#09-2021

[hemoclysmic]

29/09-21

my reflection is the heat of a stranger's body clinging to a subway seat. the mirror holds a husk, something warm that moves, and i don't know her beyond the skin. watch this stranger holding my brothers, my lovers' hands, inhabiting my life. watch this empty one move her soft body, watch her frame herself, watch her fingers slip over her skin like expensive silk. i love her. i love her like a lover, like an art work, like nothing a self should be.

the skin, the interface between body and soul, between the imaged self and performed, the canvas for becoming somebody, intentional action. being does not mean being someone. a body doesnt give you somebody privileges.

the skin, the screen, to press our hands against from either side and hope a message gets through. i don't know if this membrane is keeping out or keeping in. i feel it like plastic wrap.

the skin we share; i can't breathe through it.

i love her like she wants to. i love her like the voyeur. i love her like the eyes that watch her when she's alone. i love her like an audience.

between us is a load bearing wall, we are catercornered and bonded by tensed legs. my skin lies below hers, pink and raw but real, mine, and when you touch her, i can so nearly imagine what she feels. all of your love for me lands at her feet, when you look at me it's over-the-clothes, she's unraptured, i envy her shoes. i fear that if you saw me unhidden you wouldn't recognise me, this wouldn't be the one you know, ive been watching you two from the closet... there are rats in the walls of my wooden horse.

it's a plastic bag pulled over my head. i can't get clean.

i run my fingers down her skin. she's so soft. she's someone else. i'd hate to kill her. she can't help taking up the wrong space. who am i without all her parts filling this body up, who am i without her extra mass? i can't remove her, anyway, if i wanted; we overlap. i wish we could be one. i wish i could be untied without fearing the freedom. i wish we could be united without tearing reality.

[hemoclysmic]

25/09-21

i would rather not buy a puzzle at all, than solve it and have to look at the gaping wound in the picture where a piece should lay. than have to look at the table below, harsh contrast. black hole. the other pieces fall in.

id rather press with my full weight against a spike mat, than a single nail.

i will never get to experience the right childhood, all the formative events. i was a gentle boy, when the others playing football i was learning to knit, when they were playing pokemon cards i was helping in the kitchen. there's something missing, in a lack of scars from foolhardy adventures, of bones broken by reckless ambition, of bruised knuckles and black eyes, in being a gentle boy that learned to be a rough girl.

i fear that opening the pandoras' box will hurt more than wondering what's in it. a life spent in this dark room, clawing at the light leaking through the doorframe gaps, what could it possibly give to unlock it, to shed light on the chamber at my back?

i fear that my hunger cannot be sated, and in this, bread will only deepen my nausea.

i fear that it will all be beautiful and ripped away from my dulled claws.

is it not just easier to close my eyes when i walk by a puzzlebox, a nail jar, a door, a still lake?

can you blame me, wouldn't you do the same?

the safety of familiarity, of the known, is such a luxury; to throw it away would be ungrateful.

a foolhardy adventure.

[hemoclysmic]

21/09-21

salt your wounds and get up. sourced from the finest of seas, the medi-tear-ranean, framed by eastuaries of the rivers flowing down your cheeks. jokes aside, boys don't cry. salt your wounds and get up.

what a naive child you were, to think that running means they won't chase you. they know where you live. they have your number. your mind plays in their voices. you're not strong enough, i hope you know this, that a moment of clarity doesn't turn blood into crystal, wine into water. but rest; rest in the cold, under the stars, rest until the wolves catch up and corner you. rest.

every wound can unheal. remember this, that your seams are just that, and a thread can be pulled, weaved in ends can be unravelled, remember, remember... you will come apart.

pry these offerings into your cold hands. taking your eyes off a house doesn't mean you've burnt it down, fool. the windows will haunt your back, headlights tearing through your fragile night. theyre watching you, don't you get it? cram these offerings down your unmoving throat. you fucking idiot, time and time again, you fail to understand this; blood is not something one frees themself from. your body will outlive you.

for every coin you toss in this well, there's a gallon of thinner water. for fuck's sake, learn to bear this burden, learn that you will not outgrow pain, learn that it will hurt when she is alive and hurt when she is dead and you can't run, you can't run from a bear. you'll be sorry now and you'll be sorrier tomorrow. play dead. the blood in your veins remains unchanged, spilled or whole; you can't disown a self. it will betray you even beyond the river. the metallic taste of the coin in your mouth will remind you of life. and you'll know, you'll know, there's never been anywhere to flee, this boat isn't taking you anywhere you haven't already been.

children aren't built for running; towards, yes, but not away. im sorry you didn't know that. i'm sorry you never will. rest. rest, now.

