Poems from my job and living in the woods

That all of you want to come join the podcast and drink tea and read poetry with me reach out and dm me at n.j.saroff

This episodes talks about some topics such as homophobic gender dysphoria and suicide. Maybe skip about 13 minutes when i bring up those content warning. I have changed my name to Nichémat and have update my pronouns to they he. Going to try to make this podcast more monthly than weekly but maybe we'll get some extra episodes I'll also be publishing scripts of episodes upon requests as i don't have enough characters to print it in my description. If you'd like to make. Donation reach out to my insta n.j.saroff to keep this podcast going. Lots of warmth and love to all of you enjoy a cup of tea and some poetry with me

Welcome to episode 18 of njs warm mug of phantom poetry if you new the podcast I'm NJ Saroff a

Also known as the phantom poet on SoundCloud

This podcast best enjoyed a cup of tea and today's tea is

Today's poems are what someone would put on my tombstone, letters to your Shadow, where wind would take me and human

And the poem of the week is there is no greater crime than leaving by Bertolt brecht

What someone else would put on your tombstone

Here lies Natalie

my full name would be printed on my tombstone

I would not be able to make a correction or fix any of the gendered words used on to it

it would say she lies here or she lived a good life

She was a writer she was everything at the same time she was nothing she wanted to be she was a daughter, she was an actress, she was absolutely nothing

she she she

I was not a she when I died I want to be the he, the they,

I want people to respect the gender that I I found myself in

I want the name NJ printed on my stone I know that's a lot to ask for

I know that Natalie is the name they wanted

I know that Natalie has meaning

but I don't connect with Natalie it's like we're two different people in the room one is called NJ, the other called Natalie, NJ is demiboy or non-binary Natalie is girl we aren't friends we would walk by each other in the hallway and ignore the other

We do know that the other exists and that some people prefer one over the other

and that some wish that one would just go away and die

To die nameless to disappear and not bother any more to correct people on pronouns or names or the gender identity

How you say

daughter instead of child mother instead of parent gurl instead of pal sometimes I wish I was nameless formless non existent then they would have nothing to get wrong

But I exist so please just listen before you put me in the ground and move on

Letter to your shadow

Dear shadow

Shall I call you my dark twin

Surely you are not evil

You are simply a reflection

You take on my form, my outline

Magnify and shrink it

You desire the light though you aren't seen in the night

You are my longest and oldest friend

every time I've been alone not in darkness but in the light that shines you have found me and in a way almost held me

you do not speak

But maybe you do not need to

You do listen better than I do

I've always wondered what's it like on the other side for you

to always follow

to never go your own

to create their outline instead of your own

I wonder if you miss me the way I miss you when it is too dark or when I am under shade

I wonder if you think of me in those times when I am away

I wonder if you wait for the light

wait for the sun, smile at its arrival

or

if you don't want to be seen you want to hide if you want to remain invisible

dearest Shadow you are my oldest and longest friend

You have seen me through everything

You know all my secrets

I don't know if you wanted to

but you do

and now forever it will be just us two

I have vivid dreams my thoughts paint images of days and weeks that stretch on in 2 years my memories I fall asleep the colorful visions of old times I called myself an artist yet I seem to only produce my best work in my head never fully able to put it out on the paper with brush or pen a dream of my masterpiece the words flowing so quickly the brush not shaking in my hand I tremble at the thought of making something beautiful it's not that I don't think I'm beautiful I do think I'm beautiful but there's something mystical about art shape its words how do we humans feel worthy enough to make it why do we feel the need to capture all the moments around us

I call myself a writer I call myself an artist call myself a playwright I call myself a poet I call myself human and I think that's the only phrase that best describes me

Where I'd like the wind to take me

Back to the days of my youth

Back to when I was closeted

Back to when I claimed silence to be my one true friend

Back to dating simply so I could

Welcome to episode 17 of NJ warm mug of phantom poetry I'm NJ Saroff also known as the phantom poet on SoundCloud

This podcast is best enjoyed with a cup of tea and today's tea is

Today's poems are a poem for destructo, a poem to mousetrap, to Georgia and sunflowers by van Gogh and the poem of the week verses 1, 20, 21, and 51 from song of myself by Walt Whitman

