metaphors – Ishara K. Agostini

January 15, 2014ishara No Comments

To The Stump In my Garden

Day 7- Take a walk until you find a
tree you identify with, then write a poem using the tree as a metaphor
for yourself or your life.

To the stump in my garden that has begun to sprout

Mere days after its branches have been shorn:
Teach me whatever lessons you have learned

How to give thanks for your still solid roots

And how to recalibrate the hardened fibres of your bark

And make life once more.

February 10, 2013ishara No Comments

Tensions

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I am beginning to name my knots.

Let one in my neck be Wanting

from every time I clenched my jaw after breathing in her scent.

Let the tightness in my shoulder be Disappointment who is also called Shame

a product of still wanting him to touch me

even though we both know he shouldn't

and being caught between recoiling and not.

Finally, the chronic ache in my back will be Distance

from consistently loving people that are too far away.

In the same way one muscle contracts as the other relaxes

these pains are interconnected

and I know that all these names mean the same thing:

I hold on for far too long and I need to learn to let go.

October 3, 2012ishara No Comments

Going With The Tides

A Haiku Pair

Loneliness sometimes

lingers like cold in your bones

and damp in your soul,

even when the tides

that washed it up have long since

moved to other shores.

August 24, 2012ishara 1 Comment

On the Distribution of One’s Heart

On the Distribution of One’s Heart

(A Haiku Quintet)

I had given my

heart to someone who

didn’t

know how to hold it.

Instead, they cradled

it like an adolescent

with a stranger’s

child:

awkward and uneasy,

with a fear of falling

head first and snapping.

I gave my heart to

someone who didn’t

quite want

it and was surprised

when they gave it back.

They said to keep it

safe, but

their fingers left

bruises.

August 23, 2012ishara 1 Comment

Chennette

I was born like a chennette:

My green mother-

sliced open down the middle,

And me- squeezed out.

 Pink, sticky, sour.

August 21, 2012ishara No Comments

Drowning

Drowning

(A Haiku Pair)

I am drowning. You

have oversaturated

me, but I need it.

You overwhelm me.

I gasp for air but choking

never felt so good.

July 16, 2012ishara No Comments

Coming Out

I read that we never get

to stop coming out.

Well I came out to myself the other day,

Stepped out of my glass closet for a
moment,

Well, not so much a class closet than one
of those

Cabinets old people use to store their
china

I am transparent, the way I hoard your gifts,

Your presents, your presence.

I never tell the ones who need to hear it
the most.

Instead I let it rest on my lips the way I wish
yours would

And flitter round my tongue the way I want
yours to,

But I can’t.

Because I only tell you in sighs I hope you
read

Or maybe see it in my gazes that linger too
long

Or notice how I touch you too often, sit
too close,

Smile too much.

I am transparent in my cabinet as I watch your hands

Dance across tabletops.

But I would never come out to you.

I much rather confess to strangers on the
internet,

Or in ambiguously phrased verse,

That I dream about you at night

And I think of you all day

And while I may joke about others,

Everything I say I love about them,

Just reminds me of you.

July 16, 2012ishara No Comments

Sea Shanty

I wrote this on the offhanded request of a friend. She said that her OTP (One True Pairing), was sand and salt water. And I take inspiration where ever I can get it.

Sea Shanty

You are the salt of my earth,

Said the tide to the

shore.

Leaving sweet nothings

In pools filled with

stars

As the moon’s siren

song

Pulled them further

apart.

Palm trees with their

heads

buried in the clouds

promised he’d return,

You could hear it

in the crashes of the

waves.

But every time you

leave,

You wear me away,

The shore whispered

back.

July 10, 2012ishara No Comments

An Education

I want to learn the

language your body speaks,

Whispered by your hips

as you move,

Decode the ciphers

between your sighs.

I have learned the

angle of your slouch,

The spread of your

fingers

And the coil of your

curls.

There is a science to

you I have not yet learned.

I have learned the

contours of your face

The locations of your

moles

The longitude and

latitude of your dimples

The length and breadth

of your smile

Better than I ever

learned geography.

Maybe I’d map those

contours of your face

(Which I’ve already

committed to memory)

but I can’t.

To recreate the

brownness of your skin

is more motivation than three years of art

Ever were.

Writing commits you to

memory.

November 4, 2011ishara No Comments

Death Throes

Morbid fascination

kills me again and again.

These are the death throes

Of our potential.

This is the not the martyrdom

I try to tell myself it is.

It is assisted suicide.

Nor is it the first time-

Reincarnation ad nauseam,

Same me, different yous-

Till nirvana:

A state I cannot reach.

It sickens me,

The way I crave

Your attentions.

Like Tantalus I thirst

And am never satisfied.

You bloom perpetual

While I fade like echoes.

Jeweled fruit that fall

From your lips

Into my ears

Sweet fruit, biting aftertaste,

Like soured wine to the dying man,

Leaves me empty and bitter.

I am killed softly

By the words you never speak.