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Publications > Footnotes > Work from Memory Palaces: Visions, Echoes, Forms with Lucy Ives

the home you built in me & other ways i failed at documenting

Sahar Khraibani

the home you built in me & other ways i failed at documenting

(a poem written from the perspective of an archive)

on any given day
everything i love is a symbol
exploration made data
made flesh
the land does what it does
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon the brick
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon the tin
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon the land
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon the mass
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxapproximating
distance
teardrops weigh
the earth’s gravity
a home is sometimes a pool
many sink to the bottom

lower decks
reserved
for the darkest
the most least everything
skinned
bruised knees
i wipe and clean dirt
from the fall
nina is busy texting and then runs
skinned knee
she says
when are you going to wear your kneepads, girl

will the afterlife be this hierarchichal
will i need my knee pads
elbow brace
blood has its favorites
memes as coping mechanism
what a dramatic
irony
as in tragic
as in
i have more faith in a pixel
than most politicians/people/things

this is mercy
as clinical approach
this is time
when it comes
this is the luxury of a thermostat
this is a
rotation of visitors
that renders language redundant
this is what
cannot be written
some days
futurity feels like an oxymoron
continuous
existence
you point at the bank
thinking it’s a masjid
and i can’t see beyond
a thumbprint

everyone i love is
scratching on things
they can’t disavow
i don’t return calls
everyone i love
is scavenging
picking at whatever
is left behind

memory is
whatever lays under
dresses
knowing and not knowing
googling known unknowns
shadowed eyelids
invisible
watching videos together in a makeshift living room
you read the comments
i am asked to translate
but my mouth is dry
loss is a well
sometimes impossible to climb out of

history is hangman
every red flag
you lose a limb
you lose a swipe
you lose credit
an ache
some call chronic
some call history
each blushing season of the crisis
we’re still in
more than
the squeeze
a heartbeat
a shirt that doesn’t want to be taken off
history is intimate
and you know mine like
you have lived with nothing to lose
this is what it means to
fall without shame
without
without
without
words

the home you built
in me
still stands like the history of a homeland that i want to forget
like a language engrained
used only for comfort
only for caresses
spoken in whispers
privately
i take care of it
mop its floors
dust its shelves
i don’t leave any dishes unwashed

it is well kept
like digital detritus
like that folder
i name don’t open
like history that has been pushed to the margins
like history
that doesn’t want to be claimed
it is clean
pristine
untouched

Otis by the durum column
3 am on the fire escape
sleep eludes me
Idk (From My Dream)
Idk the words
but i can make them up in my head
and then Bonsai on repeat
the song that Jane wrote
now on a steady rotation
between
mercy
and a clinical approach
this is time
when it comes
this is the luxury of a thermostat
this is a
rotation of visitors
that renders language redundant
this is what
cannot be written
some days
futurity feels like an oxymoron
you point at the bank
thinking it’s a masjid
and i can’t see beyond
my own thumbprint

Archive

Left: Screenshot of a reddit thread uploaded by user “fairycosmos” that reads: “the internet is an inherently haunted place if you think about it like. it’s so weird to see long abandoned discussion boards stuck in a snapshot of the past, old conversations between kids from over a decade ago who have now grown into their own lives, obituaries taking the form of half finished profiles. and the silence that fills the gaps between. there’s a constant ghostly record of each generation’s thoughts, fads, their sense of humour. back when the future was at their fingertips. even stranger, people you used to know exist openly in that space, and they watch you watching them. if you want, deceased musicians can play through your headphones. there’s always an underlying sense of reminiscing and time escaping our ever shortening attention spans. what a fuckin graveyard” after which a comment by “cartasdosul” reads: “You are right but holy jesus mother of fuck”
Screenshot of an unidentified video, an excerpt from a speech by Sol Lewitt to Eva Hesse that reads: “Write soon. I’m anxious to hear about your work, New York, everything.”
Left: Photo taken by the author of the city of Beirut as seen from an airplane. Right: Screenshot of a poem by Audre Lorde titled “A Trip On The Staten Island Ferry” with an internet user’s added commentary of “audre lorde’s new york poems are so New York”
Left: Screenshot of a google search of “known unknowns.” Right: A photo of a photo taken by the author. The photo in the photo is that of a passport photograph.
Screenshot of an unidentified book’s dedication that reads: “For Jela, just like that, for no reason at all”
Screenshot of a still from Netflix’s “Euphoria Special Episode Part 1: Rue” with closed captioning that reads: “Baby, trouble don’t last always.”
Screenshot of computer desktop of a still from a Youtube Video with closed captioning that reads: “We Write to taste life twice.”
Screenshot of unidentified still with closed captioning that reads: “How I saw unearthly blues against the starkest black, the pure white of mountain tops and expanses of clouds, and the glittering lights of cities at night.”
Screenshot of a still from Fran Leibowitz’s “Pretend It’s a City” with closed captioning that reads “Really. The Ayatollah Khomeini gave more parties than I do.”
Screenshot of a still from “Meeting the Man” with closed captioning that reads “I think you think that I’m an exotic survivor.”
Screenshot of a still from Netflix’s “Ginny & Georgia” with closed captioning that reads “Love is a lot of things, Maxine.”
Screenshot of a still from Netflix’s “Ginny & Georgia” with closed captioning that reads “Safe isn’t one of ‘em”
Screenshot of an unidentified still with closed captioning that reads “Yeah, but you can also get the wildest bummers.”
Screenshot of a desktop folder titled “past” dated Feb 17, 2021, 10:30 AM

Work from Memory Palaces: Visions, Echoes, Forms with Lucy Ives

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