The Noresoup Jukebox

The way old friends do - ABBA I'm at home for summer after a year of butchering myself. I've come home to be cherished and loved. I reach home safely, in the arms of my mother, I think, ah, you must have prayed well for me. When we share pieces of our humble dessert,  My father cuts me a bigger piece, Then he goes up to the roof to harvest dragon fruits for me. I haven't seen the guys in what feels like decades. We are sitting in a cafe and we enjoy too much. Time slips away from us, like ribbons, like silk, like sand. Our days blur into a messy abstract,  What feels like seconds are weeks that will never return. But I am there in the moment, and they last forever. The Jude to my Willem, or rather the Willem to my Jude, Sits next to me; sandalwood with hints of vanilla. Elongates our orders and makes us laugh,  He remembers most and spills compassion wherever he goes. The smell of books and old cassette tapes, Little obsessions for great writers, and even greater artists,...

 I fear you might feel that you weren't loved, that you'll look back at your past like this and think that you were never really there. But you exist and you persist in people's memory. You are the kind of human that loves and you love compassionately . When your childhood friend hears that one song She remembers how you both danced that afternoon and sang and screamed. When Christmas comes around, She quietly waits for your cookies to arrive Even though she is certain that it will not come. You moved again and the house you once lived in Feels strange to look at when you're not there. And your mother has bore you much longer than those nine months. She remembers more about you than you will ever get to know. How your tiny fingers grasped her thumb,  how it felt to hold you as a child and then as a woman. How you grew out of your favorite green jacket  And then the way you grew out of her home. Your father looks at the rearview mirror over the years, he got to see more ...

Song: Grantperez - Clementine The clementine trees in my backyard bore fruits for the first time. Autumn had just ended, my soles had thickened and my blankets grew heavier. An unassuming event and yet, it brought colour. My bleak brown backyard and its wilting flowers were now graced by clementines. Sweet little things, with a glossy sheen on their covers, Those clementines were so good, I placed them in a jar for summer. When spring came, it was not the same it was even better. For a while at least, the clementine trees wore a different colour. White fragrant blossoms, their petals gracing my now green grass. Soft scents that never left and followed me everywhere. Clementine blossoms in my pocket, on my shirt, on the tips of my fingers, stirred into my coffee, poured into my body and leaving traces on my bedsheets, pillows and lips. The turn of summer has dried out my clementine blossoms. That innocent white now wilting an ugly brown. Clementine syrup stains on my shirt and lips, My ...

Song: The Most Beautiful Thing - Bruno Majors Sometimes it's as simple as this I turn around and you're there and at times you sing You scoop out a spoonful of food and you pick out the tenderest meat And when my body rejects the world You lay your cold hands on my burning skin Like something medicinal Like something homely There's only so much love that a person can know Yet you carry them all like you birthed them; children of your own You're my grandma's fireplace, My father's old guitar, You're my childhood teddy bear still sleeping in my cupboard But most of all, You're the hug, the warmth of a coffee cup in your hands When the going gets tough. What complexities can love have now? What expectations can further exist? When you have made loving so easy: By the plates of food that your motherly hands cooked, By the pictures, by the stories, The simplicity of making my bed, The comfort in your seat next to mine, Laughs and mischievous glances,  The sni...

Song: Billie Holiday - Solitude It's December and you remember me. You take a peak, you lift my soul. If I were inebriated, if I were cold, It did not matter Regardless, you loved me so. Just as the snow came And showered our roofs white, So rosy did your cheeks become, And amid all the meadows dying A bud burst through and bloomed. If not for me then, indeed, It must have been for you. My meadows are dull,  And in winters, they are cruel. But my meadows found the sun; Lovely, they must have found you.  You awakened something in me and I met her 2 nights ago. I thought she might have died; Her exit so sudden, so soon, And spring has almost arrived. It was brief but very real And I wanted to bottle it up and keep it safe. But Spring came and April, April took everything away. I found myself yearning again; That dull ache that sits in the pit of the heart.  She doesn't stay long and I ache and ache. If I ever think about her, I fear we might meet again. For meeting means le...

I no longer know her, her name was Estella. We were children of the hills. The sun loved her, it followed her everywhere. We saw each other most days and she would pick me up for church on Sundays. Dressed in her best, Estella and her wavy hair, Eyes bright and full of life, She has my childhood and now it is hidden away. Can we dream a little more, Estella? Or have we grown too old? Sometimes I wear the earrings she gave me And recite the letters she wrote for me - Cursive handwriting as dignified as her. Estella is in a place where I can no longer reach her. I was always looking at her from behind. I trudged on the path she paved with ease. Estella and her flare, the ease with which she navigated life, A lesson I was taught but could never learn. I abandoned Estella, I was already 16. When I started to put on my mother’s heels, I did the most unmotherly thing, I refused to love her but she had become a mother, And she continued to love me. - ៷

Jannabi - A thought on an autumn night Ruby,  she smells like honeysuckle But when she feels like herself, she's made of lilies. The vines of love tug at her heart; thorns scarring her lungs softly. There's another drip of blood. Ruby. Blood. But Ruby, She cradles it and rubs it on her lips  Then she speaks the kind of love only she knows - I love you but I abhor you in some ways You may love me different But I love you and I have loved you  How can I leave when I have chosen to love you all these days. There's another cut. Cuts. Blood. Ruby. Cuts with dried blood Oh but Ruby, She treads on that lonely walk of life like she might find something at the end. Her lover does that kind of loving that leaves her bitter and bare - The kind of bitterness that leaves her mouth dry Like when she'd eat a spoonful of coffee to keep herself alive. I ache for you and I come to you But you make me ache another kind of ache  How do I figure out this ache while having to love you sti...