AFTER HOURS: A weekend pairing for those of us who just need some time
TFW you wish your passion project was your actual 9–5 job, but it’s hard because you can’t tell if the world really needs a chapbook of experimental poetry.
TFW your friends are moving up in the world but, like, they objectively have no taste and don’t even read so how is that fair.
TFW you haz a vision but don’t know how to quite get there because maybe you miscalculated some professional steps. But these loans aren’t going to pay themselves. Also, you don’t have inter-generational wealth as a safety net, and you’re scared of starting over.
Even if we don’t end up making significant progress on our side projects this Saturday. Even if it’s another hot ass summer weekend of creative bust. Even if we end up spending too much money and not enough time on what we actually love to do. Even if. Even if. Even if. I’m leaving you with a music x poem pairing that just wants to meet you halfway — enjoy.
+ Play SZA’s “20 Something”
On my way home from the opposite end of town one night, I was feeling mildly dramatic/inebriated and asked the Via driver to blast this song. There are two parts of “20 Something” that really get to me and make me feel like I’m being hugged.
- It is comforting that the feeling of having nothing is perhaps ubiquitous.
How could it be?
20 something, all alone still
Not a thing in my name
Ain’t got nothin’, runnin’ from love
Only know fear
That’s me, Ms. 20 Something
Ain’t got nothin’, runnin’ from love
Wish you were here, oh
2. On the cusp. Things are fine. Will be fine.
Stuck in them 20 somethings,
Good luck on them 20 somethings,
But God bless these 20 somethings
Hopin’ my 20 somethings won’t end
Hopin’ to keep the rest of my friends
Okay, now let the song hug you.
+ Read Ada Limón’s “Instructions on Not Giving Up”
I generally like poetry that is investigative, a bit frenetic, and confident. But my favorite poems are the ones that are affective in their urgency. A friend who knows this about me sent this poem when I didn’t even know I needed it. Sometimes that is all you need: a small but loving gesture that is also a salve that is also a nudge forward.
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
Have a great weekend. See you soon.
