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"My name is Channa Goldman, and I am an 18 year old writer from Upstate New York. I am a regular writer for Grlmag.com, and have also written poetry for Rookie Mag and Teen Ink. I would say that I make art due to an obsession over humanity. I am overwhelmed by the power and beauty of human emotions, especially those of young people. I am also passionate about representing culture, my roots, and the world I am both trying to accept, love, and change all at once."
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Instagram: @jewlishious Facebook: Channa Goldman |
No Building Permit
I came into this world crying. Babies are not supposed to be born in silence. I want to leave it somewhat quietly. No tears during my sleep. On the streets of New York City, you can sing to yourself and be unheard. On the streets of my hometown, people can hear the corners of your smile, and the fabric of the pockets where fingers rest. I serenade the concrete. An architect, building invisibly. That, is living free.
On Being Human
Where do I find myself in a world bent on hushing the volume of female voice, unless it is during porn, or to ask for permission?
When I step out of shower steam, and my face is red, raw, bumpy, and bruised, that is when I want to be touched the most
with one hand on each set of my cheeks, not being afraid to make eye contact whist wearing no coverup of any kind
It is scary to write a love poem when no love is ever guaranteed
not even love for yourself
So this is for all the teenagers who feel their validation falling through the floor when their grandparents ask them for across the dinner table if they are dating anyone
and they lie, because doing so is easier than explaining the love that they feel towards the bliss of their own chosen solitude
And for all of the sons who would never tell their fathers that they use their mouths for loving other boys
For anyone whose fear prevents them from holding their lovers hand in public, and for anyone too scared to hold their own when all alone
For all the girls who sit with their legs crossed on fake leather chairs in sterile white rooms and find themselves unable to tell the doctor whether they are “sexually active” or not, because they do not want to be burn branded with one of the many words cemented upon sexually expressive women
For any child who was ever read The Ugly Duckling as a bedtime story, and went to sleep inspired to believe that beauty follows conformity
For all of the reasons not just given to you, but forced into the most permeable areas of a body only looking for a solitude which seems inaccessible, and stolen from those who hunger most for it
You are the entirety of the the universe, in its most tangible form
All of the beauty
All nothing’s
All everything's
Do not be sorry
To Be Red
Chasidic tradition tells that the name of a person’s soulmate is announced in heaven once they have been born
In Hebrew, your name means ‘to be red’. Red like the clay from which the first human was molded. Mine means graceful. The first Channa prayed with such passion, people thought she was drunk. You told me that Channa is your favorite Hebrew name.
A few days before my birthday, you called me your bashert. The sky outside my window shaded itself into the same hue of the angels eyes that once spoke your name. I knew I had heard that color before.
You gifted me a book of Chagall’s biblical paintings, and in the book of Genesis, I find a painting of Eden. Adam’s body looks red like the earth. Like old eyes. Like the beginning.
Not your baby
Not Your Baby
Conor’s Coatcheck Dream Song sings me to sleep
The air is kind but when I close my eyes,
you try to kiss me
and it tastes like I have gone blind
I would say your name all the time while we talked, but I only heard you speak mine once
It was the night before our first time
I would open my eyes twice
so I could see the moon on your face and my body painted over your shut eyes
I am not your baby
I am not your anything
Except your backseat lakeside late night post break up impulse
and the first Jewish girl you ever kissed
I wrote your name on my calendar
and kept the black underwear I know you will not ever remember,
but still will not quite forget
I want to tell all your friends it was your car they saw that night,
because I know you never will
I wish you would take your fingers off the thermostat
Because I can not seem to get warm the way I used to
Like laundry still damp after drying
I want the world back the way it was before you drew yourself all over it
So I adopt myself new eyes
and look at nothing but first and last times
Conor’s Coatcheck Dream Song sings me to sleep
The air is kind but when I close my eyes,
you try to kiss me
and it tastes like I have gone blind
I would say your name all the time while we talked, but I only heard you speak mine once
It was the night before our first time
I would open my eyes twice
so I could see the moon on your face and my body painted over your shut eyes
I am not your baby
I am not your anything
Except your backseat lakeside late night post break up impulse
and the first Jewish girl you ever kissed
I wrote your name on my calendar
and kept the black underwear I know you will not ever remember,
but still will not quite forget
I want to tell all your friends it was your car they saw that night,
because I know you never will
I wish you would take your fingers off the thermostat
Because I can not seem to get warm the way I used to
Like laundry still damp after drying
I want the world back the way it was before you drew yourself all over it
So I adopt myself new eyes
and look at nothing but first and last times