Untitled, Tathève Simonyan

charles leclerc | i had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

i wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parents teenage daughter / she'll be the best you ever had if you let her

Sylvia Plath from a letter to Ann Davdiow-Goodman written 1951; Letters of Sylvia Plath, Volume I: 1940-1956 / Jeanette Winterson excerpt from Lighthousekeeping / Rosamund Hodge excerpt from Cruel Beauty / unknown / image: Angelica Alzona Intimacy (2012) words: The National Daughter of the Soho Riots (2005) / Tathève Simonyan A Prayer / @/FAUNTHEKiD (pinterest) / Victoria Chang Foghorn; Six poems / image: unknown words: Richard Siken excerpt from Crush / Hala Alyan I'm Not Speaking First

i. Sylvia Plath, letter to Ann Davdiow-Goodman

[ "I know I'll always think of you with something like hurt and nostalgia - and a great deal of love." ]

ii. Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

[ "This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in." ]

iii. Rosamund Hodge, Cruel Beauty

[ "You fought and fought to keep all the cruelty locked up in your head, and for what? None of them ever loved you, because none of them ever knew you." ]

iv. unknown

[ "and you've cried once more because recognition feels like forgiveness, which is a burning furnace that can't stand on its own. love is a feast but you've learned to abstain. there is a sickness that follows the shame of giving with love only to be met with slaughter." ]

v. Angelica Alzona, Intimacy / The National, Daughter of the Soho Riots

[ Surrealist painting of a man and a woman kissing as their faces blend together. Red outlines of hands reach up around them. "BREAK MY ARMS / AROUND THE ONE I LOVE" ]

vi. Tatheve Simonyan, A Prayer

[ "Rage, that is love - rotten! / Rage, that is desire - rotten! / Rage! - like a prayer, unanswered, ricocheting from your ceiling and landing right onto your eyes, never quite reaching where it was meant to." ]

vii. FAUNTHEKiD

[ "being in close proximity to you / is being led to the slaughter / if that the lamb is aware is alive is accepting / if that the slaughter is love love love" ]

viii. Victoria Chang, Foghorn

[ "The great mystery / is whether I love you or / I just love mourning. / The absence of a laugh just / gone, and the air that fills it." ]

ix. unknown/Richard Siken, Crush

[ Silhouette of a boy looking downwards. Red streaks from the background spread outwards from the middle. "I'll be your / slaughterhouse, / your killing floor, / your morgue / and final resting" ]

x. Hala Alyan, I'm Not Speaking First

[ "Nothing's Freudian anymore. A cigar's a cigar. I want to love something / I want to love something without having to apologize for it. Please don't tell." ]

-a girl is a haunted house, tatheve simonyan

Untitled, Tathève Simonyan

prayer, tathève simonyan

— august, tathève simonyan

[text ID: promises made by june / had rotten / by the time august came. / i’ve mistaken silence with nothingness / and unlearning it asks for courage / i know not how to muster. / this half-empty glass of orange juice, / ever-present on its throne of dust, / on this wooden table, / holds more promise than i ever will. / i, a personified you, for this is not a wall but a mirror / [personified] / i, i mean you, i mean [redacted] / you eat the sun and with your burnt tongue / try to sing songs / not about pain. / don’t you? / in july / [i] you tried to stretch the rare / moments of happiness but our feet / always seemed to stay out of the / blanket / uncovered. / how do i love something without / fully succumbing to it? / you thought you had to die for you to live, didn’t you? / you thought there’s always a spring after a winter / you didn’t think that / this vivaldian symphony hadn’t been written for bodies like ours, . did you? / in july / you didn’t know that loneliness is a crowded town / yet /  it’s always been bestowed upon you / to lock the gates / and turn off the lights / every night, / did you? / june made promises it knew it couldn’t keep. / but i shall be wiser / in august.]

