true people true people

Author: mcc (page 1 of 10)

The Eye of the Storm

A fixer-upper of a lover,
you would run your hands
through my hair like
you were maintaining a house.

We stormed, we stammered,
we struggled to see behind
our own eyes,
and still the rain came.

The same squabbles cycled between us:
a million mirrors in a single mirror;
a million fears in a single fear.

I heard you already but you won’t stop talking.
I’m balking at all this responsibility
and to be honest, I doubt my own abilities.

The calm we had was just the eye of the storm.
Before hereafter, we thought we had escaped
the dice of life, the thunder of lightning,
the stain of spilled ink.

But now, with holes ripped into our diaries,
the future seems more now than there.

I wish we were back at the fair
that night you proposed
with one knee on a Ferris wheel.

O, how elated you could make me feel.

I wish you could funnel me back up into heaven
instead, we are battening down the hatches,
barring, blocking, holding, hiding, surviving.

I love you…

…but I don’t even know who you are anymore.

Now, will you share the cellar with me or
are you going outside to join the storm?

Fall Out of Love Song Lyrics

Verse:
Amin / Cmaj
Gmaj / Emaj7

Bridge:

Emaj7 / Emaj7/G#

I could never speak on you
because the wound was tender.
Whenever I would get your mail,
I’d write: ‘Return to Sender’.

I confess that now I scribe
‘Not at this address.’
I thought I would’ve healed inside
and disinfected this abscess.

I’ll cauterize the chasm,
I’ll anesthetize the aether,
I’ll inoculate against the incubus
until I break this fever.

I’ll pour this poem down the drain
the way I swallow pain:
All at once, in one big gulp,
until it floods my veins.

Bridge:
You told me that you fell out of love.
What sort of fall was it?

Was it a fall from grace or from a burning tower?
Was it cold and caught your breath
like the old winds of autumn?

When I fell out of love,
I forfeited my power.
They say the fall don’t do you in,
it’s when you hit rock bottom.

A trapdoor ejected me
when you finally
confessed to the truth:

BRIDGE
“I may have gaslit you.”

I fell out of love at terminal velocity,
like the urn that was lost from the Han Dynasty
Ai Weiwei smashed it to pieces
BRIDGE
just by letting go.

I went to pieces, I would have you know.
Now, I see your name like they were flakes of snow:

Mary or Marie, Marianne or Anna – they all sound like Mariana to me.

Bewitched like Dr. Frankenstein,
this poem comes to life
though its no child of mine.

I’m transfixed on stitches
because this cardio-
vascular cicatrix
is keeping me alive.

My doctor tells me I’mlucky
to have survived
BRIDGE
but now there’s scar tissue
scrawled all across my heart.

OUTRO

I recall you now the way
I trace a scar X 4

BRIDGE/OUTRO
by tracing it from the end
back to its start.

Mantra for Imposter’s Syndrome

I did fine,
and if I didn’t, it’s all in my head,
and if it wasn’t, then no one noticed,
and if someone did, then it wasn’t all that bad,
and if it was, then people will forget eventually,
and if they don’t…

Then they’re carrying a grudge!

Mantra pour le syndrome de l’imposteur*

J’ai bien fait ça
Et si non, ce n’est que dans ma tête
Et si ce ne l’est pas, personne ne l’a remarqué
Et si quelqu’un•e l’a remarqué•e, ce n’était pas si pire que ça
Et si ce l’était vraiment, les gens finiront par oublier
Et s’iels ne le font pas…
C’est qu’iels sont rancuniers•ères !

*traduction par Eden Rioux-Turcotte

survival mechanisms

Some say gender is a spectrum but I see it as a schizm.
All the things that make me a man were just survival mechanisms.

School was like a prison.
I was ruled by fools cool with cynicism,
miss me with your misgivings.

Dragged down the corridor to settle old scores behind closed doors.
Shoved into a locker like a shiv.
I was thin, I could hide in the dim.

I could never tell a foe from a friend.

My old Sensei Willy would always say to me,
your best defense in a feud was to keep your distance.
You have no chance to react
once someone gets too close to you.

Matter of fact,
I thought Karate could harden my masculinity.

Anger would coil my fingertips into fists like electricity –
my father’s father’s curse: a hot coal thrown by these
burnt palms.
What’s worse:
White-hot eyes that squeezed out tenderness,
a temperament of tempered steel,
reeling in my indignant righteousness.

When I bullied the bully
who had poisoned my teammates against me,
spreading hateful lies about my size,
I became a man.

When I won a fight
by laughing in surprise
to a sucker punch to the gut,
I became a man.

When I was pushed from behind
into the dirt and the grime
because I let my guard down one time,
I became a man.

