This is for you and onlyThis is for you and onlyyou. This is for me to giveyou. This is for me to give

to you. This is what I leaveto you. This is what I leavebehind. Not gold or silver,behind. Not gold or silver,but jingle bells and pearls,but jingle bells and pearls,

which are arguably morewhich are arguably morevalueable. Because the jinglevalueable. Because the jingle

bells are so we never losebells are so we never losethe alleycat you broughtthe alleycat you brought

home for me. And the pearlshome for me. And the pearlscame from the bottom ofcame from the bottom ofthe sea that you saved methe sea that you saved mefrom drowning in. This isfrom drowning in. This is

for us to remember. This isfor us to remember. This isfor me to hear when you'vefor me to hear when you've

gone.gone.

Observationsabout: you,me, and thestrayalleycat

a book of pictures and poetry:a book of pictures and poetry:Rachel WisnomRachel Wisnom

11

Observations about: you, me, and the strayObservations about: you, me, and the strayalleycatalleycat

Rachel WisnomRachel Wisnom

22

33

Here we are, yet, are we here? Between tangled streets, can we be entwined in themaps of tourists as they search for Big Ben? Only to find our way underneath the bell as wetry to get away from the noise. This city has a sound that must be adhered too. But we aredeaf. The two of us speak without words. In touches and glances and smooth tongues, whichmove in silence compared to the sinister step of sealed lips forcing us to fall in line down theescalators. We read each other like businessmen scan the morning newspaper. On the tubeyou look at me unconditionally. Others speak to us with conditions in their shoulders. Are wehere? yet, here we are underneath the skin of a city that keeps time to London Bells. Youand I are noises in a noiseless city; we are made quiet by society. It’s a shame that we can’tbe alone.             -“Let’s fuel the city silence by screaming”

44

55

This is the last thing I want to take a photo of. They tell me, I have too. They say, it’s expected. So I clicked off the guards and wrote down thenames of their uniforms.   I’ve been told I am being graded on a thousandyears of inaccurate history. I said you can’t mark creativity and no one evergave the Queen an A plus for bloodline, althoughI’m sure she deserves it.   They told me that these bricks were placed downin 1099 by the monarchy and an architect whowas paid very highly for copyright fraud. I thought: he wasn’t paid enough for originalityand neither were the Romans.             -“things I thought while touristing”

66

77

They built a cathedral for the living and placed in it the dead. Asif to say even in the afterlife you can’t escape. Here, the organistplays a tune for all the lost souls that gather near. It lingers,holding me in its claws and singing a sweet lament. For whomdoes it call? I lost you in a crowd on Regents Street a week ago, but I didn’tthink you were gone. You were still there existing. Only just outof my reach. Is that were you are now? Is that were you’ve gone?We breathe for those who cannot. We write for those who haveno voice. Where were you when I lost you? Where did your voicego when I couldn’t hear your song anymore?             -“I Gorini”

88

They built monuments for the gods,the way the shadows made a home in the dark.

-"Jesus was supposed to be a humble man"

99

In the old days, lamp posts shone as hope in the night.Now, nobody even knows how to set them aflame.In the old days, everything was made to last.Now, the only thing that lasts is the wrecking ball.

-"When Westminster was built"

1010

Some one once said to me,I've never seen the inside of a church.I replied, me neither. God only allows achosen few to gaze upon his organs and I'mafriad I'd be charged with treason if he evertook me seriously. So I don't take him seriously either.

-"my mother failed her missionaryexams"

1111

1212

I would climb to heaven just to find the rocket that crashed you on the moon;I would break though rock and carve caverns.

-"except from the book i'll never write #1"

1313

There was one light in the tower and when no one was looking it would turn itself out.-"sentience"

1414

1515

Talking is hard. Writing is hard. People are hard. Dicks are hard. Effort is without effort. Idon’t understand where the word present comes from. There’s a three way going on in Hawaii.And in Tokyo. And in London. Underneath the statue of Eros in Piccadilly there’s a circus goingon. It has all the best trapeze artists, straight from Timbuktu. They’re good, therefore nobodyappreciates them. Nobody gets the way they smile when it’s not needed, come out even when thesun’s not, and worship at the feet of simple consumerism: all the places they aren’t wanted. I metan artist once. That’s it. That’s the whole story, all the artists are gone now. Driven off by a hustleof Christmas shoppers that aren’t able to buy anything personal, anything meaningful. Like aDing-Dong-Ditch for how much I give a shit. This is an epilogue of human discovery. We don’t careanymore; we don’t care where the word present originated, even though we are there. It’s all toohard. Effort is without effort.             -“This is what we give to our loved ones; past&consequence”

