Tag: poem

Ānanda

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

i allow myself
to feel joy,
peeling carrots
with my grandmother,
stroking my nose
against my doe rabbit’s

i allow myself
to feel beauty,
adorning my neck
with rose quartz necklaces,
gazing at the night sky
sliding itself into dawn

i allow myself
to feel stillness,
laying my naked skin
in fresh lavender sheets,
placing hands on my belly,
counting eleven deep breaths

i allow myself
to feel grief,
embellishing my knees
with tears, planting kisses
on the blisters
that bejewel my skin

i allow myself
to twinkle alive,
tulle pressed
to my damp thighs,
dancing with my
hands above my head

i
allow
life
to flow
through
me

🌷 poem from my poetry collection, “songs of youth”, the “at last, light: of joy” chapter. available on amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g.

Khaliya: birthday poem

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the sun in my mind aging by one
the tinkle of golden anklets calling from the forest of monal
the blood of my womb coalescing into bruised grass
the clouds of silk blushing against my cheeks
the burn of my skin drying before the unforgiving light
the sound of my shame vibrating in my chest
the cold untangling my fingers’ grasp on fears seeded into me as child

i
sometimes wish i was satisfied by easy
by swinging my feet over the white picket fence holding hands with perfect suitability
but the fire in my belly scorches
and i know i’m not

i
sometimes wish to rest
but the fire in my belly scorches
and i know i have to keep moving

🏔 Khaliya, from my birthday poem. 🤎

in Gangotrī i screamed for the Lord (excerpt) | the Monsoon One and the pilgrim | téa nicolae

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(..) my cheeks, full in lilies
my mind, anointed by the half-moon bathing the Śivling

i walked and walked and walked
hungry for a glimpse of your feet

at crossroads
my torturous One of Monsoon
devised a game:

i felt
his lips
hovering
on my hair, hands, and eyelids
yet when i turned
my mouth
to claim
my longing
i could only kiss
a devious scent of lotus

the empty air
and a devious scent of lotus

after ten, twenty
thirty turns
and one hundred and eight hot tears
the mountain road came to a halt

you, nowhere to be found.
only a devious scent of lotus.

a perfume so deceitful
that when the milky ocean
was churned in the first aeon
the asuras did not taste nectar
for they chose not the elixir
but the conch streaming it instead

last crossroads in sight,
i screamed

ENOUGH.
MY LORD, IT IS ENOUGH.

TEAR MY CENTER
WED MY NAVEL

DO NOT HIDE FROM ME.

Gangā sizzled as your lotus scent filled my nostrils
maddened, i looked around for You, when, a whisper:

𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒔.

🌙 excerpt from a poem from my upcoming collection “the Monsoon One and the pilgrim”. photo: Gangotrī at night. the Himālayas are calling again. 💛

on the banks of Gaṅgā | Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī poem

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on the banks of Gaṅgā

you held me all night, my Lord
unseen to the eye,
your grace, a lover’s touch, wrapped my skin
unheard to the ears,
your name, my japa, vibrated through my braincells

Monsoon One, do you long for me as fully as i long for you?
do you call on me as ardently as i call on you?
you do, don’t you, my Lord?
i am not alone in this quest

for every step i take towards you,
you take two towards me
for every tear i spill in yearning for you,
you ignite vīrya in my skin tissue
for every test of yours that i fail,
you yank me freer of delusion

i see it now, Hari.
you have been pulling me
by my hair and hands to you.
it was all you. it was always all you.

if i run to you as fast as my legs can take me,
will you meet me halfway?

you will, won’t you, my Lord?

🦚 Happy Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī! 🙏 poem from my upcoming collection “the Monsoon One and the pilgrim”. 💛

my hands are still warm | songs of youth by téa nicolae

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my hands are still warm

from when you held them between yours.

i was cold,

and ached to be

smart and pretty.

i wondered if you could see right through me,

and veiled my cheeks in my hair.

i see right through me.

written at 18 years old. 🖤 when i read the last line, the chorus of the song ‘the archer’ rings in my head, most specifically the ache in “can you see right through me? they see right through me. i see right through me.” what i would tell my 18-year-old self now is, you can’t see through you yet. what you think you see is an antagonised & subdued version of yourself. few people can see through others, and those who can, have met themselves so deeply that they will meet you in corners you don’t know you have yet. 🖤

you can read the poems i wrote in my teenage years in my collection songs of youth 🖤 