To Georgia O'Keefe

Bathed in colors are the roaring flowers

springing to the curves of life

growing out of the page

blossoming into magnificent shapes,

paint droplets circling and bubbling around the edges

A flower, a forest,

It could be anything and everything

What do you find in the painting

Poem for mousetrap

I'm a glutton for food

Hearing my bowl get filled puts me in the mood

I love play

I lay on humans and make them stay give me attention all through the day

When I see a mouse I don't just pounce I stalk and wait till it's the perfect date to grab it up and eat it up

And say oh yum cause I'm a cat that likes to have fun

My fur is black like the night

I'm always ready to cheer my owners up just right

I jump onto there thighs when they want to cry and I purr till their filled with delight

I love to sit on laps

My name is mousetrap

Poem for sunflower Van Gogh

Van Gogh was not just a man of madness

His Happiest picture was maybe also his saddest

Sunflowers spark joy

Yet this painting seems coy

They sit in a vase drooping down

Missing the dirt missing the ground

Losing their petals

Waiting for the water to settle

Where did the sky go

The flowers do not know

They just hold their blooms

Filling the air with sweet perfumes

A poem to Destructo

In the box is where I'll stay

I do not want to come out and play

I want to lay in my box

Wait for lovely to pet me in the box

Sometimes I do like to climb

My fur is nice and fluffy

All the humans think it's so lovely

And lick my fur to unwind

If I see a mouse I get ready to pounce

I always miss but my owner still gives me a kiss

They love me even when telling me no

My name is Destructo

The final poem for this week is song of myself by Walt whitman

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. Bornin  May 1819, he was a humanist, who was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. He Died in March of 1892

Song of Myself (1892 version)

BY WALT WHITMAN

1, 20, 21,and 51

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,

Nature without check with original energy

What I miss

I dreamed of you last night the way you used to be, the way you felt, the way you seemed, on the outside, never who you really were, on the inside, you are so much different in my dream, almost like, how you used to be, at the same, time better than who you ever were, I dreamed I could pick you apart, and then put the pieces back together, and we could start over, but we don't even talk anymore, we don't even see each other, I don't even know if you're alive or not, I hope you're okay, I hope you're good, but at the same time I wish I didn't care, I wish I didn't still think about you, I wished, that when we stopped conversations, that my life stopped having you in it, in my head, but it didn't, I didn't, I never stopped, I think what sucks is that the world keeps spinning, and I'm spinning in an entirely different direction than the earth, and I get dizzy easily, from all the thoughts clustering in my head, I don't know how to stop them, I obsess over them, you used to silence them, with the simplicity that was you, I think that's what I miss most, not you persay, but the silence you gave to me, the quiet, I know you weren't good for me, and I know I wasn't good for you, I know the two of us together were thid toxic Force, we just drove each other crazy, but I do miss you I know you don't care about I know you won't even see this, I know you don't miss me. But I still miss the idea of you and I don't know what to do

April 14

. For these next 2 poem the prompt I chose to do came from 2 separate final sentances the first comes from the April edition of poetry magazine the part The part that makes me want to close my ears and run away and buy unsettling me so profoundly convinces me of her Divinity her demand that I recognize in myself the humanity she sees and she summons us to see as her Offspring and her dwelling place as love is revealed

Love

There's a part that wants us to close our ears and run away run so far that we will not know how to return back,

We will forget who we are

We will forget where we came from

And we will never return and we think this is all well and good until we miss her until we miss the world until we miss all that came before us

all that once existed

And she in her beauty and divinity, in all her grace and pleasure

She will call to us

She'll so profoundly convince us to recognize ourselves and the humanity she sees so present in us.

She summons us to see, as her Offspring, and her dwelling place, the love slowly being revealed that we tried to hide away from. She will love, it is all she knows how to do,

she will love us even when we curse the name of love,

She will love us even when we cannot love ourselves, She will hold us when there is no one to hold us,

She the grace and beauty this invisible force

We do not see her

But she is there

And Sometimes we do not want her

But she is there from afar she is lonely

And she only craves to make us happy

To hurt or the harm was never Love's intension, Though we may believe it to be,

We want to close off

We want to run away we want to forget her beauty and her grace her pleasures that she gives to us

We want to see no more of her and forget ourselves

Love is in her dwelling place

She continues to call, continues to reach out, continues to wait

She has not given up on us

So we can not give up on love.

