An Art to Holding On [poetry]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


I took a picture of the city
and the city disappeared
Memories fading into the rudimentary
colors of a four by six;
Framed and caged in a one-dimension
imitation of a genuine city
halfway around the world.

That last bite of coq au vin
Sticking to the tip of the tongue
Like a faded memory of desperate lust,
That last glimpse of the Nile
a vision of awe and wonder and
reminiscent of bittersweet dreams,
That last trek up the five hundred
and fifty-one steps of St. Peter’s
Basilica, sweaty regret giving way
to the profound sadness of loss and leaving.

What I wouldn’t give to hold onto
the truths I had acquired, the beauty
I had witnessed, the desperate feeling
of falling in love
with a strange city in a strange land;
That desire, that wish, to belong
to a place not one's own.

I recorded the music of the city
and the music faded into the air,
Lyric voices lost to the sounds of silence
and replaced by the cacophony
of home, forever lost in
the distortion of memory.

I try to view my own city
through the eyes of a visitor,
But all I see is the leaning
Tower of Pisa, the striking point
of the Eiffel Tower, the sparkling
Waters of the Mediterranean,
The pink sands of the Bahamas beaches.

Why is it that we long for the places
we don’t inhabit, that we lust
for the cities, the countries
that don't contain us;
A desire to be other than here and
dream the memories of foreign delights
tugging at our hearts and souls.

There is an art to holding onto beauty,
whether the beauty is
perceived or genuine,
and an art to letting it go, and we are
far more desperately practiced in
the holding on.