ALL BLOGS
I saw the architect of your mind was my own
The same world was prying out through the tiny, square possibility of flight
From my childhood, when shoulder blades were wings
I am a baby, afraid only of falling
And loud noises
But it’s not true
I have a feeling it’s not true anymore
I saw your play on Thursday but couldn’t make sense of anything
After I took my seat I grew rabid and weak, while my hands and my feet were elsewhere
Clawing towards some victory so far from the truth
there you will find me, the changeling changing her clothes
the other one got snapped up in the jaws of transformation, just like that
speaking on all my empty platitudes
but just like every other law-abiding girl, she got caught
characterizing my sins
by a multiplication of obsession, of observation
it is a brutal awakening
into a fingertip lunge
I remember an embarrassing pause we took
between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, when I was
Washing my hair, scrubbing my scalp
Getting my youth clean for you
to be there again afraid
the way i was in the moment, both old and young
afraid of affection and peril
and being topless: a right prude
it is between your teeth now
souring flesh and sweetening
up your cheeks, the god behind the sky
wants to pry
you open—so you’ll notice it’s whisper
it’s right hand shifting higher on your thigh
stings like a hornet
and have you seen the cherry tree?
billow of sunlight, storm of morning
we knew about nothing—it was sweet
and we knew it too, we were bare-foot
duller then, much happier, apparently
it is much easier to kiss if there is no
proof of time passing. pleasure was a clean wound; i could touch yours.
olivia, i saw you on the stage today
electric breath i saw you bathe
in their viral applause; song&dance
kisses in the air hanging there, all silk fast fame frozen-over
a lake; all tears in spades, moss at the break
of your hairline
language has a sensibly tense, cosmic relationship with memory. language is the mother of reception, of understanding, or trying to, of gifting and receiving, redefining—thank you, i love you—and memory as the father of just a little more; the root and wreckage of all final humanity, the cost of remembrance, and yet it offers us a garish, secretive loving that only one individual can believe in: you, and your moving, seeing, sensing, being. we believe it anyway.
iron-rich clay from the monumental motel door-frame you stood in completely naked, stroking the inside of your calf making this noise it was a bristling kiss of a candle on wet wind as it lit, two lips; like that, baby.
the publishers, they
like this
kind of
muck
about waiting
pining
being lost
i imagined
being up against you
the far reaches of you
edges, corners
multifarious beings
disguised
cloaked in skin
of you
i wanted you
to despise me
but it is just me, i am just the lungs
i am just a soft glow in the middle of the night
waking myself up
i am not made of metal i am made of you
i am young and i love to play
i play on my shins, the curve of my foot arched into my bones, nestled completely
living completely
i do not blame my mind for it’s theatrics; i pray, and try
to overcome the performance of a lifetime
living
except nothing special ever happens, only death
so until there’s proof in emptiness, i find it
in sitting, waiting for a story i cannot write to fall upon my lap
i love to tell you all how i am bigger and better than telling you i will be successful, that i will have it, gauge my audience’s eyes out and make them feel my crystal ball; make them say things like, “when i look into your future, i see love”. that turns me on. your affection, your praise, your enormous vulnerable hesitation to tell me i’ll be anything but good is mouth-watering.
when you asked me what i wanted
i begged you, get the blinds
and so i used my hands to teach you
about your body, earthquakes, the divides
between us and mankind
the vowels that i wed myself with; the affirmations of mourning; vulnerability survives everything, even you
i am in the very same position i catch myself in every year. the ‘how to gift wrap a candle’ search still open on the previous tab, and ‘hopes and dreams for the new year’ note on the next. it feels so very delightful to lay myself down on the floor and assign my twelve tea-light candles a month of the year, pull a tarot card for them and write an entry for each; a vow of gratitude, a meditation which always screams i was alive hereat this time and do not forget i happened to you.
have you too seen the top of the ivory tower? that acute bliss of creation, made right from your own mouth? the breast which hangs half-heartedly from the towel? the suspension of disbelief until it arrives quite like a friend?
at dawn’s pink answering, my buzzing flesh ceased
life’s bell had called upon me—it was young and miserable then
in black bleating sheep came the pale lying misery
there is something equally beautiful as averse about the structure of discerning evil from good; of knowing where you must avoid human error. as an agnostic, this is the beauty of the concept of sin. yet always, the messy how will follow; just how can you avoid what is essentially nature’s design? there is something to take away from an assessment of a handful of ancient religious sins from a modern agnostic lens. there are many ‘sins’ considered so throughout all religious history, but this article will be solely focusing on the catholic and orthodox christian idea of the seven deadly sins, more specifically the three of them listed in the title: pride, greed, and envy. it’s these three that were chosen from the seven as they seem to hold a much more intimate and applicable relevance to our current society.
crawling out of me like first light
the self as an expression of desire
dark with smile, a mindless flashing through
an infinite dryness of being
there is much to gain from this waiting, this ‘whatever there is’, this aloneness, i know, i know, and i will come back grateful to have ever felt so sub-human, for i already feel taught. i feel greatly resentful already for expectation and delusion, and i stave off madness like it is my calling. i feel exceeding loss for the self i leave behind with each day that passes, and i embrace my new body as the time moves with me; i know this grief is worthy. i say it in the quiet night hoping to raise the dead, hoping she will come back and tell me, “you are doing the right thing,” but there is none of that, so i must move on anyway. i must keep moving at least to forget, and wait to remember at the moment it begins to hurt less. is this the reality of loneliness? is this the reality of living without love? i am not sure. but it is the reality now, and so it is in front of me like a creature at the bed-head, waiting for me to decide, to breathe, run to turn the light on only to see there is nothing there—thank god—or to stay squeezing my thighs together tightly under the sheet, shuddering; back to absence. it is an impossible decision. i am the idiot after all.
bless you, baby-blue! the sky stretched a mile high
the day dance ended at bare tapping feet and the crowded ball-room
wrinkly pictures to bend but no performer could, bust an arm
piss-drunk on the playing field, the otherness chattering like dark hell
you went white surprised by fun, lashing right out of your clumsy tongue
“it’s no place for you, this one”, but ha i could’ve gutted you right there
wrung high and decrepit as a sore man-child
might still dream upon a splintered soul
he prays still, body of blood when all is to spoil
mother lives tonight—yes, for now she breathes in bed
together we watch the fan blades spin
into the flesh-red, she breathes-in dark and hums
The game is played and I have won, we played nicely for the most part. I have every reason to sleep tonight. I think I shall become the horizon instead. I shall sink out slowly across the world, blurry and brilliant, never to be seen again until tomorrow. Tomorrow, you are your own headache. You are on your own. You are the blizzard, encroaching upon yourself, tender as the rising sun, whom you barely notice through the haze, through spiked mountains, and the millions of lakes which have all frozen over, and the world has suspended its own disbelief. You are on your own, but the world has chosen to love you. Climb out of your cage and let yourself be tamed, surrender to what cannot be sincere without you walking upon sworn enemy territory. I will put my hand against you, my firebreathing dragon, and surrender.