car that night
driving through the snow, not even then
I was trying hard not to cry
But I'm not sure what the lump in my throat was made of
You've always been different from anyone else.

I wish I knew how to phrase
what we have
because it's not
trilogies, or movies, or fantasies
or long talks and long walks and long days and long nights
or food, or fiction, or friends
but is somehow all of those things, too.

If I could, I'd write about
what it's like to live something and know
you'd love it and
I wish so much you were there
Or when you ARE there
like that dance party in the library

Or that feeling when I'm a million miles away and
randomly, out of nowhere,
that song comes on that always reminds me of you
and I remember being SO happy
to be alive, to be with you, to be listening, singing, dancing to that song
that suddenly I'm sad, practically
choking on happy-sad tears and
I'm laughing and crying and singing and
Everyone around me thinks i'm NUTS.
It's okay, I am. You are too.

Hey, remember that time?

I'd write about how, when I hug you
we are the only two people in the whole, wide world
Or falling asleep knowing you're next to me, and
you love me

I'd write about the meaning of home,
and how much I miss my family,
always, constantly, like
a lemon tree trying to grow in Connecticut
or the tropics, because
that's what it's like.
Being uprooted.

Who has words for things like that?
For those and so many more?
For how much I love you
all?

Sometimes I try to tell you how much you
mean to me, but
I feel like the message gets lost
in words. For example,
it is my opinion that "love"
is the most damnably inadequate word
in the English language.
Maybe in every language.
Because I keep searching for one that feels right, but
15 languages later,
still no dice.

So anyway,
that's why I don't write poetry.
Somehow it just falls short.

I might try again one day, though.
You never know.

___________________

Love,
Katie

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