The Other quote is from Circe by Madeline miller the final sentance of that book was

I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink

Esteem

I lift the brimming bowl to my lips and drink,

I inhale with each sip.

I take every last drop in.

Then I lower the bowl and smile.

For so long I was afraid to even hold this bowl

To even look at it

Now it's in my hands

Now it's empty

I have done what I thought I'd never do.

I have taken a sip.

lt has felt wonderous, beautiful,

I breathe in

Finally,

A sigh of relief,

Of thanks,

I didn't think I was worthy of taking the sip

Of drinking in the whole bowl

My email: [email protected]. Something about Summers always makes me want to cry 

Something about sunny days and storms

And then the cloudless nights always makes me crave another

In the long days of summer it’s moments like this where things that once made sense for so long suddenly don’t 

Something about summer and the freedom it provides that should be safe and welcoming but really it’s tackling me till I can’t breathe 

Something about summer how sadness creeps in like tidal waves

Something about tidal waves drowning me in a sea of memories

Something about the beginning of July how I suddenly feel the need to give in and not try

I’ve never liked the heat that makes me shiver more than the cold 

Something about summer makes you want to go out but I prefer to stay in or under

Something about the anxiety that comes with the thunder 

I hate summer all the love, pain, and that burning golden sun,

I Want to run, I want it to end 

Yet once it’s over 

I wait for its return

Peaceful

at ease

mesmerized by the breeze

chlorine filling the air,

leaving one without a single care

The splash of the pool

The weather not to hot or cool

Blue is the water birds do not bother

The day is perfect for a swim

The patrons jump in on a whim

The swings blow on their own accord on the wind,

Nothing about being here is a bore

hair pinned back in a bun skin hugged by the sun

Smooth are the waves people make with their Dives is this what it feels like to be alive? t

The chwmical waves crash around you,

The sky cloudy but still blue it's The first time summer is happy and not a bummer

Creeping up from the corners of your mouth lips grining in the heat of the South

A smile you thought had gone astray for miles

Laughter is all around, it's almost an unrecognizable sound it's all so serain like something out of a dream,

You notice then that the world is beautiful and life is suitable again

to breathe

to not leave

It all make sense

As the moon climbs over the fence

The sun sinking down

No reason to frown

Starlit night

The crickets chirp going to be alright

And as the frogs jump by

And you find a spot in the grass to lie

Gazing up

With your spirit about to erupt

From the joy you haven't felt by being so coy

Ode to summer and all it wonder

Ode to earth and all it brings assunder, how lovely is it all, the season before all the leaves begin to fall.

Spring time

Dandilions peaking out from the ground

Daisies bursting from the soil

Dog wood blooms on the trees

Daffodils gathering in the dirt

Violets brighting the earth

Iris laying around the gardens

Roses covering the bushes

Feilds of lilac

Trees of blue

Hills of red

Spring where have you been

Oh how we forgot you when grey was all that was seen

When white took more than the stars that gleam

Here you are sunny and golden

Beautiful bright breezy

The trees with their leaves return from their dead slumber

Storms come to life with thunder

Walk with me, it's spring time

Dance in the rain, winter is over

Lay in the ground, fall asleep in the warmth,

Run through the feilds it's alive here

Hike the mountains and see the sun as it displays everywhere

Honeysuckle sips, from the trees the seeds spread the butterflies come out, the birds return, the squirls return, it's spring it sings, let the sounds ring, happy in what this season brings.

Here is Jen Fagala reading it's wild geese by Mary oliver

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.Meanwhile the world goes on.Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,are heading home again.Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,the world offers itself to your imagination,calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -over and over announcing your placein the family of things.

What disociating feels like

Sometimes I forget I'm writing

While I'm actaully writing

It's like I'm just watching myself writing

Like I'm focussed on it but zoned out while doing it

It's like riding a bicycle and looking up at the sky and you forget your pedaling and feel like you're just walking while watching looking up at the clouds, I guess it's odd to use that metaphor because I still don't know how to ride a bike, some would say this means writing is fluid to me comes naturally I can do it in my sleep, but I think it's cause my mind drift, its like I'm on another planet but I don't know how I got there maybe it's a moon because I can feel the gravitational pull of another planet pulling me down and I can do nothing about it I'm from another planet I feel like I'm watching everything it's a completely different planet then the first two mentioned but there I am watching this moon be pulled by another planet through a telescope and I am Bound by telescope unable to Move It from that position of watching and yet I even look through a telescope in years so how can I use a metaphor about telescope when I don't even know how to use one.

