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Who does a poem have to be about?
A poem is a unique creation. You cannot write the same poem I do and mean the same things I do, because my experiences will always be different than yours. My perspectives, culture, beliefs, thoughts, are different than yours. The reason I do write poetry and have people read it is in the hope that someone is able to find themselves in my words. Confirmation what I’m feeling is not isolated from the rest of people’s feelings is actually comforting. If my musings about orange cold brew, trains, butterflies, clouds, water, and the countless things I’ve written about here, make some sense, then I’m not too far off from being human. I’m doing a good job. Moreover, whatever I’m experiencing feels justified and heard.
For six years, I wrote about fields of stars, tumbling down hills, roses, chasing sunsets, secret lovers, sailors, characters trapped in books, and a long list of things that were more of my observations than stories. My writing was always really abstract but it was always about a particular item, usually circling a theme I was thinking about constantly. In those moments where I really wrote often, I felt as if I needed to get these things off my chest. It feels oddly introspective to ask why I wrote about certain things and why I’m now writing about other things.
Looking at my extremely sporadic but intended to be meaningful pieces over the last year, I have tended to be much more sentimental. My pieces are more focused on me and personal experiences than stories about the rest of the world. I find it easier recently to write about my world, my experiences, my laughter, my tears, than try to project it onto hypothetical scenarios. I feel like it’s an interesting move to label my stories as my stories and not paste my feelings onto another structure to stand as a piece. I do feel more exposed and maybe that affects the frequency of my writings but I feel more honest. I feel more excited to write and try to convey what I’m feeling.
Yet, the confirmation comfort aspect of it still lives. I keep waiting for a signal that I’m experiencing normal things and that somewhere, someone is feeling this way too. I wonder if this experience of reading is different too. Does reading a third-person’s perspective feel different from reading a narrative poem? Is it the difference of feeling like a spectator in a story and feeling like the protagonist? Is there something to be commented on my natural progression between these two styles? That’s food for thought.
So, at the end of my musing I’m realizing that asking “Who does a poem have to be about?” is the wrong question. A poem can be about anyone. It can try to mirror anyone’s experiences. My poems have been about other people or structures mirroring my experiences; they have also centered me and have mirrored my experiences. The subject of the poem is not something to be so distressed about because the source of feelings we pour out onto all these subjects is the same.
The better question is perhaps, “What does a poem have to be about?” and even better “What does a poem have to be?” Because a poem can be about you or me or anyone else but we each get to decide what to pour into that small powerful creation. Maybe more than commenting on the subjects of my poems, the feelings they all wrote about would be a better reflection of me and my changing.
Written by
Milomi.Image source: I was in the Library of Congress’ shop and this is a picture of a book lying open for display. The poem is written by Joy Harjo, the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate.
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three years ago, i declared that i found my favorite beverage: cold brew topped with two shots of freshly squeezed orange juice
as sickening as it sounds, it was really amazing
i would turn to it in times of confusion for solace and i would turn to it in times of celebration for joy
i never made it i would always specially go to the cafe half an hour from my home
and have my orange cold brew
truth be told i didn’t go that often
i saved it for good occasions and handpicked my consumption almost as if i knew that if i had too many times i wouldn’t like it anymore
it’s bitter and sour and sweeti’ve been on an orange cold brew break for a year
living in a different city, i never wanted to try to replace my hometown’s orange cold brew
i wanted it to remain a memory and a token
between me and the city i grew up inbut four days ago, things lined up and i ordered the famous orange cold brew once again
i was at the same cafe i didn’t even have to open the menu
i waited in anticipation tapping fingers on the table excited excited excited for the first sipthe drink looked worse than it did before
but maybe appearances can’t be trusted
the drink was bigger than before
more for me i grinned
excited excited excitedthe first sip was really terrible
the second sip was terrible too
the drink was just bitter and sour and sweet but not in an artful way more in a grimacing way
i still finished it and wondered if it was just an acquired taste trying to find
some excuse to hold on to so i can keep defending this concoction of a drink
some shred of a reason so as not to cut off ties with this once brilliant beverage
and i was at a lossi don’t know how to feel about this
do i chalk it up to changing tastes? do i blame it on growing age?
is it me losing a part of myself i once so proudly proclaimed was mine?
surely, orange cold brew isn’t that deep, right?but every now and then, i come across tokens in my room and around my city
i page through a half finished diary with passionate poems,
i stare at my overstocked bookshelf,
i clutch every guitar pick i find scattered across my drawers,
i look at sheet music and i’m not bubbling with notes as i was before,
i find stars in the margins of my old notebooks,
where are the stars now? where is my urgent poetry and
where are my chords?
