on earth we’re briefly gorgeous
taken from the 2019 ocean vuong book.
like a family. a fucked family.
i don’t want you to be my mom anymore.
you have to be quick or we’ll get in trouble.
did you know people get rich off of sadness? i want to meet the millionaire of american sadness.
listen. no, look at me right here, i’m serious. listen.
we talked about you, about your nightmares.
days i feel like a human being, while other days i feel more like a sound.
don’t look down, don’t look down.
you have to get bigger and stronger, okay?
the thing is, i don’t want my sadness to be othered from me just as i don’t want my happiness to be othered. they’re both mine.
how come each time my hands hurt me, they become more mine?
i’m not scared of dying anymore.
it’s kind of like being brave, i think?
a kind of mercy. to be clean again. to be good again.
what about our skeletons, how do we get away from them?
through this careful bruising, you heal.
keep going. fuck me up, fuck me up.
do you remember the happiest day of your life? what about the saddest?
what if my sadness is actually my most brutal teacher?
you don’t need to be scared. you’re smarter than me.
they say if you want something bad enough you’ll end up making a god out of it.
how can anyone be a feeling?
you were drowning, it seemed, in air.
do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn’t have to live on one side or the other?
have you ever made a scene, and then put yourself inside it? have you ever watched yourself from behind, going further and deeper into that landscape, away from you?
everything good is somewhere else, baby. i’m telling you. everything.
help me stay young, get this snow off of my life, get it all off my life.
they will want you to succeed, but never more than them. they will write their names on your leash and call you necessary, call you urgent.
what is a country but a life sentence?