If I were to write you a letter, instead of paper
I would choose split driftwood I fished out of the river,
the piece which was in a terrible hurry to get somewhere
Instead of pen and ink
I might choose a wimble for its swagger
or a kitchen knife for its common sense
And I would make sure I composed it next to Thiessen Saskatoons
reaching around occasionally to snag a berry or two.
tasting them i am reminded of all that is bitter and sweet.

It might start as all letters of antiquity.
Dear friend or dear lover
I miss how our language stacked carelessly
atop eachother…

I bumped into a friend during my walk.
We stopped to chat for a minute or two and
I noticed a fresh scar
On his cheek next to his nose.
It wasn’t from hockey.
He had a malignancy removed and has
made a full recovery.
To a certain degree
most of us spend a little time carving out malignancies.

If I were to write you a letter I would tell you
When I pulled out my own stitches
The affliction let out
it flaked off as a palpable dust
which ran through my fingers and
collected at my feet.
I swirled my running shoe through the remains
and coughed.
The juice of velvety undertones pooled
in my mouth
dripped from my lips.
it stained the word
"carelessly".
I set the driftwood out in the sun
to bake. 

someday
when you are complete
i will give you back your tears

I am contaminated

By the fog of ambivalence

It covers my skin in thin ochre.

Chafing, penetrating

Bleeding my veins thin

I wonder if there is a night

Black enough to conceal

These pitchy flecks of madness

Or shall I wear them out

With a chic handbag with matching shoes

Would anyone even know

I was missing myself

I think of myself tucked into
something in a patina finish,
with a hint of green and slow corrosion.
The swing on a patio of the summer vacation house
is the best place to wind your hair dry
without the worry of a socket converter.
How many months has it been
Since you’ve visited

That old oak still grows and the hollow that
once fostered the giant mushroom we never ate
is now a home for a woodpecker
and suspicious little feathers.
Scientists who describe the fizzel out and die of stars
have never seen these parts and our fire bugs.

The snow covers it now.
And yet, the path is clear enough
to the river bank.
And we can see the ice
that never freezes over big eddy.
His black eye watching the sky for the return of those
pesky white pelicans.
Everyone knows they steal socks.
How many months has it been
Since you’ve visited

words © malai carrara 2013
photo by ania

What would it mean to you
to bear witness to your sentiments,
those which characterize your true state of mind?
Guarded you are.
Holding them so close to your chest and nursing them.
While I attend to my own doubts.
Believing, to give myself
would mean
you would give yourself
reserving nothing for tomorrow.

It will end
and you alone hold the privilege of knowing the date.
This place?
Did you feel it was sanctuary?
Where our bodies found likeness and our skin collided
unabashed?

Let's take the lift
to where we sit with
books on hobbies, travel and devices
always walled between us.

Through it, it stings my skin,
an alchemistic electrical impulse.
I hear it more on your hollow days.
I dreamed in discrete flow of electrons.
Even now - realizing it's sentimental switch
I want to stop loving you.

We will die tomorrow.
Experiences turn to ash.
You say there is no regret
when open hearts share and bleed.


words © malai carrara

To pass
by the hand of wordlessness,
is to trace a nebulous place
of nowhere and everywhere we’ve known.

To slip,
into a hollow space
is to find ourselves caught in silence
so heavy the gravity held our feet.

At odds with ourselves
and dysfunctional
What you mean to say
turns sullen and contrite
and what was said
truncates infinity.

Still we manage a few syllables

We are fine without them
We are fine to pierce our skin
so that our senses could flow
like they ought to.

words © malai carrara 2013

What are we to believe
of those who are dead?

Not the dead whose body
has long withered and worn
from a lifetime of crashing into aspects.

This dead shuffles into the kitchen
lifts the waiting cup of acrimony
disguised as a short pike
and stirs an anxious spoon through the black liquid.

They are trance-like
and self-preserving -
frequently inspecting themselves.

Mirror, mirror
I see how you fuss over your seasonal lines.
For what or for whom
are they saving themselves?
One more quick check.

Mirror, mirror
Suffice it to say,
you seem content to admire your own paralysis
however moribund.

At one time, they understood what I meant when I said
there are times when touching fog
forsakes earth.

What could this dead teach in this state
except to hasten our speed
to consume
to accumulate
Or worse yet
withdraw
and retreat.

You, from your own hand, I once tasted
a fervent collision
so textured and heady.

But now the heat of everything
is locked away for safekeeping.
Even my tongue aches to set it free.

Tell me, while I hang in the balance
Why you are obligated to your asepticism?

words © malai carrara 2013