they won't go

an exercise in chasing my dreams. i'm out of my mind and out of my depth but that's probably the point.

[solightitup]

can the apocalypse hurry up and come so we can start all over

[solightitup]

She's scared because when she hears her stomach growl at night the first thing she feels is pride. This means you haven't eaten much today, this means you've done well.

[solightitup]

It’s a hard thing to be yourself even with a pen on paper and no one paying attention−–except for you. The expectations and filters we put on ourselves are impossible to escape from. I don’t know how to be free, to write without inhibition.

let me know if you’ve figured it out

[solightitup]

breathe in, get a grip (and the world will follow)

Not to speak is to be trampled

in a stampede of voices louder than yours

even when they are absolutely silent.

Words will quietly spill from your body

thick and hot and red.

Still, no one will notice.

To speak is to be just another

target at a shooting range,

just another body riddled

with perfect bloody bullseyes.

#thoughtsandprayers is trending;

but thoughts do not give you a voice

and prayers do not make you heard.

Again the face is like someone’s brother

and someone’s son.

Still, no one will notice.

There were forty-nine beautiful bodies

before you, targets painted on their skin in blood.

It was supposed to be a safe house

where everywhere else is a warzone.

There were hundreds more bruised bodies

before you, bullseyes against dark skin

and #JusticeFor yet another dead black man.

Breathe in, get a grip.

Today your voice is learning to waltz

an imperfect story, tripping over its feet

and stepping on toes, yesterday

your voice was asking for a light,

fumbling with a dying ember

burning bullseyes in your throat.

Get a grip before the cold among us

breaks like so many supernovas

and the world ends before we’re ready to die.

Breathe in, get a grip.

Be utterly silent, until you open your eyes

every morning and see slaughterhouses

behind white picket fences,

empty bell jars in empty gardens,

silent houses ringing with voices that sing them requiems.

Breathe in, get a grip.

For the first time you will find your feet

and the world will follow.

[solightitup]

new summer, time to get up and try again

[solightitup]

pa-tro-clus (reincarnation au)

Patroclus, Patroclus, Patroclus.

Every time he wakes from the same nightmare he can never remember, sweating and eyes smarting, that was the sound that clawed from his chest in great shattering breaths, pouring out of him like a terrible flood and smashing everything in its wake except it finds that there is nothing left to ruin. Patroclus, Patroclus feels like vomit burning in his throat but when he bends over and heaves, nothing comes out but Patroclus, Patroclus, always Patroclus.

He doesn’t know what Patroclus is, but he has a feeling he says it wrong during those horrifying moments when he wakes up and knows in his soul that everything is wrong. Patroclus isn’t supposed to sound so blurry and rushed. He has a feeling he should say it like a prayer, breathe it into the valley of a jutting collarbone, or maybe laugh it at an open sky with a warm body at his side.

Pa-tro-clus, he sometimes whispers once the world begins to feel real again and he can’t smell the stench of blood and flesh and metal anymore. Pa-tro-clus: it rings true and pure and good, and something rights itself inside him.

Pa-tro-clus, Achilles says when he finds the boy he didn’t know he was looking for. 

One, two, three, every syllable clear as a stone skipping across still water, and Patroclus turns.

Before this, Achilles had never thought home could be a feeling, heavy with the relief of a drowning man coming up for air and light with joy like holding the world in the circle of his arms and burying his face into all its curving secrets. 

[solightitup]

i bleed red: a little like oh say can you see or a scraped knee,

but mostly like the color of the lucky underwear my mother gave me

on my twelfth birthday because it was the year of the snake again,

mostly like new year envelopes stuffed with two twenty-dollar bills

(but only after tangerines and hotpot and chinese poker),

mostly like chaoshao pork from a tiny store in Flushing 

with grease in my hair and the creases of my hands.