Sometimes while doing something I feel like I'm not the person doing it, like I'm not really there, it's like being trapped in a cloud which is partially gas, but distracted you because it's fluffy and light, and as it floats away with you in it you see that it's hard to capture it hard to pull it down so you lay in the sky stuck to the cloud, watching from above the life that is happening with someone who is you but doesn't feel like you. I've never touched a cloud never felt a cloud I just know how to describe them but maybe they aren't like that at all, maybe disociate is something indescribable like the cloud.

I disociation, tiptoe away from reality and begin to tell someone else story, I tell of the lives of others that effected me, but not my own story, my mind wanders away from the page and I think about the people who die in winter i wonder how do you dig a grave in the cold frozen soil beneath the fresh snow of the morning Ground. I should not be thinking about death while breathing life into these words while giving birth to a poem but I am, maybe we look up at the sky, not because we see the beauty but draw our eyes away from falling off the flipped over bike.

Vaccination for anxiety: after plath

By N. J. Saroff 2018

The moans of those lost never wanting to be found are left to their own devices they shake the building with their vibrations, the walls inhale their cries of pain, the paint chips off and sticks to the hollow grave yard beds they sleep in.

In the middle of the night doctor depression walks in the door squeaking open, I do not wake to the sound of his presence. His sharp needle stabs me in the brain, injecting me with a sadness serum, I do not flinch, I have come to expect this ritual, I only exhale fog into the cold empty night of darkness.

The white of the room is stained yellow by age, the sheets once grey have a brownish tint to them now, the nervous nurse closes the window, chaining the balcony to stop the flyers. The rainy winds flood the lake, we drown ourselves in bath tubs, our burial homes swept away by the storm.

Episode 13

Welcome to episode 13 of NJ warm mug of phantom poetry

If you're new to the podcast I'm NJ Saroff also known as the phantom poet on SoundCloud

This podcast is best enjoyed with a cup of tea

this week we've had this huge outpouring pandemic of coronavirus I did not run any poems about coronavirus but I have written poems about being sick not physically sick because that topic is always just weird for me I hate being physically sick but mentally sick is what I wanted to talk about specifically depression and PTSD while my anxiety makes me very sick I decided that I would kind of extend this topic over two ways cuz there's just so many poems and I'll talk more about my anxiety next week today's poems are anxiety arrose, how is your day, mirror conversations and depression feel like,

And the poem of the week

Is the loneliest sweet potato by Sara benaim and butterfly the gnarled by Amy king

Anxiety arose trembling hands fight frail weakness of my body my knees crumble as I shiver into a puddle of nervesmy brain is lying with the unfocused loud energy of racing thoughts that can't be silenced I tried to sit but can't try to stand still but it won't constant motion fills my limbs spiking my heart rate into a frenzy is shiki smile creeps upon my mouth trying to hide my violent hyperventilating I have forgotten how to breathe I do not know how to stop I am having a panic attack and all I wanted to do is let go of the world and get out of my head and flee my body

