I only know you in the “fore”s and “after”s. When I trace a symmetry line down your chest and wonder what it would be like to open it up and crawl inside. You’re the only one who understands my mind. Even I don’t. But you taste my thoughts before they form, and you speak in a language only you and I know. I’m lost in your magic. I wish I could have, i mean, get you. I’m a book that only opens to your hands. You’re gentle as if I’m something precious or sacred. You leaf through the pages, feeling the ink under your fingertips. As you do, I see the lights in your eyes. Be it from a forest fire or the screen of a phone you really should have replaced by now, I see the lights. And you know me. More intimately than anything I could name. You know me. But all I have of you are the “fore”s and “after”s. The drunken nights and the hate sex and the crumbs to feed a dozen mouths. Every face of mine craves your palm on its cheek. I’d say I’m going to cry myself to sleep tonight, but you already know I can’t. I’ll go write another song about it. You’ll be there when I wake up, and I’ll pretend not a word of this ever passed my mouth or hand the same way you pretend not an inch of me has ever passed yours. My insides are a patchwork of the kid my parents didn’t raise and the hurricane you taught me I was. You are the eye, and I am the storm. And I’ll never need a damn thing else the way I need you.
You pulled me into three parts and wrestled with each one. The sun beat on your back as you pinned one ribbon-tied wrist to the other. I wouldn’t fight this hard to save my life, but i’d fight to save the girl my mom thinks i am. Her perfect image that i’ve long outgrown… with the right jacket and belt, i can style it forever, right? It’s been so easy since the last break. But it’s not a good thing to fit in clothes from when i was fifteen. So you made me yield and admit who i wasn’t. All in metaphor, of course.
I don’t think i ever want to smoke again, not unless you’re passing one to me while we sit on mushroom caps. You never fought me with fists—only brushing hands and blown pupils. I’m terrified of falling. You hold me as if it’ll help. And when the world falls apart, my ghost will lie between your legs on the kitchen’s tile floor. You never bruised me, but, oh, did you make me bleed… i keep having nightmares where you get a buzzcut. Please never do.
But what if In-ho had a LiveJournal…? (457, unfortunately canon compliant) (500~ words i think, pretty much a blog post?? a little gross?? nothing suggestive, i just mean i cannot stop thinking abt how it must smell in there) (mutuals do not read this. theres spoilers for everything)
// splinter from your headboard in my eye
Three nights. Two days.
All I had of you in a place where you had me, too. And I called you brother.
We had no time at all, just enough for me to taste your breath and forget my name, something in my chest stirring at the molar forgotten in exchange for a chance to save a few. To ruin me, as if you could.
Your chess piece had a different weight in my gloves. It did after I cried for you. After I mussed up my hair for you. After I broke my rules for you. After lying two bunks apart in a musty dormitory where I wished to close the distance between the man you lost with each last breath and the man I was so sure existed underneath. Bringing you close to the man I was: the man who squandered you.
For three nights and two days, I was one. Blood that bound was the same as blood sinking into the callouses on my hands. I was the fool that entered this world, and I was the fool I’ll leave as. But that was never my concern.
In the face of your dogged hope, I craved to turn you into me. To kill the thing that made you so infuriating, so foolish, so beautiful. I didn’t realize the truth then. I didn’t realize it on the sixth day. I didn’t realize it until I was catatonic on a penthouse floor, wrapped in skin you never held, never even touched, and curled around all that remains of you:
You turned me into myself.
And I can’t go back, no matter how much I wish I could. No matter how many nights I cursed myself and you in the same heavy breath. No matter how closely I traced every thread of the teal tracksuit you bled in. Its back is stiff from your sweat. Its arm holds little beads because you spit when you yell and when you laugh (though I only tasted one of those). And there's another scent, the sole thing that wears me out enough for me to know a restful sleep when I close my eyes sometimes.
I never saw my child. I never felt their tiny hand grab at my finger. I never felt their heartbeat against my chest. But the newborn smell on your jacket carries me back to an early memory, one I’ve visited so many times it’s lost all shape expect for two pudgy cheeks and an innocent, wonder-filled stare. It was the first time I held my little brother. In adulthood, giving him my kidney was one more decision whose consequences broke me. Every night for bygone years, I wished I would have traded one life for two. And these days—rocking a baby to sleep who, if she’s lucky, will never remember me—, I only wish I’d traded my stupid pride for you.
For three nights and two days, I saw what could have been. Any temptation was suffocated, strangled before it could take a full breath. But I wanted you next to me. Playing by your rules or mine, or what I wish I’d asked for, no rules at all. “Leave with me, and we can raise her together.” And we could have left the rest to burn. You had nothing to prove to me that I didn’t already know. And I don’t care who else saw; I don’t care what it changed.
You’re more than a martyr. You’re my oxygen. The life I live is all from my last breath of you. Those three nights and two days.