1616

1717

Sometimes I wake up and I look like a lion. Then I stumble out the door not caring if I’ll roarlater in the day. She said that the only way for me to sell my heart was to learn how to forget it. Ifigured that was more effort than I cared to put in. I often place my hand over my chest in order tofeel my heartbeat, and I feel everything. I feel the stars and the moon and the way everybodywhispers even when they aren’t talking. I feel the way homeless men do when food is freely given,and artists do when they starve. I understand. I understand all the time, even at night; especiallyin a crowded place. I’ve been told that I am a warrior carrying this weight around with me,shouldering this fish tank full of piranhas, but I don’t feel like it. I am flesh and bone. (I amsuffering). I am blood that cries to get out in a city that cries louder. I don’t understand, Cicero:Someday this pain will be useful to you. When? Why do I understand how a fly on the wall feels?There are no perks to being a dandelion in a field of daisies. God, grant me your ambivalence. I needit to survive or else I’ll drown in all this misery. I heard on the news today that lions are becomingan endangered species. I hear them roaring down in Africa.             -“Cut your hand and I’ll feel the knife (when a lion roars she’s grieving)”

1818

1919

Counting stars and camping trips & sons Growing up and failing math & sons

Baseball bats & sons Advice on girls and mending hearts & sons

Father & sons  

Tears and blood & sons Doctor’s orders and melatonin dreams & sons

Empty swing sets and Spider web doorways at the back of the hall & sons Christmas without Santa and taxes & sons

Island of forgotten toys & sons Anger and heartbreak & sons

Lost things & sons -“& sons”

2020

I didn’t think what I really needed was space. But the street corner never seemed as far away as when you separated us with languagesI hadn’t learned. This is how we end, in an alleyway one person wide and a bike meant for two. Tell the rickshaw rider to leave. I don’twant to suffocate.             -"excerpt from the book i'll never write #2"

21

22

23

Somepeople just want to watch the world burn.and Somepeople want to build it back up from the ashes.

Others are left victims to both parties.-"Who we are and what we do"

24

Autumn never felt as lonely, as the year the leaves didn't fall as Igrew up.And Summer never came so slowly as the month I left homefor the last time.Spring only lasted as long as the weekend I had my first drinkand fell in love with every boy that called me beautiful.Winter was always colder the day after you left me without a heart tokeep my body warm when the wind blew in.

-"somehow, i'll see spring again"

25

26

27

The wall that my brother punched and never got fixed. The day our swing set stopped workingeven though all the parts were still there. The way my breathing fractures while my parentsfight in the downstairs hallway. How the grass is always cut, but my hair gets longer everyyear. The moment I realized your mouth didn’t move the way mine did. How I stand still when youspeak out loud. The reason why you asked the landlady if there were any open flames in theapartment. Why we both dream in different colours. You have your little puzzle along your jaw, and I have mine where no one dared to go. And maybewe can never find the last piece anywhere other than inside of us. But we’ve already gone toofar inside ourselves to bother caring anymore.             -“all the things I never put together (still life puzzle pieces)”

28

29

This is the page of pictures I didn’t take because I was too shy.             -“honestly, I feel more comfortable in blank spaces”

30

31

Eighteen. That’s how many bikes I see abandoned every day, no reason just their luck. That’s howmany hearts I find relenting. That’s how many dreams I wake up from screaming. That’s howmany birds lost their feathers today. My kindergarten teacher used to tell us the letter C was forCat and D was for Dog. She never mentioned God was doG backwards but it was implied by the wayshe wrote it, heaviness in her fingers and heaven in the chalk. I didn’t learn how to ride a bikeuntil I turned thirteen. They called me a late bloomer even though my chest had been throbbingsince I was nine. Before that—I used to throw my cat in the swimming pool—After that, for somereason all my cats left when my mother exchanged them for dogs. My high school French teacherused to have us play musical chairs like we did when we were kids. I asked him, When did musicalchairs turn into a battlefield?             -“Bicycle Soliloquy (God, I would like to file a formal complaint about my childhood)”

32

33

I’ve stood outside windows watchingweightless wanderers walk and if I concentratedlong enough they’d become feathers and blow away.This is why the trees grow up. This is why I wish Iknew how. I was almost a bird once, but I’ve beenstanding outside too many windows thinking overthe ground. Why are people so flawless from furtherup?             -“Here I am, aimless”

34

35

It's not just you. People fall in and out. People die the same way you do. Breathless. Your life isn't significant just because they built you amonument. When it comes down to it, they did that so that they could feel better. So they could feellike their lives had meaning if they gave some to yours. It doesn't. You can't make something out of nothing.All the windows in my house are the same, every one looks out.It's not just you that feels this way. Shakespeare wrote a sonnet for every word that also means love: sheets, breakfast, reminder for milk. 67 reasons that you are alone. You're not, is 1-67. Everyone lies is 68. Read my elegy to me. I'm the only one who gives a shit where Santa hid the Christmas presents.