How was your day

How's your day she asked from across the table I took a breathe in to remind myself I had to be stable it's been an uneventful day a Lazy day wishing to fade away to lay in bed, not talk instead to be lonely tired anxious annoying not inspired lack of vivacious you see I do not want to do anything today my mind is a black hole of a mess the stars that used to be glimmering in my eyes have faded I am now just explosions Fireballs asteroids the meteor shower coming in your direction I have nothing to offer today I am no Blue Sky I don't really want to be alive today is one of those days and doing my clothes are the only thing that might bring me some kind of joy I'm exhausted drained I feel like somebody actually dumped a whole trash load on to me like I am the dumpster or maybe I'm the sink drain and you decided today was the day to clog the sink with all of the issues and I don't mean you as in the person across the the table I mean you as in my depression and anxiety, today is not a good day I am an emotional wreck like I feel like I got into a car crash while I was asleep and I woke up unable to move for most of the day and the pain mentally and physically was the worst thing, I've barely eaten I've barely gone near the stove I'm literally just sitting in my coat here talking to some stranger who will only hear half of what I'm saying my underwear from yesterday is still on, my clothes are just barely changed I haven't showered yesterday took a bath so that's a start and I swore I was fine yesterday but right now I am not fine most people by now know this is not unusual they know that there are days when I completely hide myself in the world lock myself in the room, like go into a box where the sun can't find me turn off my phone, play music really loud on my record player read a fucking poetry book and ignore my existence, there are plenty of days when I see many messages me and I say hey I don't feel like talking today there are plenty of days when I make my Facebook status of do not disturb there are plenty of days when I say could you please just shut the fuck up because my brain hurts and it wants to leave my fucking skull so could you please just go I'm sorry I need to be alone and I know this is rude but it's one of those days when I just want to be left alone and I want to go home crawl in my bed and just hide for a few hours and forget that there is life that I have to live, that there are things that I have to do,

Episode 12

Welcome to episode 12 of NJ warm mug of phantom poetry

If you're new to the podcast I'm NJ Saroff also known as the phantom poet on SoundCloud

This podcast is best enjoyed with a cup of tea

This week I wanted to talk about memories I'm very good at picturing memories but not as good at holding onto the when and where of memories but poetry has helped me record important memories in my life

Im including a trigger warning today as 2 of the poems I chose mention sexual assult and trauma and self harm

This week's poems are how, wishes, and a poem to owings mills and the poem of the week is permanent home by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge,

How by naticat

I fell in love once Maybe twice now that I think about it Okay I’m sure I have only ever been in love 3 times. Each one ended different, he didn’t want me to be anything more than his fuck buddy, she didn’t like me the way I liked her, and they only liked the idea of dating me, not actually dating me. Suddenly surrounding me are people with very real emotions Very real feelings for me what am I to tell them, being honest seems so dishonest and wrong yet its who i am, I just want a fuck buddy who is just as inappropriate as I am, I just don’t like them the way they like me, I just prefer the idea of dating rather than actually dating How can someone love someone who has become the mere thing that the person they loved hated the most, how can someone look at that person they love and even utter the words I love you to them, I never wanted to be this way, I was sculpted this way by others, its not my fault, I give you a chance then I push you away . You ask me what I want but I Dont know, I never know. You say I can fall in love again, but I fall out of love so quickly You Dont want me, Dont tell me you need me, I am no good for you. When I fall in love I Dont stop being in love the feeling never goes away. I’m still hurt inside from those 3 who I know didn’t mean to hurt me. How can you love someone like that? You deserve better than this.

I wish my mind mesmorized recipes over bed sheets, birthdays over hand prints,

Book quotes over those lies

I want to remember appointment times, instead of the anger lines that creased against his face

Recall the flavor of hot cocoa not the way his lips taste against my skin

Can I remember song lyrics instead of the bed we slept in

I don't want to replay the way he stole my breathe away

How his sigh ate my cries for help

I feel so frantic in the places we used to go, a simple trigger and once again my tongue can't form a single word but no.

Sometimes I find myself picking at this wound on my brain maybe if I drive myself insane I'll forget him.

Be able to hold on to the memories of my lover Kiss, or old photographs, or the morning mist

I want to remember the good parts of my life

Not the metaphorical way he dug in his knife

Sometimes I find myself waking up in his room even when I am so away from that house of doom

And I just want to cry, cry about the nights, rid every nerve of the guilt from all the fights

But I have carefully tucked his touch into every crevice of my body, made sure i couldnt escape his laugh in my ear, I still drown in his scent, and deep down I think I still care,

I check his Facebook profile once a month to see who's remained friends with him despite the fact they know what he did, every time the number goes up, anger boils in me and i can feel it about to erupt

I can not eject the shards he left me with, they dig into the cuts that reject the process of healing

I am left with gripping onto him the same way he held onto to my limbs

Careful not to leave a see able mark, but visibile anytime love leaked out of my heart.

2-15-19

When i was younger I remember how clean the streets were they used to glisten shine in the sunlight when you're young you think everything is alright but now trash lines the Roads and I don't know where to go so I stay in owings mills, ive lived in owings mills 13 years,