2022-09-21 #poem-a-day#writing/poetry #lists
list of things that have made me feel something
- seeing the shadows of unexpected objects: clouds over water, plane in the curved back of a cloud, my own dark silhouette.
- a mother’s tears, a father’s silence, a brother’s leaking smile. a generation’s trauma. a family’s rules. a grandma’s hands on the wheel of a 1999 hot-red Toyota Corolla its drab grey cushions covered in bright teal cushions and pink covers and the sticky scent of incense.
- the word love, love, a healthy fear of it, moments where I can’t bring myself to name it, being in the mood for love, In the Mood for Love, my gratitude, my obsession, my constant questioning of love.
- a hot towel on a cold day, a cold towel on a hot day. outline of breath. Hot breath. on cold hands, on the back of my ear, on an iced-over car window. Heat. The sticky kind, the soul-sucking kind, the sweet, nourishing kind. A summer day in the middle of the park sweating among strangers. A sauna in the middle of nowhere, a window to the ocean. My breath swallowed by heat. Sitting on a bench anonymous to everyone except the sun caressing the back of my neck.
- the way a candle flickers if you move it to fast, the way a heart shakes if you sweep it off its feet, the way a trickle becomes a stream and then a flood.
- how the small can become so grand. how the tiny can be so powerful.
- the color of coffee
- drawing with the light pulsing purple and pink through blue-light filter glasses in the panhandle as the sun sets behind two-story homes
- leftover sap glinting like little technicolored stars in the trees behind my house
- a hand clasping its own reflection
- the guy two tables down at the airport restaurant who yelped to himself as he dropped his utensils while unraveling them
- two people, one tall and one short, in bright orange uniforms waving goodbye outside my dirty airplane window
- the time the cashier at my local taqueria gave me two extra containers of salsa verde without me asking
- when a bird flew into my open window and perched on my curtain rods. The next day I walked into the backyard to find the corpse of one with three flies on it. I carried it in a grocery bag repeatedly stamped with the words “THANK YOU” in columns to my neighborhood park and made them an altar of seasonal flowers and a green rock
- the first bite of the first tomato sandwich of the summer
I love when the world surprises me. Plants that smell different than they look. Food that looks different from how it tastes. Colors that make an unexpected pairing or how long a plant can survive despite the negligence of its owner. Spotting the moon peeking out during the day, watching its steady growth cycle over the month and then getting to see it do it all over again in a new part of the sky. Surprising combinations of reflecting light against the side of a building, spotlighting a beautiful multi-colored autumn tree, highlighting the imprint of my shadow, my bike and I forming a centaur-like figure, against the pavement. I love when people around me surprise me. Unexpected feats of strength from small bodies. Delicate movements from bodies that tower over the world. Outfits that make me stop and think to myself, I want to have that amount of personality. When a laugh will slice straight though a chaotic day. The way pure enthusiasm bubbles and spreads like a virus from someone gushing passionately about something or someone they love. How warm a hand can feel even when it’s clearly frozen solid and the air has sucked feeling out of your extremities. from https://spencerchang.substack.com/p/surrendering
I love the way sunlight lands on my apartment wall during sunset, a little window into a stage for my shadow to dance in. I love the way hands feel, how a finger can share years of history. I love the wind, both when it’s a gentle breeze caressing my ear and when it’s a furious gust, vying to blow me away. I love computers and how they can be a medium for creative expression and connection, how they gave me a space to find myself when I felt I couldn’t find it anywhere else. I love spacious spaces and endearing environments: physical or digital, I love community spaces where I can find peaceful solitude among others. I love parallel play, coexisting, reading side-by-side and clicking away on laptops across from each other at a cafe table. I love the people in my life who make me feel exceptionally safe, who I can tolerate for many hours on end without stop. I love those who inspire me, constantly, intentionally and sometimes not, to be better, to question how I can think clearer, act kinder, love deeper, create freer, laugh harder, dream further. I love those who see and seek out wonder, beauty, dreams, and love, of course, in all of life, in everything they do, in the way they carry themselves. I love people, spaces, objects that carry a loving reverence towards the world and themselves, who seem, with every breath they take, to say to them: thank you. thank you for giving me everything. from https://spencerchang.substack.com/p/move-towards-love
There’s an air of anticipation. The construction anticipating a building. My breath anticipating being stolen. The hours that linger before the arrival of a party. Warm light beckoning for a movie. A cozy home with two cold bodies standing outside it. The tension of a thousand bodies in the dark the moment the lights shut off before the performance starts. Flying over a quiet world holding its breath before the chaos of an overcrowded airport. The pause between the first kiss and the “I love you.” The chilly air tastes like possibility. Like anything can happen. Like everything will happen. It’s the kind of feeling you get every once in a while when you step out of a gathering into a cold winter night, and it’s completely quiet. And then you hear your soft breath. And if you stay for a few more moments, you find the sky opening up to a blanket of stars. And you see the soft yellow of the street lights blinking in unison. And you notice amidst the quiet, a steady drumming. A rhythm to the beat of your favorite song. Your heartbeat. One Two. One Two. Your reminder that your blood is flowing. That you’re breathing. That you’re alive. That your life is exactly what you make of it now, in this moment, and in every moment. from https://spencerchang.substack.com/p/first-winter-chill