where is my orange cold brew? where did it go?will i find it?
is my orange cold brew too buried inside my clogged up Downloads Folder?
did i lose it in Google Drive, Canvas, Slack, Github, Gmail, or Claude?
is it camouflaged against the library stacks or spilled carelessly through late hours of the night?
do you think i left it packed in a moving cardboard box i was either too scared to unpack, that
now lies dustily on top of my cupboard in my college dorm or stowed out of sight under my bed or worse, forgotten in a subway 1 train i might never sit on again?is it too late?
is it?maybe maybe maybe i float out explanations and i try to float out an explanation
that’s a statement and not a questionorange cold brew doesn’t change it’s a pretty standard recipe
it doesn’t season like that so i suppose the statement should point toward a moving object
an evolving idea a changing concept a person, me
stevie nicks’ “landslide” rings like a boombox in my brain with the volume loud and maybe all along,
it was me that changedi think, it was just change
change is not like maths it is not a number nor is it an equation nor is it subtraction
change is not integrals or derivatives or trading strategies or committing code
change is just change it can’t really be explained further it’s not a good or a bad thing unless i make it out to be and it’s not a loss or a gain unless i make it out to be
maybe i lost the orange cold brew but somewhere along the way i gained an extra hot vanilla cappuccino, taro milk tea, adeni chai, and chamomile tea, and who knows maybe this time i’ll try orange cold brew in a different city…
and i think i proudly do declare
that is me and that is changeit’s just an orange cold brew with a different tense
Written by
Milomi -
(writing while listening to Radiohead’s “Let Down” on repeat. I suggest you do too.)
“Transport, motorways, and tramlines”
as a newborn New Yorker, I frequent the subway
quite adept at naming all the stops of the 1-train
slowly developing a map of the city to match to the lines on my hand
used to walking as if i’m always bracing myself for something,
for frigid weather, for hail, for gusts, for opening doors, for revolving ones,
I’m used to being always prepared and always walking ahead, ahead and forward,
soon, I’m on the pavement but I pave my own way“Legs are going, don’t get sentimental”
New York has made me tougher because I stand taller
I look people in the eye and challenge opinions and
I don’t give up that easily
but the city has also found my softer spots
and encouraged me to be more emotional
be sentimental, it tells me
stand in front of a painting for thirty minutes in awe,
laugh so so loudly when you watch a play produced by your college’s theatre department,
tear up when you see your dorm packed up or when
you see your best friends waving bye at you
be sentimental, it tells me
you will lose your legs to your Apple Watch’s step counter,
to endless pacing at Riverside Park because you have difficult decisions,
to excitedly running after your roommates in a rare snowball fight,
but be sentimental
(don’t be nonchalant)“You know, you know where you are with”
at home and away from home, I found people
that pull at my heartstrings when they’re gone and that
make me a bit happier when they’re around
it’s a process of finding people but is it fair to say that
my people are my map home?
I know who I’m with and I know who I’m missing and somehow
both halves of me are pulled in opposite directions,
some sort of wicked magnetic field,
because I have two homes of people, in two continents
I know, I know where I am“And one day, I am gonna grow wings”
where will I fly to?
will I finally take the 1-train to the last stop and back?
will I have a new home?
will I need legs?when will I grow wings?
is New York my wings?will I be able to fly back in time to relive all the moments?
the midnight quesadillas, slow sunsets on steps, secret dancing on soft songs,
between all
the trains taken and trains missed?“Transport, motorways, and tramlines”
the song repeats again
where have transport, motorways, and tramlines taken me to?
and where will I go next?Written by
Milomi -
after a million firsts this week is going to be a beautiful bittersweet compilation of my last firsts.
my last first day of school, my last school diary, my last first foyer assembly.
it feels like yesterday i was burdened by an extra textbook i carried to school a a first grader,
the biggest problem in my life was that i told my friend to break a pencil and he was able to do it but we got shouted at for breaking a pencil.
fourth grader me would not believe she got into student council,
that she made it to twelfth standard in a matter of minutes.
it was yesterday that i was the head of the cheshire cat, my best annual day role, i’m so proud of nine year old me.
just a few hours ago today i was a fifth grader who proudly announced i wanted to become an astronaut and go to mars but i wanted to write a musical before that.
and a few minutes ago, i was an eighth grader arguing about brutus and julius caesar and human nature,
a tenth grader rethinking my life decisions and crying when i got my final exam results.
i suddenly grew up a second ago.
there’s no way back.
it’s how djo says- it’s the end of the beginning.
we keep moving forward, we’re pawns hoping to get to the end of our column unscathed
so we can transform into stealthier knights or a castle perhaps.
we’re galloping in a field- we don’t know if we’re even going in the right direction
we just want to reach somewhere.
soon i won’t be a teenager anymore.
i won’t have to worry about broken pencils and annual day- imagine not complaining about school every day.
it seems far away. i hope it stays like that.Writtten by
Milomi
On 1st April, 2024.Something from the archives.