I learned how to “Man up”,
how to stifle how I felt
because those feelings made me vulnerable.

If being baited into an outburst made you trivial to ridicule,
wouldn’t you trap your feelings like lightning in a bottle?

But one day you awake mid-brake
after going full throttle,
lost control, totaled the vehicle
of your hopes and dreams, you cope and seethe,
you see male role models succeed
because of their toxic masculinity.

That same entitled anger that nearly broke my brother.

As a kid, whenever I was bored,
I would goad him into going overboard,
I explored how to explode
the anger he had stored.

O, how I made him suffer.
How we hurt each other in the ways
men believe
it will make them tougher.

It’s like disarming a bomb trying to tell you all this.
Confronting the mold in the fridge after a long Christmas trip.

The softer side of me knows
it takes strength to be weak,
to speak on it,
to grieve the loss of innocence.

I never wanted to be an old soul as a young child.
I never wanted my gender expression
to be a survival mechanism.

This Poem is a Virus

This poem is a virus. The present times require us 
to inoculate against the hate that divides us. 

Its not too late to vaccinate
against the news that circulates online.
Some viewpoints can poison your mind through your iris.

I got tired of this so I designed this poem in a writer’s lab.

Soundborne, spread through speech
and word of mouth, it’s out of reach
of technocrats
due to its advanced
poetic techniques.

The poem induces an immune response
from within the prefrontal cortex.

Imagine a species of Corvus selecting core texts
to construct nuance in your neurons
by infecting an open orifice.
You’ve maybe heard of this phenomenon:
Ear worms will make you hum like an automaton.

It may seem obscene
but good health
if often built from the dead cells
of hellish devils.
And so it is with this aural vaccine.

It’s a cruel world where curiosity
is corralled down rabbit holes by Silicon Valley
who profit off the radicalization of our families.

Now, it’s up to you and I
to steel our minds against the vagaries
and mean-spirited replies
in the comment sections of a subtly racist Facebook post.

Remember! Don’t feed the trolls because they only eat their own kind.
Let’s not form our entire identities online.

To stop potential mindrot, you can inject a piece of the pox
so your psychology can foresee a potential enemy.

It could be a false equivalency, rhetorical fallacy, or even plain jackassery.
The allure of a cure,
the gift of a grift,
the calm of the quiet
before a lovebomb
blasts you back to where you started.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

So guard your heart, maintain your steeple,
and I hope one day, online or off,
you will find your people.

fall out of love

I could never speak on you
because the wound was tender.
Whenever I would get your mail,
I would write: ‘Return to Sender’.

Je n’ai jamais pu parler de toi
parce que la blessure était douce.
Chaque fois que je recevais ton courrier,
j’écrivais : “Retour à la source”.

I confess that now I scribe
‘Not at this address.’
I thought I would’ve healed inside
and disinfected this abscess.

Je confesse que maintenant je scribe
“Pas à cette adresse”.
Je pensais que j’aurais guéri de l’intérieur
et désinfecté cet abcès.

I’ll cauterize the chasm,
I’ll anesthetize the aether,
I’ll inoculate against the incubus
until I break this fever.

Je cautériserai le gouffre,
j’anesthésierai l’éther,
j’inoculerai contre l’incube
jusqu’à ce que je brise cette fièvre.

I’ll pour this poem down the drain
the way I swallow pain:
All at once, in one big gulp,
until it floods my veins.

Je vais verser ce poème dans l’égout.
comme j’avale ma chagrin :
D’un seul coup, d’une grande gorgée,
jusqu’à ce qu’elle inonde mes veines.

You told me that you fell out of love.
What sort of fall was it?

Tu m’as dit que tu étais tombé amoureux.
Quelle sorte de chute était-ce ?

Was it a fall from grace or from a burning tower?
or was it cold and caught your breath like autumn?

Était-ce une chute de la grâce ou d’une tour en flammes ?
ou bien il faisait froid et on avait le souffle coupé comme en automne ?

When I fell out of love, I forfeited my power.
They say the fall doesn’t do you in,
it’s when you hit rock bottom.

Quand je suis tombé amoureux, j’ai perdu mon pouvoir.
On dit que ce n’est pas la chute qui vous fait perdre pied,
c’est quand on touche le fond.

A trapdoor ejected me
when you finally
confessed to the truth:
“I think I may have gaslit you.”

Une trappe m’a éjecté
quand tu as finalement
avoué la vérité :
“Je pense que je vous ai peut-être éclairé au gaz.”

I fell out of love mid-flight
at a nosedive, break-neck free fall
like a marionette severed from his strings

out of your mind and out of your sight
The wind shrieks a banshee’s call
instead of your sweet nothings.

