Has anyone else written about their home town? I'm curious what skeletons linger in the backgrounds of your places of origin. Post here if you've got poems or stories.
This is a faux advertisement for makeup in which my hometown is being described.
I Thought I Could Relate 2 U
Overly pungent orange blossom spray produces the distilled tears Sinead O’Connor sheds in the video “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Once you inhale this fragrance, people's Instagram stories scroll in front of your eyes. These people share the same chronic pain condition as you, but their posts are infested with downward dog poses, Paris nightlife, beaches in Tahiti, live concert videos of your favorite 90’s bands, complaints about work, and ultrasound baby photos. All of these roll tirelessly, drowning your occipital lobe. People will ask you, “What is that intoxicating fragrance?” It is the famed orange blossoms of your hometown, the city you always dreamed you’d escape from, like your other friends did.
Has anyone else written about their home town? I'm curious what skeletons linger in the backgrounds of your places of origin. Post here if you've got poems or stories.
This is a faux advertisement for makeup in which my hometown is being described.
I Thought I Could Relate 2 U
Overly pungent orange blossom spray produces the distilled tears Sinead O’Connor sheds in the video “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Once you inhale this fragrance, people's Instagram stories scroll in front of your eyes. These people share the same chronic pain condition as you, but their posts are infested with downward dog poses, Paris nightlife, beaches in Tahiti, live concert videos of your favorite 90’s bands, complaints about work, and ultrasound baby photos. All of these roll tirelessly, drowning your occipital lobe. People will ask you, “What is that intoxicating fragrance?” It is the famed orange blossoms of your hometown, the city you always dreamed you’d escape from, like your other friends did.
by Tamara Hattis
I just found this unpublished poem.
Revisiting Chinatown, My Hometown
You beckon me
to your paper lanterns
and quaint houses
your library
before it moved
to a new location
the sound
of catalog drawers
opening, closing
your cotton kimono
slung over me
on Halloween
your Alpine park
still grassy
for taichi
and your hills
always too steep
to climb
Chinatown
your days are as dark
as your nights