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i’m right at home in between 25C and 27C,
the perfect temperature to live comfortably and contemplate efficiently.
it never gets too cold where i live
and it’s never even dipped below 15C, thank gosh,
i would become a snow-woman.still, last week, i mulled over events without mulled wine,
and i saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills,
that moment was an anchor, my anchor.but what snow and what hills and what reflection?
i shudder in humid clouds and terrible air quality index,
i shrink away from thick tendrils of smoke and wounding sunlight, this city is hot.
i still went on and told my friend’s dog that really, my life changed when i saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills.my head is swirling now-
i’ve ridden north, hopping trains and searching for that
glass mountain
to finish my song and to return my humid head to cool.
i saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
and i wondered what the dog would say if he saw it too, he might ask if the landslide brought me down.my head is still swirling
my words lost all semblance of sense five weeks ago when i first saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills.
try to get some sleep, maybe
you’re seeing things, it’s just a mirage.
my reflection waves at me.
i wonder if i should wave back.Written by
Milomi.Day 11/30- Landslide by Fleetwood Mac and NaPoWriMo’s lyric prompt are a dangerous combination. I apologise.
Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-mountain-covered-in-snow-with-trees-in-the-foreground-u8YSlZgzBzg
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art is not a number.
the sistine chapel covers at least 12,000 square feet,
it is 134 feet long,
44 feet wide,
68 feet high,
it took michelangelo 4 years to complete,
it began to be made 517 years ago.the numbers make the art more brilliant and more
apparent,
but the art is not a number.it is not how many frescoes or how many
paintbrushes or how many
nights or how many
people.art is the story between the strokes
that we learn on our second visit,
that some people
can’t quite understand till their fifth visit.
art is not a number.art is the agony in continuous creation,
it is the cramping of twisted hands that are hidden and sacrificed
for a better purpose.
it is the unquestionable, relentless march, stubborn,
despite tangled muscles and limp limbs,
no,
art is not a number.Written by
Milomi.
Day 10/30.
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I found a piece of paper and coloured it blue.
There. I held a small part of the sky.
I told my friend that it was mine but it could be hers too;
I would share.
I held that piece of paper close to my chest
And we whispered secrets that her clouds would keep forever.
We even put it to test
Checking that the sky was true to its promise.
Too many years later, I find that same paper,
Its frayed ends, holes, tears, and greyish appearance terrify me.
Maybe this is an act of nature.
Maybe not.Written by
Milomi.Day 9/30.
Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/blue-and-white-labeled-box-VjnuqdJvq3Q
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lost and found, in and out, love and i play hide and seek
climax builds, subsides again- is she who i should really seek?i’ve emptied my cupboard and looked beneath the floor tiles,
dismantled my life trying to earn this token i eagerly seek.pages torn out of books, loose thread from clothes, all possible
inks on my skin, but my mind tells me to only seekthat which i fear but that which i yearn for, i swear it’s right
around the corner. an encore of you’re not weak. seek.there’s not a road i haven’t combed, a sky i haven’t searched,
maybe love is my shadow, maybe that’s what i should seek;as i turn around, i see her, she is a thousand prisms, a million
promises. she grants me a wish and tells me only to seek.i’m tearful, i’m fearless, i’m careful, i’m not. she’s here, she’s not.
i had just started falling and now it’s her chance to seek.i’ve lost my shadow, cursed to be a half-moon, never whole.
Milomi, will you be found before i run out of time to seek?Written by
Milomi.Day 8/30, inspired by Patricia Smith’s work as per the NaPoWriMo prompt!
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To be so unfettered, almost disconnected from the world’s thoughts,
Yet deeply rooted in emotions and
Rich in comfort and meaning
Is beyond me.
To make my own story without waiting for destiny to
Painstakingly pen down a predictable arc,
Terrifies me and
To still deny convention, defy odds, all in the span of
Three hours,
Is wildly improbable.
I cannot be a work of Tarantino or Nolan, I lack the
Depth but even more, the confidence
In my story – that I might awe some and inspire more.
I lack the precision of words, and a certain kind of
Hope, that twinkles through the screen.
Too dazed, not as amazed, but not at all fazed by the realisation-
Maybe I’m more fitting as a single frame of a film-
A fickle feeling, a fleeting flower,
A memory that left too soon.Written by
Milomi.7/30.
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