Naked Writing

City Burial (Write About Cold)

There was a lot of gray. I remember that many men wore gray suits and held gray, somber faces. I can’t remember much about the colors of that day—there probably were none.

His father’s head was full of gray. His mother’s head had none (Clairol perfect color perhaps?)

His sisters wore shades of black. Some pieces of clothing lighter than the others. Gray bars layered to mimic black.

The gray seeped into the air and the smell. I can’t really remember, but I think gray smells like the freezer when you first open it. Mostly, you can’t smell anything, but then if you stand there long enough, you’ll notice a hint of must among the frozen air.

The air was definitely frozen as we stood around his casket and the place he was to be buried. His mother placed her hand gently on his casket to whisper good-bye. I almost couldn’t stand it. It was too much pain.

There was snow mixing with dirt in the cemetery. I stared at this dirty snow as they prayed for his soul. They spoke words and threw flowers in the unfilled hole. As they lowered the casket into the ground, I couldn’t help but look at everyone’s faces.

Eyes shaded by dark gray tinted sunglasses. Gray tears. Gray and shaking hands. The air was cold, cold and gray. The feeling was like standing in place forever. Then, there was nothing left and we moved on.

AKR

Write About Something New

There was no familiarity in anything. Touching your ear and nose and neck was all new. No memorized crevices or comfortable spots. Each reaction was new. I didn’t expect you to breathe like that. Or moan like that. Or look at me like that.

I wanted to see what it felt like to do something new with someone I’ve never known before. It’s awkward because there was no choreography. Each move was improv and each step felt like it could be wrong.

I think we almost fell off the bed at one point.

There was no way to understand when it was ending or what was beginning. I was only sure that each thing was new. New eyes staring at my old body isn’t an easy thing for me.

My birthmarks aren’t new, nor my scars.

Your pauses were new. Your silence and fingerprints and saliva. Your lips were new. Your hair tickled and your face said everything I never knew. It was new, we knew. But it wouldn’t be new forever.

AKR

a love story

An amazing thing happened today: He became my somebody and I became his. What I wrote when we first met: it’s cold outside and the bed is too large. This room is empty and it’s missing a night light.

Every time I close my eyes, I see the scratches from my pupils. Lightning bolts in my eyelids. The absence of light makes it easier to see. There are 5, maybe 50 scratches.

I forgot how much peace there is in contentment. Something is happening and I’ve no idea what it is.

What I wrote when we first met: Let’s never find that place again.

I remember trying to write love stories. Tried only because I needed to feel that feel. Feel it enough to stop feeling the feel.

Instead, I just got felt up.

Tomorrow is only love stories.

AKR

From Eileen’s Poem “Kurt”

I took her first line and riffed off it:

The weekend you died was really a big deal for both of us. I had to wake her to tell her what happened. My cousin called from California to explain. The conversation had been a weird one. It sounded like the mouthpiece of his phone was wrapped in cheese cloth. His voice was a shaking whisper. I wondered if his throat felt tight.

I felt like he was so far away. The sound quality of the call was that bad. It reminded me of when I used to read my father’s letters and imagine how far away he lived. I could never paint an accurate picture because I could barely comprehend what “all the way around the world” meant. It felt like that. That far away.

I wondered if my cousin was staring at a “No Cell Phones Allowed” sign while he spoke to me.

He sat in a waiting room at the hospital while he told us about you. He was done waiting. He said everyone was there in your small hospital room. I’m sure our family exceeded the number of guests allowed (fire safety).

I walked into my dark living room in Brooklyn after I hung up the phone. We had turned off all the lights because we needed sleep. It was probably only 6pm, but it was winter. The 40 hours prior had been spent unnaturally awake: breathing, worrying, wondering what to do. I hadn’t bitten my nails in a long time.

I told my brother first because I needed him to help me tell her. I didn’t know how to say it. That was the first time in my life I felt old. Maybe it was seeing my mother so child-like, fragile in her tears and stubborn feelings. “No no no no no,” she said. “No no no no no no.”

(akr)

Narita

I remembered it differently at first, but he was right, it was in Japan. I can remember everything else. The sterility of the air. The uncomfortable waiting chairs we sat in before. There was a lot of gray. An absence of smell. Gray carpet, gray walls. Garbage doesn’t smell bad in Japan.

(Or maybe it was all white?)

They had massage chairs for the weary. 595 yen for 10min. A man slept in one, two chairs down from us, with the cover of a white book covering his face. You sat in one and I sat in another. I can’t remember if we paid.

I remember not being able to breathe, wanting to be home. I felt that if I could lay my head on memory foam, shower in the first world, things could be okay. I remember remembering the night from two weeks before. The night I arrived and knew things were no longer right.

The humidity had been weakening. I was tired. Smog changed my voice, hurt my lungs. In California, they warn you not to go outside and breathe the air on the high smog level days. In that world, there were no such warnings.

I remember there was a lot of poverty there. Women and children and men sleeping in makeshift tents made out of less than 200-thread count blankets, hung between where you dump your garbage and where you pee on the ground. There is a lot of sadness. There are people everywhere, taking advantage of other people.

I remember eating comforting food. Remembered my grandpa. Felt easy in a world surrounded by familiarity. You were no longer familiar.

(akr)