Tag: songs of youth

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.

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

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}

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

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

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.

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.

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

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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!)

on one cold night in london / i sat beneath the twinkling lights / and i thought i knew who i was

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

age 16, teenage angst-ing in london. taken on an evening i wrote about in my songs of youth.

“on one cold night in london / i sat beneath the twinkling lights / and i thought i knew who i was (..).”

then: i was in london for a summer course at goldsmiths, the university where my amore brian molko studied drama. i was in a transformative period of turmoil, which i later unpacked in a few articles published that year. yet, back then, i did not write much about the giddiness of it, which i want to highlight today: the giddiness of being a besotted schoolgirl, daydreaming between classes of the life her favourite rockstar lived in those university halls. wrapped up in mind twirls, i would wonder,

did he experience the delicious mix between ache & thrill that i was experiencing? did he wander the streets at night like i did, finding solace in the graffiti splashed upon walls? did he understand the sadness in him in ways i did not understand the sadness in me? 🤍

every night, i listened to him sing: “i am weightless / i am bare / i am faithless / i am scared” & “wrapped in lust and lunacy / tiny touch of jealousy / these bonds are shackle free” and i felt a desperate want to express the workings of my mind the way he did. to live vicariously, to share vicariously. to be alive, and sad, and jolly, and love and hurt.

i will share one of the, hmm, rough accounts of the turmoil side of things. it’s in romanian. you can read it here: http://www.sub25.ro/…/ce-vrem-de-la-brian-molko-in…

i will only translate the ending, as i feel distanced from it – in all the ‘good’ ways. it sometimes makes me uncomfortable to read past works in which i was so open, but overall i am proud of my teen self for expressing herself fully and not sugar coating her experience.

“when the sun rose, i was leaning against the window of my dorm room, with my hair dyed green, with smudged eyeliner and one broken nail. with lady of the flowers on repeat. black sessions, 1997. brian began the set with a poem he only recited that year:

Lady of the flowers, they’ve been dead for hours.
Interflora (..)

and i felt that i could be okay.”

the feeling was correct. 🤍

songs of youth | foreword

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

foreword: “The one consistency in my life, from childhood to the teenage years of angst and to the blooms of young adulthood, has been writing. I wrote to make sense of the world around me and of myself, I wrote to express myself, I wrote to connect to the world and to myself.

This is a collection of poetry written between the ages of sixteen and twenty. Brian Molko of Placebo, who was the soundtrack to my teenage years and the one who hypnotised me with rawness and alluring born-to-die sadness, once said that, when you are a teenager, you react to the world that surrounds you with great emotionality and intensity, with full heart. He mused that growing older is a process of finding semblances of sanity. This collection aims to illustrate exactly that; it is not written by an adult looking back with maturity, nor tenderness to their early years, but by the teenager who is in the midst of experiencing the turbulent highs and lows of being thrown into life.

This collection of poetry was a creative project I compiled as an undergraduate student of Creative Writing at Lancaster University. It includes unpublished work, as well as work that has already been published.

It is structured in three sections: ‘teenage angst’, ‘my loss is my root’ and ‘at last, light’, which chronicle the journey to adulthood through churn, grief, and joy.

You may notice that the poetry is written in lowercase. More than an aesthetic choice, lowercase marks the teenage search for identity and reflects how disconnected teenagers feel to themselves. As a teenager myself, I found it difficult to capitalise ‘I’-s, as it seemed as if I was proclaiming who I was before I knew.

This collection explores the beginning of the search for the ‘I’.

Enjoy.”

🕊 the cover art i fall in love with more and more every day is by Holly Robinson🖤🤍🖤

kindle: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g

paperback: https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g

(u.k. links, do message me for the link if you are from another country & are interested in ordering 🖤 thank you so!!) 🕊

teenage angst, placebo rage | songs of youth

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

“teenage angst” is the first section of my book, “songs of youth”, and it is compiled of poetry i wrote as a raging teenager. i entitled it after the eponymous placebo track, in which brian molko scratchily sings: “since i was born, i started to decay”.

in the depths of my teenage angst, i followed placebo on tour and wrote live reviews of their delicious gigs! what a better day for a tender run through memory than today, the 3rd of may – the 2nd of may is considered the official placebo day by ‘cebo lovers. you can read “Placebo: Desire, Heartbreak & Dark Romanticism” here:

🎸 (eng) https://www.flickofthefinger.co.uk/…/placebo-wembley…/ (2017)

🎸 (ro) https://www.dissolvedmagazine.com/placebo-desire-heartbreak/ (2017) – lengthened!

since songs of youth came out, i have been revisiting my favourites and sinking into brian molko’s voice. it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that i wrote most of this collection with their tunes ringing in my ears or chest.

i am so happy that they exist & i can delight in their music. forever grateful that they raised me on tones of diffidence, with an appetite for delirious experiences – and freedom. 😁

you can order my book here:

https://amzn.eu/d/0duef5g

polaroid of me teenage angst-ing in london after a spectacular placebo gig in 2018. 𝖏𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓, 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖆 𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖒 𝖔𝖇𝖘𝖈𝖊𝖓𝖊 📽 (by the way, i turned nineteen at a placebo gig, screaming these lyrics at the top of my lungs!)

my youth spills on dancefloors by Téa Nicolae

Téa NicolaeLeave a comment

*poem published in Kamena Magazine, 2022. written in 2019. from my ‘teenage angst’ collection.

pitch-black clubs,
dazed fridays.
my youth pumps through my veins.

high heels,
shiny fake ids.
my youth grounds me.

grimy dance floors,

my youth bursts inside of me

it glides through me

wildly

as my heart throbs beneath my skin
matching the music’s beat

i please my youth
bending my body obediently
with the deafening bass

midnight
the synth dismantles my mind
and my limbs are not mine anymore
they follow the sound

there is no past
or future
only my body
spinning madly
only the music
twisting in my ears
only my youth
spilling on dance floors
from the crashed bottles of wine at my feet