I’ve been writing more than usual. Nothing i can share, though. That’s how you know it’s good. Swinging my feet off the side of the balcony, pretending i’m the girl you’re singing about. I hold my headphones a little tighter against my ears and wish school never starts up again. I’m still young enough to know hope the same way i know fear. Nowadays it’s just “faith” and “caution.” I know it gets better. I don’t have the guts to look forward to it. Keeping my feet on the ground because i like this pair of shoes—why would i risk losing them? I don’t like what this song is about. It’s me or nothing. And “you” have changed fifty-eight times between then and now. Each candy heart in this pack makes me think of a different girl. There’s a number of nasty words for a person like me. None of them are wrong. So i’ve been writing more about nothing at all.
The you inside of me isn’t dead. It lives until some poor soul dares to slay the beast that i am. Else, i’m just a bastardization of what you were. I’m the zombie that lurches about, damned to live as an undead mockery of something that once was beautiful. Banging. Scratching. Trailing whats left of you across the glass. How many failed attempts until it feels like heaven doesn’t want you? Me, i mean. Been losing track of the difference. I keep the mirrors fogged and broken so i don’t have to see you in them. Who knew hair ribbons could wreck me like this? The you inside of me is untethered. It’s clawing at the walls of my brain until it hurts too much to leave the light on. I want to scream. I want to peel you. I want to take off your skin and eat you in eighths. I know how you would taste. Why can’t you come and metaphorically bash my head in? I deserve it, don’t i? I’ve earned it, right? If i never came back, i’d be better than you. As if i’m not already. I mean, as if you’re not already better than me. Isn’t it the same thing?
pete wentz was right about september. all of them were, really. i feel like i leave a part of myself in everything i walk away from. hissing, “i never want to see you again,” as if my house keys aren’t sliding on the floor of your car. all i see is red—the glow of the tail lights reflecting off the wet pavement. and it still isn’t cold enough to excuse the way i dress.
cuz these chips taste better drunk and this album sounds better naked and this poem feels deeper sleep-deprived and nothing is ever the same twice. not the same river, not the same man. but theres a sweaty boy learning things about himself in a chapel over spring break, and i hunger for the same things as him / dance to the same osts as him / have an ungodly amount of knowledge of the same video games as him despite the seven years between us. to peter, i still remember our code. i hope you dont mind that im not not blond anymore.
cauterize. im watching it breathe. im watching you die. behind my eyes. superimposed. burned into the screen. fender bender. blues and purples and bones not bleached. and you taste iron deficient. im spitting it out. hacking it up. finger length—one inch, two, three. down, down. through the tendons. watch it shrivel and learn it cant heal from this. im watching you. peripheral. high alert. being around you hurts. being around you hurts. being around you is like binding too tightly for too long, playing hide and seek but for me its life and death. and im scared. im not allowed to be. you broke your arm, and it made me whole. if anything happens to me, i hope you feel it, too. every evening i wake up bruised and scratched. blues and purples and bones that took the shock. pain never stops. it only switches hands. im watching them tremble. im watching you die. its never been so bright. your bones have never looked so white. and im sorry, its just my mind. but at some point the intrusive thoughts turned into lullabies.
The kid in me recognizes the kid in you. He wants to play pirates. I’ll settle for waking up early and driving you into town. I never told you I don’t like being behind the wheel, but I know you don’t either. I don’t mind. Some kids threw rocks at the boy they liked. Me, I guess it’s poems on the backs of worn-out sticky notes. At my most vulnerable, where any brush or wrong glance could shatter me, you take my hand and pick me up off the ground. Your hand is as small as a dandelion. As you lead me away, I wish I’d known you all my life. But not really. Because it’s only now that I know how to provide what you want. What you need. It’s only now that I know how to not squander you. So the history we don’t share, we’ll make. Even when you know the punchline to every joke I could tell. Even when I’ve found all the technicalities and loopholes in your fine print. Even when we’ve found the treasure and there’s nothing new, still, I’ll want you.
my left, your right. begged you not to burn me, but with honey across my tongue, i hardly mind. im not picky. thats not true. ill just take anything that comes from you. some people just make life so beautiful. my sputters and pushes cant match your mile high glide, your silver lining to my paper-scarred sky. so i just open my eyes. all in, all in, i hope you read me right. each silent gaze is, “i love you.” and my hands feel like yours. my left, your right. some people are just so beautiful. and i missed you, too.
but tonight she is bright like the sun . casting a moonbeam across the cold/hard wood/world and charming me into a believer until she is the silver cross around my neck , the only holy thing to stave off the terrors . my soles slight the ground . its offerings pale against her glow . its a religious experience . one worth the bruises ill awaken to . its 2021 again, at the crux of sitcoms and lo mein . the world is one worth waking to .
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