[solightitup]

you want him to touch his lips to your forehead the way the sky kisses the ocean at the edge of the world, the way the sun melts liquid into the sea, but his lips are ice like metal sinking through flesh.

you are trying not to flinch, you are telling yourself,                                         I love him, I do.

[solightitup]

the city is ours until its edges crumble and bleed blue, the color of the apocalypse or a body going cold.

[solightitup]

The problem is that I want you a little more than I’ve ever wanted me.

[solightitup]

He prays for the sun to rise every night. He kneels on his wrinkled white sheets, sits back on his heels, and curls his hands into gentle fists at his sides because he doesn’t know what else to do with them. 

He prays, because as long as the sun keeps rising each day, no one can take his hope away.

[solightitup]

murderer

The lake is clear enough that he can see the sharp rocks on the bottom and the small fish darting about. He wonders if the entire lake might turn red if he touched it, the way a painter’s brush touches clean water and the pigment leaves the fine hairs in swirls of color. He remembers taking a bath in a lake once; the dirt was scraped thoroughly from beneath his nails and behind his ears, leaving muddy trails in the water and reddened skin. He was younger then. The memory seems far away like how many childhood memories tend to feel, but he reminds himself that it really was not that long ago. Still, the thought of it feels misplaced in his mind, as if it’s a lost item belonging to a stranger that had already moved on.

[solightitup]

that’s a loaded question

Are windows simply paintings with minds of their own?

Do the seasons ever meet each other between their shifts?

Would time stop its ticking if it found a lover?

Is sorry an ending or a beginning?

What happens to genius once it leaves us?

Do questions without answers linger or die?

[solightitup]

swipe up, i’m sorry

He’s looking away from you. He has just asked you out, and he’s not even looking at you anymore. You don’t think he’s attractive, not really, but his jawline is sharp enough and his eyelashes are dark and spiky in a strangely intriguing way. There’s too much gel in his hair and his glasses are pretty awful, honestly. You’ve gotten lunch with him a grand total of three times, and every time was suffocatingly awkward, but hey, he was nice. You’re standing by the concession stand; you’ve just watched a movie with him. You’re not sure why you did, but you think it might’ve been because you were bored (but your friends did invite you out to Shake Shack with them, and you said you had plans with him).

He has just asked you out. You kind of just want to go home, it’s a half-day in the midst of a long stretch of school days, but you look away too and say yes.

You’re not sure why you did, but you think it might’ve been because you were bored. It might’ve been because you don’t like anyone else right now (except you still sometimes stare at Charlie, who sits across from you in the semicircle of desks in English class, who kind of maybe sort of had a thing with you last year, who probably doesn’t remember you or care anymore.) It might’ve been because why not?

Maybe you just wanted someone to kiss you good morning at the lockers, someone to text at three am in the morning, someone to make out with in empty classrooms, someone to cuddle and share earphones with in a deserted hallway when it rains at lunch, someone to smile indulgently and tease lightly when you freak out about dorky things. Maybe you just wanted a pair of arms to wrap around you and a chest to lean against to keep you steady on a rocking subway, or a jacket that smells like boy and fun and intoxication but without the alcohol.

He takes you to lunch but he doesn’t take your hand. He’s walking a foot away from you, and all you’ve talked about so far is the Spanish homework. You’ve cracked one joke about your satanic math teacher and it fell flat. The other kids look over, confused. Aren’t they dating? Your cheeks are burning but you force a smile and another joke. It falls flat.

It gets better. He takes your hand during the second week, except it is winter and your hand is half hidden in the sleeve of your oversized parka. It’s only that awkward the first time, but later you still wouldn’t call it nice. His hand is the right size, you think, but it’s always a little dry and his fingers can’t seem to decide if they want to curl over the back of your hand or hang limply between yours. Your shoulder is bumping against his as you walk down Madison for a cup of coffee. The jokes don’t fall flat but the laughter isn’t as loud as it should be. The coffee is a little worse than usual.

