{"id":24006,"date":"2025-07-01T12:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stadtsprachen.de\/de\/?post_type=stsp_text&p=24006"},"modified":"2025-07-03T14:15:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T12:15:04","slug":"poems-mandalian","status":"publish","type":"stsp_text","link":"https:\/\/stadtsprachen.de\/en\/text\/poems-mandalian\/","title":{"rendered":"Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

January 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soles of my shoes peel away from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

none of my friends sleep well unless we\u2019re all piled into the same room,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

dehydrated and giggling, dressed in metal and leather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lose hope three times a day,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

test-tube mind in flux,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

flashing screens and empty time create the tides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clocks don\u2019t run here and I spend a few years learning to become a motionless thing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

cutting the thread that ties my stomach to the edges of every mouth I see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch animals moving behind my eyes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

throw a blanket over my own cage for the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stalk myself tirelessly,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

wait for the familiar cold of the wall agaisnt my back<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and hope that,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when my vision starts to tunnel again,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will feel my way towards the light with my hands.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

healthy tongue<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In off-white rooms I spend mornings pulling back the fat from my cheeks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pressing down rice with the back of my fork,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating rituals to blunt the sharpest edges of my future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pretend to live for the little reliefs,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

days too cold for thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strip for warm water\u2019s eyes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

consider ways to close the broken zippers of my body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shake off my messier dreams,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

dirty, greenish films built to press sand into the cracks of my years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pigeons pick at me,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

there has never been a pleasant thing I haven\u2019t needed,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a person I could live without.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to taste a healthy tongue,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to be promised something small and cloudless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not ambitious enough to write outside of my body,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stick with the bile and the burn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wait for the pavement to open,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a clean split through Berlin\u2019s suburbs, I wait to be bitten<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in a way I will understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The too-bright sky spins with shame\u2019s momentum<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and still, I leave my curtains open through the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 2025 The soles of my shoes peel away from me. none of my friends sleep well unless we\u2019re all piled into the same room, dehydrated and giggling, dressed in metal and leather. I lose hope three times a day, test-tube mind in flux, flashing screens and empty time create the tides. Clocks don\u2019t run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24031,"template":"","categories":[63,11],"class_list":["post-24006","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-32","category-lyrik"],"yoast_head":"\nPoems - stadtsprachen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stadtsprachen.de\/en\/text\/poems-mandalian\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale:alternate\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poems - stadtsprachen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 2025 The soles of my shoes peel away from me. none of my friends sleep well unless we\u2019re all piled into the same room, dehydrated and giggling, dressed in metal and leather. I lose hope three times a day, test-tube mind in flux, flashing screens and empty time create the tides. 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