melancholy

Quarantine Creativity, continued

Artwork by Noa Yehiel

Several days ago we requested your quarantine creativity–the poetry, paintings, stories, and photos coming out of your weeks in self-isolation. The submissions continue to flood in, so here is part II of the original Quarantine Creativity post. You can find more here and email your own work to info@artparasites.com!

 

welcome
have a seat
make yourself comfortable
if you can
we’ll be here a while
settle yourself in for the long haul
i’ve been here for a very long time
self-imposed of course
it’s impossible to keep count of the days
instead I keep track of my body —
i started as a girl
flat as a pancake
straight as a board
i am now a woman
curves and sighs everywhere
i must be serving a life sentence
it’s nice to have a bit of company
do you want a drink?
are you allowed?
you should familiarise yourself
with your thoughts in here
slow them down
make them your friends
or they turn on you real fast
and they become your worst enemies
they’ll eat you alive from the inside out
live rat poison those things become
they don’t care
how much money you come from
your mummy and daddy’s money
can’t save you from the evil
that lives inside your own thoughts
that kind of evil is
the greatest equaliser they say —
that kind of evil is the kind
that always haunts us when we sit alone.

–Naila Hess

 

I hope we still have it in us to dream
like we used to when we were little,

when we believed in tooth fairies
and the monsters under our bed,

when we wished to climb the moon
and run around the stars,

when we had imaginary friends
and childhood sweethearts

when love was a simple peck on the cheek,
and dreams were adrenaline rush
gleaming in our eyes

when life wasn’t a complex web,
and happiness wasn’t elusive yet

I hope a child in us still lives on
to keep gazing at the sky.
And the dreams we buried–
I hope they find a way back to us.

–Nadine Geraldy Lacuarta

 

That’s what the front of the postcard will say
with bright red letters
maybe with a heart or a lipstick print.
Right now
paper is more practical than physical touch
because there’s an ocean between us
and my real hugs and kisses could kill you.

The picture on the front would be
of the Cathedral.
I just snapped it last week.
The sky was blue.
The magnolia trees were blooming
Blooming…
quite early I was told.
Almost as if they knew already.
And they took pity on us.

I snapped the photo
and then drank hot tea
at my usual cafe
thinking this would probably
be the last time for a while.

I’ll record this in detail
on the back of the card.
I’ll also tell you this.

Last night I read that St. Corona’s
relics are kept in the Cathedral.
Ironic right?
I can’t light a candle
or go inside.
But she is here.
Maybe we’ll be safe, I thought.

I went out today.
Just to the store and back.
The sky was blue again.
I was almost home and saw
a truck outside my building.
Looks like furniture.
Maybe someone is moving in?

A man came out.

Wooden furniture in his arms.
No.

Coffins without their lids.
Maybe 3 or 4. Neatly stacked.
They must be for the funeral parlor next door.
I didn’t snap a picture of that.

I apologize
there’s not much to write home about
just hope and death
This card is addressed to you;
to whomever wants to read it.

I wish you well.
Sending you all my love
from Aachen.

–Brittney Walker

 

when all of this is done we will decide what’s worth going back to and what’s worth leaving behind.
have i said everything that hung between us, smoldering and unsaid?
if i whisper that i love you, how will you know that it means so much more than every other time it escaped my lips before?
how many ways can i hold you so that my body commits the shape of you to memory,
so that every inch of you is etched inside my cells and i recreate you when i dream?
and when i am lost in you, and you in me —
the way it should have been from the beginning —
i will try not to ask myself why it took the end of our world to love you the way you deserved to be loved.

–Naila Hess

 

Today, I watched my chai come to a boil, and likened the first bubble on its surface to the sighting of an evening star at sunset.

I missed the fire of a gas stove in the undramatic simmer of my tea, as I patiently waited for the induction to heat the milk pan.

The sky looks like the backdrop of an old studio here on many days, I thought, and photographed the pantone-esque blue to lemon gradient. Maybe I’ll use it as my background on the next Zoom call.

As the world shares a somber summer vacation together, I don’t know how to feel anymore.

It was a poor film about maska bun that brought me to tears, because I’ve forgotten how to discern good content from bad.

The dark circles are fading, and I catch myself, too often, thinking about my nine year old self, intently cutting magazines into meaningful compositions.

I always made do with staying inside.

It feels wrong to be at peace, but the indoors are doing to my skin what socks do to my feet.

I’m worried about not having enough sanitary pads, and also about entering the job market during a recession. I don’t feel useful either.

I am however, counting my blessings and my breaths these days. It’s like we’re all living in a dream that doesn’t make sense in the morning, or in a meme that isn’t funny anymore, or in a game that has run so long that we’ve lost track of who’s winning anyway.

I’m grateful we don’t have to have an opinion these days, at least for a while.

I’m grateful for this cup of tea, and toasted bread and butter, mostly because it’s suddenly okay to simply watch the tea boil.

–Shivani Singh

 

To our readers, writers, and artists: stay hopeful and inspired.

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