J’ai perdu l’amour en plein vol
en piqué, en chute libre.
comme une marionnette séparée de ses ficelles

hors de votre esprit et hors de votre vue
Le vent hurle le cri d’une banshee
au lieu de tes douces pensées.

I fell out of love at terminal velocity,
like the urn from the Han Dynasty
that Ai Weiwei smashed to pieces
just by letting go.
I went to pieces, I would have you know.
Now, I see your name in all its fragments:

Je suis tombé amoureux à la vitesse terminale,
comme l’urne de la dynastie Han
qu’Ai Weiwei a brisée en morceaux juste par laisse tomber les main
Je suis tombé en morceaux, je te dirai.
Maintenant, je vois ton nom dans tous ses fragments :

Mary or Marie, Marianne or Anna – they all sound like Mariana to me.

Mary ou Marie, Marianne ou Anna – elles ressemblent toutes à Mariana pour moi.

Bewitched like Dr. Frankenstein,
this poem comes to life
though its no child of mine.

Ensorcelé comme le Dr Frankenstein,
ce poème prend vie
bien que ce ne soit pas mon enfant.

I’m transfixed on stitches
because this cardiovascular cicatrix
is keeping me alive.

Je suis fasciné par les points de suture
parce que cette cicatrice cardiovasculaire
me garde ma futur.

My cardiologist tells me I was lucky
to have survived but now there’s scar tissue
scrawled all across my heart.

Mon cardiologue me dit que j’ai eu de la chance
d’avoir survécu
mais maintenant il y a un tissu cicatriciel
gribouillé sur mon cœur.

I remember you now the same way
I remember a scar,
by tracing it from the end
back to its start.

Je me souviens de toi de la même façon
que je me souviens d’une cicatrice,
en la traçant de la fin
jusqu’à son origine.

every plant a poem

Every plant a poem.
Every poem a plant.

In sifted soil,
a seed will grow,
inevitable.
The spindle uncoils
past the reeds.

At long last,
a ray of sun
is what it needs
to cast away
its embryo;
to flee the past
into the day.

As time does flow,
its roots dig deep;
its stalk breathes
long and slow.

It does not know
why it was sewn
or why the wind
does blow.

One day a whisper,
the next a shout,
until one day,
the plant’s ripped out,
from the earth,
its mortal clay,
its place of birth,
its final resting place.

A life is as long
as a life is lived;
A gift that cannot
be ungived.

Given all of this,
what’s the difference
between my breath
and the wind?

Where does a poem end?
Where does a plant begin?

Don’t try to change my mind

Don’t try to change my mind.
I only change my mind at night.
I change my mind while I am sleeping,
without struggle, without fight.

N’essayez pas de me faire changer d’avis.
Je ne change d’avis que la nuit.
Je change d’avis pendant que je dors,
sans lutte, sans effort.

Don’t bother me with facts
or bore me with debate.
I’ll only remember how you loved
and how vicious was your hate.

Ne me dérangez pas avec des faits
ni ne m’ennuie avec des débats.
Je me rappellerai seulement combien tu as aimé
et combien ta haine était méchante.

I want to dream as if in flight
instead of how she smiled.
I want it all to be of peace
like when I was a child.

Je veux rêver comme si j’étais en vol
au lieu de voir comment elle souriait.
Je veux que tout soit en paix
comme quand j’étais enfant.

When I sleep is when I hope;
It’s where I pray alone.
I don’t know which gods kneel here
or for what sins they must atone.

Quand je dors, c’est là que j’espère ;
C’est là que je dis mes prières.
Quels dieux s’agenouillent aussi pour se confesser
et pour quels péchés doivent-ils expier?

I only know of a void –
that place where I wasn’t born,
a place I won’t go when I die –
a place I don’t fear or mourn.

Je ne connais que le vide.
Cet endroit où je ne suis pas né,
un endroit où je n’irai pas quand je mourrai –
un endroit que je ne crains ni préside.

When I wake, my eyes will see
the world cast in a morning dew.
My dreams still cling to me
but mostly when I dream of you.

Quand je me réveillerai, mes yeux verront
le monde dans la rosée du matin.
Mes rêves s’accrochent toujours à moi
mais surtout quand je rêve de toi.

Hey there on your soapbox
with your arguments in array –
A third of me isn’t even here
and who knows what he’ll say?

Hé là, sur votre plateforme
avec vos arguments sur le podium –
Un tiers de moi n’est même pas ici –
Désolé, j’ai pas de quorum.

So, don’t try to change my mind
I only change my mind at night.
I change my mind while I am sleeping,
without struggle, without light.

Alors, n’essayez pas de me faire changer d’avis.
Je ne change d’avis que la nuit.
Je change d’avis pendant que je dors,
sans lutte, sans épiphanie.