— a girl is a haunted house, tathève simonyan

[text ID: I was born from a mother, like you, / Wearing nothing but the pride of innocence, / Wrapped in my blissful indifference, / But I couldn’t scream like you / And I couldn’t cry like you / And I couldn’t smile like you. / I grew up enchained to these walls, like you, / Filled with nothing but a promise of excellence / (What a merciless fraudulence!) / But I couldn’t walk like you / And I couldn’t talk like you / And I couldn’t keep the child in me alive like you. / Your existence in this world seems so effortless, / Yet I struggle to lure each breath in. / And at night, when this itch of my skin / Softly whispers that I’ll never win / Even trying alone seems so meaningless.]

— a girl is a haunted house, tathève simonyan

[text ID: “I could’ve lived like this”, echoed in my head. / As I looked around, my eyes unthinkingly clung to places where I could’ve hidden my selves: the ones that didn’t come to being and the one that I was. In the cupboards of this kitchen I could’ve buried all the women I could’ve grown into. While doing so, I would’ve put on the apron of the one who inhabited the kitchen. The cups and the glasses would’ve made place for me. I could’ve easily found a home in between the kitchen table and refrigerator. As the fragrance of rosemary and thyme found their way to me, a picture found its way to the back of my eyes: a hushed scene, full of contentment, a shot of me standing in the center of this kitchen, feet thick brown trucks giving birth to dozens of snakelike radixes, covered in colorful moss, devoid of flowers but who needs flowers when all they do is wilt anyway? I would’ve thought so, had I been the me of that frame. / I could’ve been content here, not happy, but content. The cutlery and the plates would’ve made place for me. The dull roar of the washing machine would’ve hidden my cries, with the same diligence it sheltered my mother’s. The “what ifs” of this particular scenario smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. / I could’ve been content here. I thought as I placed the coffee cup on the countertop next to the gas stove: the surface always wet for it filled the space between the sink and the stove, in between water and fire.  / I could’ve been content here. I repeated as I unscrewed the lid of the coffee jar and took out a spoonful of the umber powder. / While turning on the gas and putting the cezve on its designated place, I cursed the mind that yearned for more, yearned to be more than what it was supposed to be. I cursed the eyes that only saw what was not in front of them, hands that wished to touch what wasn’t theirs to touch and the tongue that longed to taste what wasn’t hers to taste. I cursed myself because I understood that I could’ve been content here, and as the umber froth fought its way to the surface, my tears caved in to the gravitational force.]

Untitled, Tathève Simonyan

— clair de lune, tathève simonyan         

[text ID: i want a “waking up naked under dusty pink silky sheets” scene: / sunlights of hair cascading over the ivory of my back / untethered strands connecting beauty marks / my own constellation of starlight / and as the morning light sashays in / through the cracks / of this chain of blinds / and as this body of mine / welcomes in blues and yellows / there’s a sense of promise / dancing in the air / that’s not going anywhere. / i want a scene of / hands reaching for a door / not for a cover / for in this particular scene / there’s a body that wants to have me in it / and an i who wants to be in this body / i want this symbiotic bliss / this harmonious coexistence / of two opposing forces / reaching for the same door. / [i want debussy playing in the background] / hands reaching for a cup, hands boiling water, hands adding / a spoonful of coffee / hands never burning / hands running through hair / like wild horses / blindly unbounded / like leaves / succumbing to the breath of the wind / but in a good way / because succumbing oneself / doesn’t have to end with a death / not always / at least not when you can hear / clair de lune / softly whispering from the living room. / i want scenes with hands: / hands all over / all the time / hands that love / without a reason and with (one) / because it’s spring / because it’s no longer spring / because they are hands and that’s what they were made to do / because debussy is playing / and what else can one do / but love / unabashedly / with van gogh yellows / and picasso blues / and monet violets / and / i want a scene where / my name is no longer an unintended apology / but a silent promise / like the morning light / dancing in the air / painting its blue hues / yellow in its blues. / i want a scene where / my existence is a reason / and not an afterthought. / i want a scene of me not wanting any of these. / scenes of me naked under dusty pink silky sheets / waiting for the morning light / and knowing that it will come.]