i watch as you disappear, your red coat the only colour in my monochrome existence, until you turn, catch me watching you, and i blush.
heidi kalyani, 2017, from *project 139 (or less)*
Published
Articles from April 2017
Published
what do I hunger for?
When the moon is full, and the stars are faded by its light, I hunger for your touch — your rough, calloused fingers sliding up and down my spine, or tracing circles around the tender skin of my throat. When the rain is moving horizontally, and my body feels as ripped and torn as an old flag from the battering of the wind, I hunger for a blanket in front of the fire, or a long, deep soak in a tub. When I’ve been tossed back and forth to the point of overwhelm on a sea of powerful emotions (mine or others), I hunger for tears and a cup of tea. In the depths of winter, on days that are so cold the insides of my nose freeze when I breathe, and every person I pass on the street is a hunched and smoking dragon, I hunger for those days we spent snowbound in a cabin — stories, decadent food and curiosity keeping us warm. When I’m surrounded by concrete and glass and other hard edges, I hunger for the smoothness of well-worn rocks in water, the roundness of flower petals heavy with dew, the softness of fruit beneath its skin. On humid afternoons in the middle of summer, when my head is so swollen my brain no longer works and my body so heavy and foreign I feel like my soul has been displaced, I hunger for the photos of king penguins on ice floes that barely registered when I first saw them, but now seem like gifts from another world. When the room is noisy and full of people spitting words, trying to mark their territory as a way of facing the intense sense of scarcity that throbs in their veins, I hunger for a space where we hold each other in the light so thoroughly and with such care, that none of us hurts for long. On a moonless night, when the stars are the brightest thing in the sky, I hunger for solitude and a quiet walk with the fire of my own light.
— heidi kalyani, 2017
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
Published
the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible
When each breath is full and deep, and my belly is a bowl of softness, when the madness of the world slows down enough that I can see each muscle shift, each weight change, of the great universal somersault, when the light from the stars on a moonless night is brighter than anything humans have created, that’s the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible.
When your arms flash around me and your lips, with a gentle kiss, brush the top of my head in a gesture both intimate and fleeting, when words flow out of me in thin, rising, entangling streams, like the curly smoke of incense in warm moist air, when my throat is so open and the room so resonant, that the resulting vibrations finally loosen everything I’ve been trying not to hold onto, that’s the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible.
When I’ve pushed my brain into a dark corner, just before the claustrophobic panic sets in, I breathe and remember how light and vast the world can be, when your hand slides onto my thigh while we’re driving in the darkness and leaves a five-pointed pool of warmth that I retrace with my own hand for days afterwards, when the combination of garlic, basil and olive oil bites my tongue with a near orgasmic splendour, that’s the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible.
When I’m tense and tired and your late-night email makes me laugh so hard everything melts away, when in the stillness of deeply listening to music, I see the shine of tears running down your face, when the sun illuminates a golden path through my room, inching slowly because this time I’ve remembered to notice, that’s the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible.
When the air and ground are so cold that the snow beneath my boots is the only thing brave enough to make a sound, when the tea in my mug is too hot to drink, but I sip it anyway knowing that some kinds of pain actually feel good, when my cry for help in the dark hours of the night is answered by the love of people I am grateful to call friends, that’s the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible.
— heidi kalyani, 2017
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line