The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

skinned

Skin is the only thing that bonds back together,
After I interrupt its brown cover with a blade
Smiling open sensation
This exhilarating raise of
mini-slopes standing for my fingers to stumble over,
Slitting open the continuity of this mask,
Quenches questions of this reality,
Or did he really steal the last
Of me, the last time his own body
Pierced my flesh,
And this is the gutted cut that made me the hopeless
Hemophiliac,
Bleeding open a gap that
No woven fibre of scab could ever try to seal,
And these skin scratches are the only way for me to feel
If I really am who they say,
And these scrapes across my skin only
Takes the sting away,
So that I don’t numb myself to sleep.

-Arielle John copyright 2008

In unsolid stare to heaven, my forehead rests alongside hers, temple to temple. and the ruffles on this bed-sheet might only resemble snow angels without their wings, but she might think that my fingers in her hair is the most relaxing thing for today, leaking some of her hurts away for a while, and her short wild hair never bands together, faulting the feeling of rain stabbing the ends of my fingers, goodness, she is so beautiful a human, and quietly she tries to listen to me breathe so she could mimic my patterns, perching ear against nostril, inhaling her essence, I swear she smells like the rain trying to brew the nectar of earth’s flowers, but the scorch of her sun only makes her blossom brighter, and true to form she was born a fighter, and this is one war where she relishes in a victory that I cannot understand yet.

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