SARA KÄRPÄNEN

FRUIT FLIES

I will not be the ellipsis on your lips

that leads nowhere.

The silence that follows the “but" after “I find you so attractive.”

Silence so long I could disappear there

(I don’t need to hear the rest.)

I’m not here to do that, to ease your cravings when they come to keep away the memories of your ex, on a Sunday night.

We are on different islands

and I say this like I’d say it to a friend,

a friend I actually like:

My roots are tucked into soil and you are floating, like those flies above the fruit bowl, drunk and lost

“I love the way you smell,” you whisper, next to my back, pushing your fingers inside, making me gasp.

242

I’m looking inside a house:

three people on a couch, living room, orange glow,

242 towards St. Pauls passing below

the brakes creak, the bus coughs, tired sound, pale passengers inside, like corpses, shallow souls, heads tilted down, staring at their phones, light reflecting on their isolated faces. Empty soda bottle rolling on the floor, back and forth, outside the air smells like grease, it’s heavy of oil and acid rain. For seconds the streets are painted with red and blue, the sirens scream, people shout, hum and drum, the everyday, the normal life.

I’m staring at the street beneath, a breeze of wind touching my cheek. There's someone, looking at me, our eyes meet, the bus comes, the moment's gone, another nightmare, another day, another dream.

NO ONE ELSE CAN FIX ME 

No one else

can fix me.

Not you, not him, not her

No one else

can fix me.

Not the parties we go to,

not the bombs and drops we take

that make everything spin fast

so that none of us have to ask,

“How long does this last?”

No one else can fix me.

Not the one who I wake up with the next morning,

not the brunch we eat and the coffee we drink to ease our aching heads

Not the cigarettes we smoke

while watching the city turn pink before the sky swallows the light

like a veil, covering the city before it disappears in front us,

into the night

No one else can fix me.

Not the Netflix we watch to tire our minds

Not the joints we smoke before bedtime

that feels like cotton pads covering our eyes

No one else

can fix this

where

solitude

softly lands.

SUNDAY

There’s a taste of iron in your mouth.

The remains of cocaine,

from yesterday.

“Are you insane?” words echoing in my ears.

Don’t pray, I beg, please, stay, without asking, demanding, whispering, when the room bathes in afternoon light, we were supposed to leave hours ago, now it’s midday, day ruined, my mother would say, but I don’t move, instead, I lie on my back, “touch me” yes you may and you mumble something like, “I thought you were hungry, don’t you want breakfast” and I hesitate but reply anyway, “I’m not finished yet” and you look at me, and you do touch me, far away, like I’m almost not there and now I can disappear, in the sheets I won’t smell again, in this t-shirt I’m not going to wear again, and I almost come and we go in the sunshine, the sun is too bright, the sky is too blue and we have eggs for breakfast and we kiss goodbye,

the end.

NOVEMBER

The smell of you is tattooed in my nostrils and won’t go away.

I could get drunk of that smell alone.

PILLOW TALK

Here’s for you, love:

Not sleeping with anyone is fine.

It is not a failed Saturday night.

Taking a cab home, Uber pool, alone.

Waking up, no strangers’ arms around.

No blocked nose

no bruises on the thighs

the first thought, it occurs,

you were not high,

no one touched you last night

It’s new, it's new to you

I’m not sure how to take it

it’s new, it's new to you

I’m on my own,

I hear the gap between my thoughts

it’s new to you.

LONGING 

If I tuck into,

into this longing I feel for you

it finds it feet

where hurt normally has its home

how can

love

feel

so close to pain?

LIES

The lies boys tell you to get upstairs:

• I want to see your paintings
• Let’s smoke a spliff on the rooftop
• I just want to hold you all night
• Let’s have one more glass of wine
• I have some great mescal at home 
• I want to tell you something, inside
• I’ve never had a one-night stand in my life.

NEW ROUTE 

Look left,

choose a route,

turn right,

find a new way home,

look at the map,

look front,

slow down,

8 minutes,

you can make it,

make it home, turn the key

disappear from the sight, from the mind, people fall in and out of love like this, all the time.

HOME

The loss of losing a home.

A home that is not a house

A home that once was,

a feeling of freedom, of love,

a home that smelled like you,

a home that was anything we dared to dream of

the special secret, the never-never land

a home that is now a construction site, a wasteland

being replaced

by someone else’s life, a master plan, the luxury man

what we once had

is now in their hands

who never has the courage to understand

of the dreams we built

of what you and I, had.

NICE GIRLS

Come home,
have a shower,
change clothes—
different underwear, same bra
brush our teeth
meet them in the park
be normal, laugh aloud, be quiet,
tell a lie
have a smoke, another ale, get high
read a book, rest on their chest

They say,

“Can I take you home,
do you like this,
let’s go there,
it was so nice,
xo xx”

And we say nothing back
they never think
we could do that
but it’s not a game, see;
it’s the unspoken rules
we learned to play.

TWO HALVES

I had no idea

sorrow had so many stages

break up

[phrasal verb of break]

1.

disintegrate or disperse.

"the grey clouds had begun to break up"

We are breaking up,

breaking into two halves, which once were, at least, felt like one.

We are breaking up the dreams we built

tearing off the puzzles that fit together so well

that they even made a “click” sound when they met

We are breaking up the “we” into you and me,

deciding on our own,

what, when, how, with whom, and where

I have accepted that fact

but I never knew

how many stages grief will have,

it keeps coming to me

I’m reminded what we once used to have.

SUNDAY ROAST

When you order a glass of wine,

and get two instead.

You ask a table for one,

and ask if you could sit by the window

but the window seat, “the window seat,” you are told,

“is reserved for the couples,”

“Sorry about that, darling.”

Don’t you fucking sorry me, darling.

PARODY 

The restlessness of us is tangible.

We want to get pissed, we want to forget, we want to get low, we try not to exist.

We want to be seen, we want to be found, we want to be fucked, we want to be wanted, we want to be hold, we want to be sucked, we want to be loved, we want to be anything but not to be forgotten, we don’t care if we’ve been forgiven.

Remember me

Remember me

Remember me

Are you thinking of me, now?

The parody of us, of our time.