• Poetic Letters Across a Pandemic Distance

    From Emma Kushnirsky and Robin Messing of Girls Write Now

    After reading the poetic correspondence between Natalie Diaz and Ada Limón entitled “Envelopes of Air,” we decided to write poetic letters to one another, which naturally interrogated our feelings and thoughts during a pandemic. We met through the Girls Write Now program, with Emma, a high school junior based in the Bronx, New York, participating as a mentee, and Robin Messing, a writer based in Brooklyn, working as a mentor.

    *

    Masking & Unmasking
    Robin to Emma

    I’ve lived long & I can recall so much, yet some of the most crucial
    moments are lost to me. Recollections aside, I’ve decided

    not to hide anymore.

    I mean shame. I mean rage. I mean loneliness. In a plague
    the past feels present, the future eclipsed, the carnage

    unfathomable.

    Sirens have subsided & death
    resumes elsewhere. Fall

    has never been more beautiful

    now that I’m married to gingkos, elms, & oaks.
    I wonder what your youth

    makes of isolation. In my early years

    I refused to know what I knew. I wonder what
    your loneliness might say. Snow

    is on the way. I hope it will feel

    like patience, that its silence will be soothing,
    not a reminder of the cruelty

    of power’s inaction. Sometimes I wish

    there were words for everything. Dread
    isn’t exactly right. Pleasure isn’t sufficient.

    I’m finding new ways to say

    gentle, tender, helpless,
    to free them from captivity.

     

    Hiding in Plain Sight Like the Wind or a Leaf Stuck to the Sidewalk
    Emma to Robin

    I need the burning brightness of fresh air.

    I don’t know if I’m lonely.

    Like this past summer I was
    scrambling for words and

    I felt inadequate, in my longing,
    but there was youth.

    Fun from a distance.

    Up close there’s the
    tear-burning torture of everything

    Being Dramatic.
    doyouremember?

    I liked the way the snow shoved cold down my
    throat.

    Made me feel solitary in good company.

    and the island I’m on blows salt towards me
    through me
    asking me to inhale

    I don’t want to be hiding
    either

    but the salt wind hides in crevasses

    To inhale something that hides
    is an action of loving.

     

    In The Wake of Immobility
    Robin to Emma

    I walk to the park every day now
    a wedge against every repressed desire

    for flight

    inaction terrifies me sloth
    an enslavement a knot

    in a tree’s heart

    each twisted part craves
    embrace each shame like your salt wind

    meant for movement

    & visibility I remember riding
    my ten speed over asphalt feeling

    myself fleeing

    when I couldn’t sense any other way
    I finally understand the privilege

    in motion you remind me

    to love the paralysis of my past
    that stasis can be bravery

    as we wait

    for this plague
    to end

     

    Me in the Context of Who I Was and Have Been Being
    Emma to Robin

    In a way it would be easier if
    “the plague is upon us!”

    Bell clappers against strike points.

    Then we could scream to no end.
    Scream ourselves hoarse.

    I don’t want to seem ungrateful for
    the white sterility of
    the walls of my room.

    But I guess I am.

    I want to feel
    movingsofast that motion is vibration.

    Privilege in motion and immobility, where does it end?
    Would it help to pound the pavement

    with running feet?

    I used to go barefoot everywhere.
    Now my feet are calloused for no reason.

    Why be calloused for wood floors?

    I’m remembering the joy of flip-flops in rain.
    Droplets warm and juicy.
    Headphones sheltered under sheaves of hair.
    Laughing by myself.

    I seldom laugh by myself.
    If you can make yourself laugh,
    you are lucky.

    There’s a song called “The Waiting.”
    I am “The Waiting.”

     

    In Which I Try to Answer When There Are No Answers
    Robin to Emma

    Is it possible to make
    our own luck? A laugh

    hidden

    like the sun’s
    presence even

    in darkness?

    I’ve witnessed more than one
    personal plague

    there was no returning from.

    Sometimes sky or bush
    makes being human

    bearable.

    Pam H once asked: Can the Earth
    give back what was taken

    from me? Terror

    the friend that never exits.
    Drawn to gloom

    as if to flame. I see that
    hiding can be useful—

    wintering birds

    the same shade
    as bark

    imperceptible

    if not for my attention.
    Isn’t awareness

    one of the gifts

    of being
    with oneself?

     

    Distortion of Reality Comes Easily Like a Wave or Exhale
    Emma to Robin

    Looking out the window

    it could be
    a moving picture
    glued to the other side of the glass.

    Who’s to say?

    How long of never-being-outside would
    it take for me to believe
    this is the only world that
    Exists?

    Once I was trapped in a bathroom for
    Thirty minutes?
    Forty minutes?
    Could it have been an hour?

    It didn’t take long to start
    trying to leave
    by impossible means.

    Before I yelled out I closed my eyes and
    moved myself through the door.

    I would go crazy sofast.

    At what point are there no backsies?
    I think never.
    I think that we are never broken.

    I’m going to be the cardinal in the snow.
    If I can bear it.

    __________________________________

    GIRLS WRITE NOW UNMUTED

    From Girls Write Now Unmuted: The 2021 Anthology, published by Dutton and Feminist Press. A public launch party for the e-book will take place on June 18 at 6 pm; you can register here.


    Emma Kushnirsky and Robin Messing
    Emma Kushnirsky and Robin Messing
    Emma Kushnirsky is a high school student, poet, writer, and language-learning enthusiast from the Bronx, NY. Robin Messing is a poet, a fiction writer, and a vocalist on the newly released album by Cornelius Eady and Rough Magic entitled The Sterling Brown Project.





    Read More

    Is Fabulism the New Sincerity?

     At a recent job interview, where I read a story of mine that included angels perched on the rooftops of a suburban neighborhood...

    We Need Your Help:

    Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member

    Lit Hub has always brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for your contribution, you'll get an ad-free site experience, editors' picks, and our Joan Didion tote bag. Most importantly, you'll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving.