- A
STORIES FROM AN EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD BOY
P O E T R Y B O O K B YISAIAH KAHLIL HOLLOWAY
DEDICATED TO
My nineteen-year-old and future self, and to the younger boy I once was. I love you like a son.
-IH
PREFACE
I never considered myself a poet. I merely scribbled words and sketched images in the back of my notebook as I sat in the back of my class, until I noticed a pattern emerge.
I wrote about thoughts I would never say out loud. Not to my mom, or to my friends, or even to myself. I wrote about the senses I felt in moments of relief, the critiques I got from people who don't know me, the loss I felt and the trauma that I disguised as wiseness. I continued writing and ruminating about these thoughts throughout high school, some poems I left unpublished because they felt too truthful and plain-spoken.
When I decided to memorlize my writings throughout the eighteen year period of my life, I dove into my archives: my voice-notes, my journal, the scraps of paper in my desk, and my notes, What felt like years of excavation culminated into a a discovery of some of my most visually emphatic and honest words - wods that were never published.
I constructed Eighteen from the poems found in my archives, Poems I have decided to to refer to as a ‘kaleidoscope into my shifting thoughts and fanatical mind’. Eighteen is honest. It feels real to me. It is a memorialization of my years as a writer discovering his ability. I breathe again as I read my words, I am 10 and 16 and 18 all at once when I read my words. I often say that if the truth and I were in a crowded room together, we’d be strangers. We’d pass each other’s shoulders and continue conversations, but I think we've finally introduced ourselves.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
water heartbeat by the river narrator, I am not somewhere we have not met drought escape men aexrnoia silhouette of a father petrichor the shape of a tree the comings of fatherhood character nineteen
"What if I told you none of it was accidental" - T.S.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 1: water 1.
water heartbeat by the river
narrator, I am not somwehere we have not met
2. 3. 4. 5.
CHAPTER 1: WATER
water I feel uncertain about a lot of things I often live nights and days in uncertainty though, if there's one thought I truly know for certain it's that the water will bring you back to me heartbeat
I missed you so much I felt your heartbeat before I ever felt my own
CHAPTER 1: WATER
by the river when he looks into the river and lets the ripples disfigure his face, do you think the river knows what he really looks like?
CHAPTER 1: WATER
CHAPTER 1: WATER
narrator, I am not I am not a narrator I certainly don’t know enough about my own life, in my own mind to commentate from the perspective of another though, if I did I would probably say who does he think he is? somewhere we have not met never made any friends nothing I don't regret haven't I seen you here or somewehere we have not met
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter 2: drought
drought escape men aexrnoia silhoutte of a father
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
CHAPTER 2: DROUGHT
drought the boys I've met fill their mouths with water and overflow like a river when the truth comes trickling out but when the drought comes finally what will they have left to say?
escape
I want to escape
I want to run and see the city lights
I want to dance and get lost in myself
I want to float on air I want to jump and fall into existence
I want to breathe
CHAPTER 2: DROUGHT
men they say the last time a man cries is when he is born the men I know of aren’t around for me to see them shed a tear
CHAPTER 2: DROUGHT
aexrnoia
CHAPTER 2: DROUGHT
I’ll never let myself eat again starvation becomes my solitude I watch as I wither away into a dessicated unrecognizable figure in the distance
silhouette of a father
I fantasize about a world in which shadows are simply shadows and nothing more not a silhouette of a father that only lives on the walls of a young boy’s forsaken nursery
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
TABLE OF CONTENTS petrichor the shape of a tree the comings of fatherhood character nineteen chapter 3: petrichor
CHAPTER 3: PETRICHOR
petrichor drenched in time
I arrive in it, my wardrobe soaked I hoped and wished that the rain would stop gifting me a second to spare to stay safe with you to stargaze with you the shape of a tree after I retire from my years as a writer if I wrote you a novel in the shape of a tree would you sit under it and read it to me
CHAPTER 3: PETRICHOR
the comings of fatherhood when he sits in his chair across from me at the dinner table and lifts his spoon to eat the meal I've made he will look up and I will remind him of how much love I have for him something that I never learned from you
CHAPTER 3: PETRICHOR
character does it hurt do you bruise so effortlessly only being a fictional character folded between the lined pages in the back of my notebook
CHAPTER 3: PETRICHOR
CHAPTER 3: PETRICHOR
nineteen as humans, there are stories we begin to tell from the moment we are able to write we share our lives with strangers who become family who become characters in our story we craft ideas in our dreams before there are pages and there are pages created in our palms before there are chapters we write and decide each chapter in our story some minimal, and some long and sometimes there are several bare, blank pages where we forgot the amount of strength it takes to carry a pen it is important that you know we never stop writing these stories not for a moment in each of us is an individual story waiting to be told I am a supporting character in your story just as you are in mine I hope that this chapter, the one that you are writing now is memorable
I hope that one day, when your pen ceases and you can’t remember your words or your language that the story you have left behind is one worth reading