He shows you this small Venezuelan food place you didn’t know about before, and buys you the No. 7 chicken lunch special. The beans are your favorite part, and the rice is a close second. You laugh over chicken and rice and beans and it’s good, it’s fun. Still, the small white clock on the wall ticks slowly.

You don’t answer his Facebook messages. You get the notifications, you swipe up, swipe them away and continue watching your latest binge show. It’s three am in the morning, you know he’s awake and online but you keep swiping up. You don’t tap on his chat so he doesn’t see the little letters “seen 3:04am” under his message and know that you read it but didn’t reply. Sorry, you type, days later. Sorry, I didn’t see your message. Make it sincere. It’s the fifth sorry you’ve messaged him in three days, but you can make it sincere. Add exclamation points and a sad face emoji or two.

He wraps his arm around your shoulder. It’s warm, but the angle is a little wrong and you’re too tense. You’re perched on a green Central Park bench and the two of you are eating Subway sandwiches and watching people walk their dogs. He always gets flatbread and you always get Italian herbs and cheese. Two more labradors, one a deep brown and the other almost white, walk by and your back is starting to feel stiff. You make an excuse: you need to go get some notes to your friend who has a quiz next period, gotta go, sorry (!!!), look like a sad face emoji.

him: “Hey, we need to talk.” seen 1:12am

you: “yeah” delivered 1:18am

you: “tmrrw, lunch?” delivered 1:22am

There is no falling apart. You talk over each other and you did not think this through and you’re so ready for this to be over. The best part? He’s so ready for this to be over too.

Better as friends, he says. We should try being friends instead, you say at the same time. You laugh. He smiles. Yes. Okay. Good. We’re good, right?

It will be less awkward than ever afterwards, but you’re both terrible at being friends. The last message will be from you, or maybe from him—it won’t matter because you won’t need to swipe up anymore (you’re binge watching a different show now).

If there ever was a falling apart, it was so long ago that all that’s left is dust and rocks. It’s a disaster site that no longer headlines in the news. Or, maybe it all happened so slowly nobody noticed until the smoke cleared and by then, who really cares anyway?

You breathe in, out, the air is fresh and sharp today. You smell Famiglia’s pizza—absolutely outrageous prices nowadays—and Central Park grass. Oh, you think, you never really liked him at all. Oh, maybe you shouldn’t have said yes. You don’t let yourself regret too much.

[solightitup]

stealing language

Goddammit, whoever had the mac & cheese still didn’t clean up their mess. Hey, turn it down!

She’s learning to play chess now. There are thirteen reasons for the time being: it’s not that he’s not cute, his dog is just much cuter.

Those socks are making me hungry. these Oreos are definitely different from those Oreos. There are a lot of oranges on the floor; I think it’s supposed to be artsy or something. You have to get a picture of this.

Gold star queens, dark green grapes; planets and fruits or fruity planets pass me the glue.

Dorky pick-up lines and jackets for fourteen bucks on eBay. Mom says, “Jane, you need more self-control.”

[solightitup]

crazy quilt

the language of collage and tailoring, reframing the floor as brooklyn wall graffiti.

forest greens and highlighter yellows, lithe lines evoke the stretching body.

limbs reach in a push and pull, toes point in perfect roman arches.

herringbone pattern of dancers in sync, geometric leaves hanging from a branch.

the stillness after the wind is filled with feather footprints, a painter’s mark.

[solightitup]

not to speak is to die in a stampede of voices louder than yours and words that belong to all but not you. unspoken words will spill from your body thick and hot and red like blood.

speak because your voice will be important enough someday. Today your voice is a new ballet, an imperfectly teasing story. Yesterday your voice was feeling for a light.

get a grip before the cold among us breaks like so many hard white stars. breathe in, get a grip. be utterly silent.

slaughterhouse on the road and bell jars in the garden of silent houses, heartbreak hotels unbroken by voices that sing bodies electric.

for the first time you find yourself. the days trick others, nine equals nine, and you are melodious.