[hemoclysmic]

18/09-21

i'm built out of driftwood and i scream in the wind and my blood runs through bark beetle trails and i am strung up and forgotten and the storm runs through my body like we were made for one another and im listening to the tchk-tchk-tchk bounce off the bed chamber walls in your heart and merge with the dripping roof

there was a time when brackish waters wet behind my ears—now im just the wet-boy of your wet dreams watching you stand on the beach with cold feet and colder metal against your temple and i shouldn't (not with the safety off) but i cant help but wonder what bites are your favourite, if it's the steel or mine

the wind running through my hair reminds me of your hands and i know i said i keep my own privacy, im my own guard dog, but it's a lie, i bite at everyone and nobody at all. you make me want to betray myself. you make me want to lay my innards out for you all neat on the table. you make me want to fall asleep and get stuck, slow sweet pain, and i wonder if Aurora dreamt. i dont know if im lying or not when i say i miss you. when i wonder if i missed you. are we two stars, always on path to collision, or are bygones bygones? do we let them? is it maybe too much to dwell on. black beach, blacker ocean. heavy humidity. i wonder what you think about when you're quiet like this, and i want to fill the silence, fill it with all this sand. i think if i look too hard i can see the moonlight shine right through you. theres not enough glass to my hour. and i have all this sand. nobody knows what it's wet with, at night, i'm building castles that bloom at dawn. red, red roses, nothing like the things i say to you. turn the lights on, catch everyone red-handed. this beach will not be black, greyscale once the sun rises. these moats are yelling war.

do you think about if i think about you?

do you wish i did?

[hemoclysmic]

11/09-21

i want you to know: i notice when your mother uses the wrong words, even though she shouldn't anymore. i notice when you slip up and use hers. i notice when you look at me like you hope you taste skinnier, my diet honey, same sweet taste with none of the sugar.

all the times ive received apologies i didnt ask for, for bodies i didn't notice. a volunteered apology is the best clandestine vessel for shame on the market. contrition itself is the song of liturgy, of ignominy like they teach you. hide it like a pill in a dog bowl, like food in a toy box, like the tear-stained farewell letters that you couldn't quite bear to get rid of, scribbled by a child you got to know posthumously.

theres a special pain drawn up in paths often travelled. one that reads on w(e)ary faces. in the praticed vacuousness in tone. when moments that should matter don't. wont yourself to writing the wrong name, to trying for less air on the inhale, to remembering your posture, to buying the wrong size, to living half-gone, to listening for danger, to holding back the sigh, holding back the pain, holding down the tears like it's lunch.

you blow smoke in my face and shoot it back and your throat burns just like your skin under the cherry and the too-senior hands of the popper and like you're used to even without the drink. and i wanna ask. i don't. it pisses me off, it tears me apart for you, it's an enraged sorrow.

my xylitolheart, my lowcal love, my starving artist; i hate your reflection. you're in love with it in all the wrong ways, you read it in songs that shouldn't be ideals and wrap your forefinger and thumb around it to measure the length of your name in units, you look at it in an oil slick and turn to me with a grin, with performance tears, with feigned nonchalance, to tell me it's you, and i don't want to hear it. i want to kick your fucking ass, maybe only cause the alternative's worse. i don't want to bleed for a body.

[hemoclysmic]

04/09-21

pictures ive taken

that don't really tell anyone about anything

words ive spoken

that didn't really hold true.

i am

in a forest, freedom by virtue of being caged in, nature, berce-le chaudement, peace of being home again. i am where i was born and where i will die. currently, i'm running from both. the cold is a refreshing one, of autumn and pink cheeks and full breaths.

i am

in a bustling city, cold cold cobble under my feet, in a room where turning the heat up all the way just means you don't freeze to death. where the cars are loud and my soul is not and i wonder how ill ever survive in this, in a world where this is where everyone goes. where this is not temporary. the cold is a hospital one. of distance and death.

i am

in a house where the walls never quiet down. where the new, freshly built ceiling joists are full of harsh words and raw voices and childhoods that weren't bad enough but not good enough either. where children grow up to become ghosts. where all the ears tell me not to go. where i long for so badly. the cold is a bone deep nauseous one, of crawling in under the covers and never having time to warm up before you fall asleep.

i am

waking up drenched in sweat

i am

alone in the forest and lonely in the city. and

the cold

doesn't matter anymore.

i am

a dog on a glassed in balcony, lounging in the morning sun

and i am the eyes watching him from someone else's window,

and i am the voice on the phone granting my mother clemency as she repents through the speaker net, through the confessional screen, less contrition and more self pity maybe but are we anything if not human, as she makes herself guilty of the same sins she atones; and i am the last soul alive that carries this blood and im all full up on penance; and i am so very sick of the turmoil in my base pairs, and i am replete on the rivers and seas of my predecessors, and i am a ticking time bomb and i am a still lake and i am the shoes washed up ashore and i am every corpse and every not corpse and i am holding secrets and being honest and i am lying to the world and i am terrified and at peace and i am an isolated nuclear event and i am on fire and burnt out and placated and propitiated and self destructing and inexorable and indelible and sinking to my knees and burning eyes and wailing child drowned i am i am i am please god i am

all

full

up.