-"i'll build a monument out of all the reasons you areimportant"

36

37

You were never the problem. Instead, you were always the answer to the one question nobody asked. You think,This is the only way to save my sanity. But you are the gears that keep this world turning and the gravity thathold us in orbit. My dear, you were hatched from stardust same as all the gods we pray to. You don’t have tobelieve in anything else I say other than this—rain makes the flowers grow and so too, do dark times give wayto light. More than anything, you are meant to be. More than anything, you are still alive in a memory.

            -“this is not the world you wanted it to be, but it’s still yours”

38

39

She got what she wantedwhenever she said, please.

-"how we learn to speak"

40

41

The sea was escapeyet her prison was made out of waterthe sea was her homeyet she still didn't know how to swim

-"a fear of mine is drowning"

42

43

The first thing he said to me went straight to my head, you know,the way breathing gives our lungs a reason to expand, without eventhinking about it. I guess…I just wasn’t expecting a boy like him to quoteHemingway so casually, but college makes fools of us all. Even me, whoburns all the material onto the backs of my hands. Scars never seemedlike they’d have educational value, but all the honors kids strode aroundwith letters written into their fingertips. I got the idea from them. Thathas to mean something. If it doesn’t, well then, four years of my life wereplugged into a quadratic equation nobody in the real world knew how tosolve. Except him. He never put any effort into something he didn’t planon pursuing. He said, I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apartwhen I’m awake, you know?

            -“this is the third time today I thought about you”

44

45

Black [noun]:1. Charcoal. The color of burnt wood after a forest fire. The undeside of ashtrees that no longer exist. My brothers eyes and his lungs that are morelike tar than they are for breathing anymore. What ran through his mindfive months later when he reached down to light another up. Theintersection where they found him. Ebony clock hands twined by fingersmade of long evening shadows, and the clockmaker as he listens to 'Le maldu pays' in the record player. The groundless sadness called forth in apersons heart's by a pastoral landscape. Homesickness. Melancoly.2. You. Your heart. You mouth when you said I wasn't enough anymore.

46

47

The rain never asked to be loved, yet when it sees someonedancing it can’t help but pour down. And when it spots anumbrella, suddenly it realizes that most people just don’tunderstand how to get wet.             -"raining"

48

49

This is how you hold hands, with equality in your shoulders and judgment at your backs. Not the effort it takes tolift a house lingering in your fingertips. I emailed you the tutorial, but I guess it didn’t send. Must have clicked thewrong address; must have went to them because they know all the secrets. All the ones I meant to tell you, but gotlost to ancient grudges. Probably buried in a pyramid. This is us in a hundred years. That’s how long it’d take for us to be anywhere near as comfortable around eachother as they are. How does it make any sense? I thought I saw stars and I thought you saw them too. Turns outyou were still looking at the ground, while I’d made it into orbit. Tell God, if he hears me screaming his name itisn’t in the bedroom. It’ll be because all the air I packed in my suitcase left when you threw my name into thewind.             -“This is how you be in love; we are not”

50

51

Here’s the thing about Lucy. She’s an atom bomb. She’s a delicate landslide. She’stwenty feet under & rising faster. Forgive her for any suffrages, she’s drowningin midafternoon. Lucy’s fire is running out. She’s walking a million miles anhour still lost in the crowd. She’s surrounded on every side. She’s raining in theblazing light. Forgive her she’s tangled in people. Here’s the thing about Lucy,she’ll never get out. She’s always drowning by the time she gets home.

            -“Lucy”

52

This is for you and onlyThis is for you and onlyyou. This is for me to giveyou. This is for me to give

to you. This is what I leaveto you. This is what I leavebehind. Not gold or silver,behind. Not gold or silver,but jingle bells and pearls,but jingle bells and pearls,

which are arguably morewhich are arguably morevalueable. Because the jinglevalueable. Because the jingle

bells are so we never losebells are so we never losethe alleycat you broughtthe alleycat you brought

home for me. And the pearlshome for me. And the pearlscame from the bottom ofcame from the bottom ofthe sea that you saved methe sea that you saved mefrom drowning in. This isfrom drowning in. This is

for us to remember. This isfor us to remember. This isfor me to hear when you'vefor me to hear when you've

gone.gone.

Observationsabout: you,me, and thestrayalleycat

a book of pictures and poetry:a book of pictures and poetry:Rachel WisnomRachel Wisnom