I Love You, Call Me Back Poetry

We’re pleased to share four powerful poems from the new poetry collection I Love You, Call Me Back (Plume) by acclaimed spoken word poet Sabrina Benaim. Sabrina is one of the most viewed spoken word poets ever, having reached over 100 million people around the world with her performance videos, and is known for breaking down the barriers around mental health conversations. This collection covers loneliness and relationships in all their confusing and wonderful permutations, and has been praised by Hanif Abdurraqib as “a towering testament to the human condition” and Andrea Gibson called Sabrina “a magician when it comes to writing about heartache in a way that evaporates the heartache of the reader.”

In a Text Message

the man I am in love with says to me,

“it’s just that, in my head, you aren’t real.”

and like that, poof! I am a ghost. You

once begged for a haunting.

But you know what? Maybe some other

time. Ha. Time is not real.

I mean, I am more real than time. You are

cruel. A kiss goodbye. A

spell. Like the notes of a piano when you

finger the right keys.

Dancing in the living room, in your arms,

you rolling up the sleeve

of my T-shirt, wasn’t I real enough?

Perfect and temporary. A

bloom curious about winter. A peach-

colored rose called cin-

namon. I fix myself a dinner of dandelion

wishes; to be real to be

real to be real. I sit on my yellow couch.

Sing along with Mac when

he says, I think we just might be alright. I

will be alright. The rocks

are aligned on the windowsill. The

cutlery is asleep on the top

drawer. Everything has its place. Your

place is far from mine. Your

face is far from mine. I think about

missing you. I let it go. My

hands do not shake when I remember I

can barely remember how

to dance in the dark. I buy a candle. I

forgot my name, dyed me

hair, sunset the song. It skips; my heart

gallops away. Yes, I went

and you stayed behind. And then you got

mad and told me not to

come back. But then you got mad when I

didn’t come back. And

you didn’t talk to me for months. And

now you don’t want to talk

to me anymore. The first thing I do is

forgive myself for how long

it’s taking to look in a mirror, touch my

body and feel myself,

better than perfect and good as any

flower; I am real.

Revival // Ode to the DM Slide

A midnight gesture

Surprise

Celebration

In blue light

There you were

Starry-eyed & yellow hearted

Honey

Cinnamon sugar / My mouth

watering / Song

Songbird / Hummingbird

Bone buzz

Electric guitar

Up the spine / Lightning

Bug / Burrowing

Under my skin / A harvest

Sweet as maple syrup snow

Weightless & playful

Delicious & unexpected

Undressed

I am iridescent / Offering of giggles

Abundance of tingling

Tambourines

& you / Charming thrill

Ode to Sexting

I was asleep,

the way an instrument is asleep

when there are no hands or hot breath.

But you woke me,

taught me to play

a simple game where my hands were your hands.

& where there was silence,

inside of the empty room,

I became a song.

The Extinction of Honey

While walking toward you,

for what was the last time,

I came across a swarm of bees

in the middle of an intersection.

I stood in awe of the buzzing,

honey spilled from my eyes.

I knew it could not last,

this sweetness between us,

it was always going to sting.

Excerpted from: I Love You, Call Me Back by Sabrina Benaim

Published by arrangement with Plume, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

I Love You, Call Me Back is available from Amazon and Bookshop.