poetess – amaryllis

Ānanda

May 10, 2024June 10, 2024 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

January 5, 2024 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

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. 🤎

on the banks of Gaṅgā | Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭamī poem

September 6, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

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

September 2, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

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}

twenty-four summers rekindle the fire

August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

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

August 10, 2023August 10, 2023 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

July 28, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

you

spilled ice cream on my sundress

and swayed me to rock ballads

reminded you of spring

and faded in the summer breeze

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

was your absentminded poetess

were seeking to destroy ourselves

for throes of applause and tastes of success

you

did.

was one step before the chasm

when stratospheric glooms parted.

suddenly knew

that my quill did not have to be my ruin.

suddenly saw

that i could create beauty.

i undulate

July 17, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

i undulate
with the sun in my teeth
and with my hair braided on salt

put my head on my mother’s lap
and listened to the birds

yes i have spite
but i also have love

my longing for myself is my song

dissolved in shades of blue in the dreamy lecco! #bellaitalia

fluorescent tears on the train

July 15, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

crying fluorescent tears on the train,

𝘪 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘪 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸?,

i say to you. my eyes are soft but i house venom underneath my teeth. i cloak my vulnerability in spite, daring you to be cruel to me so i can finally bite. you can tell.

𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨,

you finally say.

i gauge your kindness with suspicion.

when i detect no snide, i soften my tongue.

yes

but

𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥,

𝘪 𝘥𝘰 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵

there’s this song that lorde wrote after david bowie died

she sings about spilling our guts out on graceless nights because we are young and so ashamed,

frying our brains to the speakers

as we watch our heroes die

like lorde, all my heroes perished.

the party’s cut into my bones,

and the magic bullet’s wearing off.

dancing her feet on tombs,

lorde concludes

that she can’t stand to be alone.

watching my heroes fade,

i also thought

that i couldn’t stand to be alone.

yet i’m crying fluorescent tears on the train

and i feel my youth burning strong,

flaming my throat with anger and song.

my youth,

it still burns strong.

and i know.

my heroes ashed,

but i can stand

to be alone.

you open your mouth to respond

but i shake my head. i already know. it doesn’t need

to be spoken to me,

not anymore.

you smile and vanish in the scenery.

i’m crying fluorescent tears

on the train

and i can stand to be alone.

poem from my upcoming poetry collection which tackles the blooming into young adulthood.

you said you loved me accusatorily | poem | songs of youth

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

you said you loved me accusatorily

with a glimmer in your eyes.

your hands entwined with mine

like ivy,

swiftly travelled to my shoulders

and strangled my neck

with care.

your tender messages were

sweet like thyme

and your love

smothered me.

i was ashamed

that i could not mirror your affection,

but God knows i tried.

on our last night together

you listened to music

while i cried on the floor.

as you slept,

i curled to the edge of your bed.

lips pressed to my knees,

i saw through my attachment to you,

and left wordlessly.

i know i did you wrong, too,

i’m sorry.

but love does not cage.

slighting bhakti poetry, the poems belonging to the “of jumbled warmth” section of ~ songs of youth ~ are poems i wrote which would most closely resemble what would be known as poems of love. sharing the ending stanzas of “you said you loved me accusatorily” from verona, the city of love!

*when i mused something similar, my very wise friend @flagrantambiguity noted that all poetry is love poetry in essence, only not in the customary way we think about love – which i *love*-d 🫀😁 because, indeed, to write a poem about something implies devotion to it – be it devotion to anger, grief or hatred. (my take!)