{amazon u.k.: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g}

i breathe, i accept my grief by téa nicolae | songs of youth

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i wake up at dawn
and i find happiness
in slicing an apple
and munching on it


𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧


i find beauty
in standing barefoot in the middle of the kitchen,
feeling breadcrumbs stick
to my pinky toe
𝘪 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧
i learn there is joy in cutting tomatoes,
in making a bowl of soup,
in having my stomach full


𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧


i uncover the childish glee of
having the tip of my tongue burnt
and gratitude runs between my fingers like water
being alive is warm
there is kindness
in tuning in
and


𝘪 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦
𝘪 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵
𝘮𝘺 𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧. ☼


from “at last, light: of joy”, the third section of my “songs of youth”. 🌻
{amazon u.k.: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g}

originally published in scan journal.

twenty-four summers rekindle the fire

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in my sixteenth autumn, Nature called me to her,
burned into my cells the yearning to meet my depths
and i tasted myself wildly in her fold
until wisteria tangled my feet
and life pulled me from myself by my hair
and i lost the thread, the web, the call.

𝒊 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍
i told the river as it broke through my skin
i forgot the lessons, i forgot the actual call.
i could only hear an echo of it and i followed fragments of memory. it seemed like the call. it felt like the call. it wasn’t. i was just a girl.

your terence said, if you are to follow,
only follow Nature.
it is funny, how sixteen autumns of cracking fire could understand
what twenty springs of dimmed flame did not.

twenty four summers rekindle the fire with rage, bare skin and an open chest,
and with my girlhood as the blood offering.

watch me
answering your call again
with my hair burnt and my thighs bled.

like the dragon woman who ate horseflesh in the red sea,
i sink my teeth into my girlhood and consume it rapaciously in the forest.

mad eyes, i pledge:
this time, it will just be me,
and you, and the wildness.

love in the age of social media | songs of youth

Téa Nicolae2 Comments

written in 2016 about a situationship in which both of us were more concerned with chasing greatness & stellar twilights than with each other. 🌊🌅

i think i wish i knew

what you’ve been reading,

what bands you’re into

and what dreams you’re weaving. (?)

it’s been one year and a half

since you’ve unfollowed me on instagram

and i’ve deleted you on facebook.

i miss you. (?)

i wonder if you wish you knew

that i’m writing again

that i dyed my hair

that i wear black lipstick and gold hoops.

i haven’t unblocked you out of prideful frailty

but i’ve conscientiously kept up the virtual appearances

one is lured to, follow parting.

i made up with the right friends,

posted pretty selfies,

changed my make-up just rightly.

i smiled widely in pictures

and avoided sharing sad poetry.

but you don’t know.

you don’t know that

i was torn the other day

that i changed therapists

that i’m playing keyboards in a rock band

yesterday,

my friend sent me a screenshot

of your new profile picture.

you looked good.

healthy and polished,

probably my opposite these days.

and you don’t know

that i sway to heartbreak pop at midnight

that i lost my mother’s ring

that on one cold night in london i sat beneath the twinkling lights and i thought

i knew who i was

i think i miss you,

but i’ve almost forgotten you.

i haven’t read your carefully written captions

and i haven’t seen your moles in over a year.

erasing each other from our social media

was a cleansing process.

i can’t even remember why we drifted apart.

i’m just pissed that you haven’t seen me blossoming,

because you unfollowed me on instagram.

and you won’t ever know

that i quit drinking coffee

that i learnt to swim

that i threw myself in the sea, wearing the dress you liked,

and the dress stuck to my thighs

and for once

i ceased to feel unwanted

like your casual distance used to make me feel.

@songs.of.youth on amazon: ~
kindle: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g
paperback: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g

throes by téa nicolae | songs of youth

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

you

spilled ice cream on my sundress

and swayed me to rock ballads

i

reminded you of spring

and faded in the summer breeze

we

had a common affinity

for boys with smudged eyes dressed in pretty skirts singing scratchy songs about loves lost to heroin

you

were my stained musician

i

was your absentminded poetess

we

were seeking to destroy ourselves

for throes of applause and tastes of success

you

did.

i

was one step before the chasm

when stratospheric glooms parted.

i

suddenly knew

that my quill did not have to be my ruin.

i

suddenly saw

that i could create beauty.