Sweetest thing I've ever known...

baby cousin on the beach.

...where my scratches came from

She’s afraid of needles,
And the mere thought of it cripples her.
She’s here
Standing, staring, wearing a daze,
Tearing
at the flesh of my stomach,
..she can’t stomach it.
Swaying and moving uneasily
I’ve gotten accustomed to her
faking immunity
Inflammatory tragedy
That can all but stabilize
This fragile life,
Left hanging from the centre of this room,
From behind the bullet-proof
Of these green curtains
And behind the uncertain fixing of her face
…she can’t face it.
Neither can she erase the hitting out
Of fathered palms,
He injecting her,
Slowly, deeply, to force her to a calm,
Almost too dead to feel,
Her body
I wonder how he feels,
Thinking that nobody
Else knows
What he does to her.

-Arielle John

copyright 2008

She hugged me.

She’s not accustomed to letting air pass by this way,
and she doesn’t notice
that even I notice the difference.
Embracing an old part of herself
that she refuses to let go of,
no perception of love
what so ever.
But I never wish this on any human I know.
Then she grabs at my back,
ripping like my own fear at torn consolations,
“That’s him.” she whispers,
and I look forward ahead
and there he sat waiting,
in uneasiness creating
an anxiety for his own self,
and her belt is imprinting
its buckle into my un-expanding womb,
and she moved, slightly,
so I unheld my breath and inhaled,
and it worries me that she’s female
and so close to my own body,
probably it’s because she told me she can’t show affection
and doesn’t understand that the position
she has me in,
makes me uncomfortable,
but she’s all but predictable,
and paints a placid smile
she has learnt to wear in public,
turns round to watch him,
walks to the car and all she collects,
is the scolding she expected,
for taking too long.

- Arielle John
copyright 2008

These slits were forcibly cut into this land
And it bears the scrapings of a gash too deep between soils,
A gap to keep our toils apart
But from one exodus to another part
Of this earth
It starts
To seep a story too different
A single significant factor,
Living, present and hereafter
Between connections and beyond water
But her son is her
Bloodline.
And with eyes bovine he watches as she leaves,
Tears falling concrete pellets as he screams,
Promising a better life for him I suppose,
But she and all of Korea knows
A mother must carry hope,
Even beyond borders.

-Arielle John

copyright 2008

Rain-flying

The violent smell of this acid rain
Knows my name
And how to find me,
So from behind the quiet of my hiding place,
Comes a whole year since I last entertained
The thought
Of this irresistible dance of a season,
And so my flight finds reason
Beyond the wickedness of curious
Little boys,
Beyond snapping jaws of dogs I do avoid,
I must be too quick,
Too fragile.
Then my agile unsteps
Become patterned and parallel
To the dodging of rain-drops,
And whenever the rain stops,
I will still be there.
Either alone or less alive than this frail body
Might be able to carry against air,
So I lose flight from too-weak wings,
And I come across a morning
that brings a different tone
To most Saturdays.
You know where to find me-
Always outside dead, on the floor
This rainy season, I’m sure.

Unearthing a different form of you.
Soaking up your essence from the bottom
of an ink bottle,
blood poison didn't delay itself either.

Grey

Through words uttered by infants
we would come to terms with black and white,
but on any given day,
grey to me is more than just
the threat of a rainy season sky,
grey is the reason for me not wanting
to understand why
there sinks this gap between the both of us,
grey doesn’t depend on any emotion motivating us
to remain still,
grey is the colour
that I want this to remain until,
I feel I could swallow it all.