Âme

A collection of journal entries

[vladaia]

[inkandpins]

In February

Plush cats, long licks, and tangled tails I smile at the brace of your whiskers

Dreaming millenniums, prophet the veils draped over marble form, limbs scissored.

Dissident Winter stirs our bones, I breathe the soft wool of mantled arms

& press my lips against your hands, indecently blessed to seek with my mouth, to capture and hold you

to hold your heart with my mouth like a childhood flavor-- all sweet and safe, toothless and warm

to ship us towards our dreams, ride the mountains together to shield you with my little body and big heart

to build tunneling burrows, leveled to measure and meet secretly before the day starts.

NCY. 02/14/2025 New York

[cali-brum]

[inkandpins]

Water Baby

He holds the number thirteen close to his chest and believes in inverting his luck. Chronic ails and failing devices blanket the time. He's so late to die. I'm unpunctual, and yet -- beg to wait as long as we can -- I cannot leave a day before or a minute late. We clutch little vials of time together, the possibility of a house hidden in the hills, and dream of clean slates, clean bodies, and moments that last longer than they feel.

NCY 1/23/25 New York, NY

[gdacb]

Taipei Story (Edward Yang, 1985)

[inkandpins]

Postcard to L #2

Folded hands beneath round table waiting for mahogany tea to steep

note silver rubber scalps and wrists tremble expiring moths, mulberry-scented grief,

creaking buses and rustling car-trains I dream of crouching giants, hidden rabbits

peeling signs and thread-like rain shuffling lines for steaming baskets

poplars bend with backs that bow cyclists thrum arterial streets

neon signs blink droning glow honeyed persimmon, rusted weep

retired city, release me with a sigh for my absent reticence, forgive

impatient to live, far the young fly I labor to return for love.

NCY 10.24 仁愛路, Taipei

[juniperleafdelivery]

* Some more Shima Enaga birbs :D

[inkandpins]

Postcard to L

Gazing upon Edo Cyprus rows shrouded in an ermine mantle

on silver birches, snow faeries doze laughter rings as crowds untangle

emerging from soft amorous spring beneath the surface, undulous heaven

cool shoulders await beloved young king fresh year to bring a shy obsession

new selves rejoin, anointed in ardor hallow setting teeth to languorous tune

phantasmal victory, met under weeping sallow distant ceremony -- above hangs the moon.

N.Y. Close of the year 2024, Rusutsu

[arinewman7]

Lovers

Charles Blackman

oil on board, 1960

[inkandpins]

THE WAITING GAME

I've been diagnosed with a sore lump in my throat a homesickness, a lovesickness.

As the long summer days melt— I still dream of the fading wings of cicadas clinging to the boughs, seeking recognition.

But first, first, first, first— love me. For this month, I gave seventeen years Snouting through the darkness—

enrobed in that second skin [hot and close] of silence, but for the urgent clutch and scramble for Longing.

The city nights will fall quiet again as wrinkled shells drop from the branches in straight lines— are these seed pods? or dead cicadas.

We've been convinced somehow to mature in isolation. To grow alone, sing in droves, die in droves. After seventeen years—

I think I've come to terms with the fact that there will always be a ribbon of loneliness running through who I am.

Seated among friends, crying with laughter, I catch myself balancing grief—the weight

that bends the spine, with sturdy celebration. I've been coiling, writhing tight to survive the lengthening nights. The Dream is a guiltless spring.

When is it time? to wriggle out underfoot, depart the frigid dirt-womb and learn lightness. The cicadas sift the loam— knowing what they know.

It is August.

My life is going to change. I feel it.

N.C.Y. Office, August 2024

[charnel-grounds]

”The rabbits had felled him. They were swarming around and upon him”

Hannes Bok (1914-1964) - Illustration from Gans T. Field's 'The Dreadful Rabbits'

(Weird Tales Vol.35 #4, July, 1940)

[inkandpins]

Leveret

I still have every date from three years ago marked with a surreptitious, private little "L" in my calendar. It's strange to be spending this day with you instead of dutifully mulling over a message wishing you sweets and peace from afar. Now that you've invited me nearer, I want to crawl into your head, listen to every thought, and fill every inch of the space you surrender to me. There's no rush, I think we have as much time as we want now. Maybe I'll be this 粘 forever, or maybe we'll grow into some breathing room. Breathing and sleeping always seemed overrated, anyway.

Happy Birthday, beautiful boy. You make me feel something quiet and intense -- I don't deal with much loneliness other than when I realize I miss your company -- the rare kind we've discovered since happening to each other again. It's some elusive chemistry -- you make me all sweet and dangerous. I swear it nauseates me and simultaneously makes me never want to leave your sight.

To mutual benevolent manipulation and always chasing each other in circles.

Your devoted little rabbit.

N draft with cake NYC

[inkandpins]

Every so often I read something that reminds me of you. But I cannot play it like it’s love, it is a memory of love.

I remind myself of you who loved me with such tenderness - to the point of tears - and with such a sense of radiant excitement. Oh the plans!

We drew out the rest of our lives together. I continue to make marks alone on materials I am not familiar with.

It took standing outside, on the sidewalk alone to realize that the story could end with us together or apart..

Either way, I would write about this love, his love, for the rest of my life.

[inkandpins]

I cannot break my heart over and over, and I’m too scared to watch this fall apart. Even now, we have never been strangers.

I congratulate you on some good news from far away. I wish you the best. I dread the day I can only accomplish the latter.

It has been so long since I loved you happily that I only remember what it feels like to love you miserably. Despite this, I cannot seem to let go.

[inkandpins]

An ending to a book about heartbreak

As I walked down that corridor away from his apartment, I felt relief. Each step took me farther away towards an unknown, which wasn’t a comforting thought — but I had held him, laid my head against his familiar shoulder, had given him one last look, a final soft smile — and this would be an improvement from our last goodbye. It wasn’t even a break up, so why did I feel soreness where my heart used to be?

I stepped out of his building, away from our life together, no longer heartbroken - just a little numb from the shock of giving up everything I had ever wanted.

[isoetiks]

Colourful, irregular and abstract “art blocks”. Intended for sophisticated kids.

[inkandpins]

Intelligent Play

Writing is to confine myself to a Montessori playroom. Those kinds with the shelves, each space assigned a toy. They suggest limiting the options to eight– to avoid distraction and foster concentration. I lack focus, Ms. Pippet told my parents with a chuckle, always tempted by the new and the shiny. Among the toys, there is nothing battery powered, no lights nor sound– Here, I am encouraged to engage in intelligent play to create worlds for myself from this block of wood– I’ve stolen only one, the rest have been monopolized.  He’s taken them to build his castle. The spires are strangely shaped, but balanced, his imagination and small chubby hands have stacked them so precisely. He is a genius. Meanwhile, I move mung beans from one container  into another. It’s not much of a creation, but I love to watch them pile together, that trickling sound of dried, shiny, skins.

NY 12.12.22