let the air in by Angela Yausheva

let the air in

Let the air in,
It got so awfully stuffy and damp in my room.
Are you here? Say something nice then.
I’m giving you my best self, I’m all smiles and jokes, red lips, white shirt, tart perfume.
Look at me navigating it all so well,
Am I not a good student? Aren’t you proud of me just a bit?
As I sit and I talk about work or some shit, showing off my wit and grit as if we never quit,
So I hid my hands, fingers crossed, in my pockets
And you could never tell.
Smoke and mirrors,
Words upon words upon words upon words,
How many metaphors does it take to get the message across?
Or is my poetry simply self-obsession?
Or blood-letting?
Or an act of redemption?
Am I simply seeking attention
Or craving human connection?
You know to your own cost that each verse is a precise vivisection
Of every inch that is me, my thoughts, my faults, my crimes, and it chimes, chimes, chimes,
But your presence is my own sort of morphine injection,
So Imma let it slide just for now.
Let me talk to you, let’s just talk.
How are things?
Oh, well that doesn’t sound too bad,
You see, my only problem is that
For once I want to feel brand new, not merely second-hand,
And, as I understand,
You’ve told these stories many a time
To many an ear,
But I want to hear
The things that don’t automatically show on demand.
I’ve been feeling so lonely lately, so out of place,
And I chase, chase, chase,
But this race leaves me nothing but hurting and weak.
But then I see the way you look at me when it’s my turn to speak.
And I exist, I matter, I am unique.
And pathetic
To have given you all this power to perform your magic trick.
Yes, perhaps, with me it’s never a matter of either/or,
I’ll take it all and will always want more, more, more,
And I need my fix, that’s what I’m here for,
So indulge me with a conversation, let it seep to my very core,
And I’ve seen this happen to me too many times before,
Seeking shelter in people who fail to make me feel secure,
Yet, we’re here, so
Let me wrap myself up in your beaming,
Cause I’m only a human being,
Human dreaming, human healing,
Human feeling and human believing,
Reaching out.
Breathing in –
Breathing out.
You were saying?
Sorry, yes, sure, we’ll take the split.
I think that I’m doing much better,
Aren’t you proud of me just a bit?

ANGELA YAUSHEVA

…………………………………………………

Into Poetry takes a new turning with this featured poem, as it’s our first by a spoken word artist. Angela Yausheva performs internationally at poetry slams and spoken word gigs. Born in Russia and currently based in Serbia, she has a connection with Glasgow through the I Am Loud spoken word community there, but essentially she is a nomad, ‘collecting memories and impressions of places and swirling them into my poems to share with others’.

‘let the air in’ is a poem that presses against its own edges, with waves of urgency, challenging and confronting and beguiling and retreating self-doubtfully before challenging again. Whatever the nature of the relationship being described is, there is a sense that it is replaying old themes and has the scary potential to reopen old wounds.

The poem begins by describing how most romantic relationships begin – with the effort to put one’s best foot forward (‘I’m giving you my best self’) and even show off. But the best self is not the whole story, and there is another part of the speaker that looks on, self-consciously and self-critically (‘Look at me navigating it all so well’), but not too harshly self-critical – more a pre-emptive strike in anticipation of possible rejection.

This self-questioning extends beyond the speaker’s personality to reflect on the act of writing poetry itself. ‘How many metaphors does it take to get the message across?’ is a semi-humorous nod to the limitations of poetic language. The acerbic statement, ‘You know to your own cost that each verse is a precise vivisection’ challenges the preconception that spoken word poetry is looser, less disciplined and precise, than its counterpart on the page. And this is a poem on the page, though one that would doubtless benefit from being heard performed by the poet herself.*

The speaker’s vulnerability is on display both to the other person in this incipient relationship and to the reader:

Yes, perhaps, with me it’s never a matter of either/or,
I’ll take it all and will always want more, more, more,
And I need my fix, that’s what I’m here for

It is a vulnerability draped over an explosive strength of feeling, with a proud boast that asks a potential lover, ‘Are you equal to this?’ Readers might find echoes here of Sylvia Plath’s great poem ‘Daddy’, which also rhymes insistently and repeats – one might say, hammers – words in threes (‘I was ten when they buried you. / At twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you.’).

The later shift in structure and feeling, with shorter lines and even more insistent rhyming, feels spell-like, incantatory.

Human dreaming, human healing,
Human feeling and human believing,
Reaching out.
Breathing in –
Breathing out.

Literary precedents include Christina Rossetti’s extraordinary ‘Goblin Market’, and perhaps the poems of that 20th-century poet whose frustration with the limitations of poetic language led to her renunciation of poetry altogether, Laura Riding (for example, Riding’s poem ‘The Tiger’, which ends ‘Though surely she must be sleeping, / To go on without knowing weeping, / Sleeping or not knowing, / Not knowing weeping, / Not knowing sleeping.’). This is not to say that these poets directly influenced Yausheva’s poem, but every reader will have their own associations and comparisons.

This rather hypnotic poem mirrors the emotional upheaval involved in letting another person into one’s life in the hope of being let into theirs. It acknowledges the disruptive influence of previous relationships, but in the end holds out the possibility of a fresh beginning: ‘Yet, we’re here, so…’

*Judge for yourself by viewing Angela Yausheva’s performance of ‘let the air in’ at the Glasgow Zine Library open mic here.  

You can find more of Angela Yausheva’s work here.