seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from United States
seen from Denmark
seen from Australia
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Switzerland
seen from Pakistan
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
when you think of me, i want you to see your future melt before you. all the hopes and dreams we had together, i hope they get stuck in your throat and you choke on them. i want the fortress and moat i built to protect you to crumble; i hope the debris gets in your eyes.
I can taste your laugh in midnight’s shadow.
I.
I turned your voice into a seashell for the last distant echo, farther here I searched for us within all of the alternate parallel closer aways I have loved you through too many sometimes...
II.
he has no clue how to kiss me but the newest-new guy can’t stop smiling,
is it contagious
enough
to catch me?
his lips on mine tick 10pm in the basement and I can’t remember if I forget what your mid-kiss laugh tastes like
III.
I want to make peace with our magentas and ultraviolets the colors while lingering on the edge of misery
only two people this insane
would
actually see, the psychotic goose-loops we went on to chase more
loose ends, the beauty as we flat-lined through mid-air for five years but still haven’t fallen out of anywhere I can’t forgive how your lips on mine
struck
midnight
at
the...
IV.
the newest-new guy looks into my eyes and
intentionally pauses
but
the
clock
has
lost
her
whimsy...
she lays herself down
on a lime-green couch
in this
exact
literal
minute,
this
present
plane of existence
and
un-figuratively
sinks
down
into
the
comfy
cushions
I
wonder,
what
time
is
it?
V.
it was just so different
back
then,
you
holding
my skeleton
hand...
no
need
to
breathe
an
eternal
lallygag
strolling
along
dawdling
about
moseying-on
through
a
dilly-
dally
of
our
last
moment...
(I just can’t say the word meadow again.)
VI.
the rippling distant echo
of your strike
dying
down...
and
he has no clue
how to kiss me
but
I can taste
this newest-new
guy’s
smile
at 10pm in the basement
as our clumsy
mid-kiss-teeth
clang
the next
tick
after
your
midnight’s
shadow
Tell me why I haven’t been the same since I met you
Tell me why the bandaids never stick
Desire makes me sick
To my stomach
To my core
My being
My presence
Tell me why your absence fills the room
My fingers still feel your dark tousled locks
Your quivering lip at the hint of laughter
My naivity navigating before and after
Growing up was in part by your side
20 21 22 23- little words still usher my thoughts
I want you to know that they all fell flat on their face next to you
Attempted comparisons are laughable
They are all minor distractions
They arrive in waves
Ebb and flow and I let them go
Ebb and flow and I let them go
Nowhere near my heart
But I say yes I love you too
Keeps them from turning blue
Because they are nothing next to you
an obscure South African sex ritual
I.
this morning a really cute zombie fed me breakfast in bed
but maybe that’s just an obscure South African sex ritual or maybe the word “girlfriend”
really means “side-hoe” in Swahili...
he also speaks Italian, French, and better Spanish than me and my mom was born in Venezuela, there’s gotta be a huge mistake in his translation because last night he even made me dinner and we didn’t actually have sex...
like,
at all (we should both learn German or Russian and yell at each other from across the room “YOU WANT TO FUCK?” and after I’ll make him sleep on the couch... just to keep it 100)
II.
the word “love”
in Urdu
translates to
apparently,
after circling the world
for 80 infinities
it plateaus,
because
all I found
was a flat-edge
where
you are the moon on my horizon
I’ve looked for you
inside all of the eternities
within each alternate dimension
of the parallel universes
where
you are forgiven
and
I think I’d rather just stay angry
you mean too fucking much to me.
how many times can I be
stood up
within my own fantasy
(meet me at the meadow)
before I leave you there?
III.
Dear Hassaan,
I’ve written you endless letters
under my pen-names
like
The Moon Escaped the Sky
Wildfire
Where Time Begins
Circles
Hello
and
Goodbye
and I wish this could be the last
but
I know it won’t.
Love,
Sarah
the ultimate yin and yang of life is a plateau and maybe one day I’ll live in my car.
I.
I miss dangling
on the edge of your cliff
grasping at straws
“riddle me this,” you say if I were suicidal why would I put a trampoline at the bottom and outline my path of two loops to jump through?
II. no matter what language is whispered into my ear I am not well traveled but I have big dreams to live in my car
just so you know the newest guy is from Zimbabwe, just another place I’ll never see
in a way I get lost in the tiny universe every guy gives me and the girl I’m in love with drinks more than my father
maybe my straight line extends to everywhere.
III. the ultimate yin and yang of life is a plateau
and plateaus tell the lie of perfect balance
the world is at my fingertips but you are only an arm’s length away grasping at straws trying to figure me out, this is the static
of survival
IV.
“you deserve the world” so many men say before they blast off to somewhere else and girls don’t believe it for themselves
in my own mind I am disabled, my fantasies consist of you us
planting a trampoline in every city of the world, a secret we keep in our back pocket for when we fall through infinity
make a joke of time or just stop trying
my newest guy attempted suicide and was pronounced dead for 14 minutes
I think we laughed about it for 14 minutes, God I made fun of him so hard
now I’ve fucked a zombie is there a word for that in Zulu?
and
my straight line extends to everywhere.
release
i. my big-mood is slapping my clit hard wondering what you’re up to practicing a stand-up comedy routine for no reason researching how to formulate a memoir dreaming about the perfect wife or a polyamorous relationship for the first time are there twelve bisexual-brother-husbands waiting for me in the afterlife? and the monsters i see when my paranoia gets this bad was that a random hand i just saw out of the corner of my eye handing me a blood-soaked wedding dress? anything but you only you and not being able to finish despite no impulse control ii. we both weren’t prepared for your bad aim but thank you for your ounce of kindness just the same it’ll never be the same iii. sometimes, i just need a good cry and what better way is there? my emotions are wound so tight my own arms i cannot reach someone else must unravel me if i have any hope of a release sometimes, i just need a good cry and what better way is there than
with a stranger holding me afterwards?
if only i had three wishes...
iv. the faint noise of your stupid-fucking-obnoxious car to make up for your pathetic, meaningless existence in the distance of my memories and i still wish it could be you in that mustang driving away from me v. god, that summer in the back of my cavalier with a guy who was six-and-a-half feet tall he cheated on me with fourteen-year-olds and when my depression gets this bad
i need to be fucked in a way you can’t unblocking the thirty-some-odd numbers in my phone who will run me over? vi. i am the sleeping beauty a feminist least favorite but i slayed my own dragons
without you and i know
it’s just our characters you are your own protagonist
well, fuck you i wish upon a star that you were at the bottom of my ivory tower, holding me close with one hand slaying my brother husbands all the strangers fantasy of perfection and fairytales in the other your dragons burn him to a crisp and bury the cavalier in a moat somewhere bringing all the other lost princesses with us for me to have fun with they are my audience but you laugh the loudest mice sewing my wedding dress searching for other worlds to get lost in because you found me noble steed revving us off into the sunset and
a new layer of skin emerges like pages
as i shed tears
i’m ready
for my next chapter,
i write alone.
spark
a Saturday night alone with a face mask and glass of wine, I toast to those couples with the script of a lifetime but even their fireworks fall out the sky and commercials cut the romance short my sparks fly as far as the cuckoo’s nest and I can pretend we fell out of love for the last time.
I can’t wait until I release my poetry book and have everyone feel my emotions through each poem.
