Three Poems

salt bruises

on a loop
i hear i am sick of immigrant stories
in a voice that morphs from the voice
of the white man in the fiction workshop
into my voice, but warped
I am sick of immigrant stories,
i am sick of immigrant stories,
i am sick of immigrant stories,
i am sick, i am sick, i am sick

the little girl in the story searches
her bruises for meaning
when they are pink,
she looks at her body, tentative.
when they are purple, she looks up
to the sky to match
when the bruises disappear
their body becomes almost unrecognizable,
little scars left from when
they pinched too hard
as a child

+

my mother escapes a country in battle
my mother took a boat
through the mediterranean
my mother spends months
in a small apartment in Cyprus
with siblings, cousins, aunts,
uncles, grandparents, stacked
one over the other

my mother and her family
wait around for something
to change, for safe return
my mother is a teenager
crammed
into a small box
sharing a bed
with four others

my mother took a boat
and a plane
and a plane
and a plane
and landed in Canada

this is my mother’s story, the disruption in my bones.

+

this body makes it’s way
back and forth
across the atlantic ocean,
landing in countries
that are not mine to claim
landing in the basin
of the mediterranean
landing gently, on purpose

i dip my toes in quickly,
water and salt an extension
of my body, but oh so briefly,
the connection severed
when escape feels necessary

ten days visiting opens body wounds
around the stomach, chest, heart
i swoosh words around my mouth
“she” “fat” “woman” “feminine”
bruises inside my cheeks, swollen

i pinch myself
on the plane ride back
look at my body
and remind myself it’s mine
these bruises turn purple
returning home

my mother escaped once
but returns every year

i return every year,
but nowhere feels like escape.

+

land does not define a person,
distance does not separate
home from the land

i mix these ideas into a bag,
shake them out,
spread them on a table,
investigate the ridges and corners
what about land that was left in refuge?
what about land that was stolen?
what about land?
what about land?
what about land?

your home land is yours
despite your distance,
i repeat to myself
over the sounds
of sick of immigrant stories

it drowns the words out
but they linger quietly,
in the background

i repeat your home land
is yours despite your distance
and my limbs release tension,
blood starts circulating,
fresh sea air working its way
through my lungs
i touch the ocean water,
saltwater, cedar trees, gardenia flowers,
and remember small parts of myself

my grandmother mixing spices,
i smell thyme and nutmeg,
smell paprika, coriander, cloves,
cumin, blending into home,
sambousek, kafta, hummus, labneh,
mushaweh cooking on the small barbecue
on her balcony, the yellow salamander
scaling the stone walls.

my grandmother makes a feast,
invites every member
of our extended family, sahten habibi,
she tells me
when i dip pita bread
into a giant bowl of hummus,
swirl the olive oil around
with the bread
until it’s almost all mixed in.

---

It was

It was a rip and a heart and a sleeve but not in that order.

It was a stage and a fight and an act but not in that order.

Set the stage for the things you want to see happen to you, something like positive thinking.

Leaving is an option                             Staying is another

The man yelling on the other side of the road screams we have no real options, sees me through Parc Ex darkness, do you want to buy some weed?

E tells me they admire my ability to say yes but it’s because I can’t say no.

I think I’m a happy person until I’m not.

I think I’m a valuable person until I’m not.

The space between my options and yours is the distance between Vancouver and Montreal. This is not a metaphor, this is physical.

We joke about swapping out everyone we don’t like in this city for everyone we love living elsewhere. The list grows longer and longer until we have to stop, heavy.
Montreal is a transitional city.

I’m still here.

The space between my irritation and theirs is the length of my body, 5’7’ and a half.
I hold it inside, a rupture, a case of internal bleeding.
We must keep it contained, safe, locked.

The scene is a recurring one. The sky is darkening, deep purples and soft pinks bruising,
we are bruising, waiting for the marks to heal, soft skin returning to olive.
You imprint a bite mark in my shoulder before you leave.

We pick fruit from the olive trees, send pictures home to friends, ripen in the sun.

My love, says the main figure on the stage

I only miss you when I’m lonely and that isn’t often.

We count the months between Montreal and Lebanon, the distance is ten snowfalls
and hundreds of coffees poured and shrinking.

My cousin tells me a man is a man and a woman is a woman after taking one look at me.

We read books in the sun side by side. You read a passage that makes you frown, but when I ask you what’s wrong, you ignore me, reading.

Two bodies never fall asleep at the same time.

The distance between whiteness and race is the atlantic ocean and the pacific ocean and the gulf of mexico and the mediterranean sea.

The distance between whiteness and browness is my movement.

The distance between my whiteness and my browness is queer.

We are on stage, painting our nails silver glitter. I wave my hands up and down to dry.
You tell me I look like a slow motion hummingbird.

He tells me, people here keep asking me if I’m in process (transition).

He says, I have so many stories to tell you.

I tell him, people always look at me as though I’m in process (transition).
People are looking for my ends, my stops. I fail to tell them I don’t have any.

We spend hours venting. We are always venting.

The closing scene is sitting around the table, trying positive thinking.
We hum, we listen to a tape of Cher, we close our eyes.

The closing scene is you telling me to get into bed, you rolling over,
you looking away then back, you making the first move, you working up the courage to say.

The closing scene is a group of queers bursting into laughter, sides spent.

It was a stitch and a burst and a side but not in that order.

---

Beside: Ayia Napa

Notes for rethinking:
A Cypriot beach. We are lying on part of the beach, uninhabited by tourists. Your legs, browning in the sun, so covered with dark leg hair you can’t see much of your skin. My legs, out in front of me, beside yours, just as brown. Leg hair more sparse, disappearing at my thighs. We are: hidden, alone and sharing stories that don’t mean much. The smell of the ocean masks your familiar smell, despite the proximity of your body to mine. The sun is at its highest point in the sky as we eat pineapple, the juices leaking onto our salty skin, revealing patches of brown in our salty white layers. Tired, I decide to take a nap while you read.

Scene:
our bodies are perpendicular, our legs crossed.

Scene: (heard in the retelling)
disturbed by a tourist wandering from the adjoining beach

He doesn’t say anything. Stares at your legs and swimming trunks. Your naked chest. My naked chest. I’m still napping. He is balking at us while I am undisturbed, dreaming of your body on top of mine but slightly distorted. Our hands, touching, sink into each other and disappearing, melting into one arm on each side, our extended limbs holding you up above me. A snore and he’s reminded where he is. British accents call him back and he glares, not a word, leaves. The sun bakes my legs and I wake up dehydrated. When I try to kiss you, you tell me my breath smells like the breath of an old man. I kiss deeper, holding you tightly as you squirm, your laugh turning into a yell, stop. I pull away, and you pass me water that is slightly too warm and I chug.

Scene:
You are watching people on the other side of the beach while I cry softly. I mostly cry confused, wet snot revealing patches of brown in the salty white layer of skin. We are: alone, visible, and forgetting to clear up the air. I inhale sea salt as I cry, slower, fading. You let me, not looking at my face.

Scene:
Maybe you tell me to stop crying, hugging me.

Scene:
Maybe you forget to explain till later, at home quiet, drinking tea despite the heat.

Scene:
Maybe I’m crying because i’m so dehydrated. Maybe I’ll stop eventually.

Scene:
Maybe the sun has slightly burned my legs and you are spreading aloe onto them.

 

Eli Tareq Lynch is a poet working in Montreal. They have been published in THEM, the Shade Journal, The Puritan, Carte Blanche, and elsewhere. They were one of the organizers of the Off the Page 2016 literary festival and are currently working on starting a BIPOC reading series in Montreal.