“What I forgot to remember” by Y.Z. (@heartcountry)
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“What I forgot to remember” by Y.Z. (@heartcountry)
you are gone. i’ll spend the rest of my life trying to put that into words.
jack gilbert, walking home across the island / hieu minh nguyen, still, somehow / lucas regazzi, small / hieu minh nguyen, dear friend (for jd) / gregory david roberts, shantaram / y.z, a place i can’t return to pt. 2 / unable to find source, not my own / y.z, untitled
You are rust red,
and lily grey.
A farmhouse in the twilight,
there are dancers swirling in beer smoked air.
Netted brightly against your form,
the star whisper sweet nothings.
Somewhere hidden there is hay,
a sweet place for burgeoning lovers.
Alone & afraid are mostly the same thing. We were both. We were both here. Your face shone the first safe beacon I had ever seen.
Natalie Wee, “Close Encounters,” Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (Amazon / Goodreads)
It’s almost spring. You know that feeling, the first warm day of the year after a brutally cold and depressed winter. Today was that day. Warm weather always has reminded me of you, maybe because you’re warm, or at least that’s how I felt, warm, but only when you were around, you always left, you never stayed, you were never even there. You were there one season and gone the next, this cycle never ends. First fall, then winter, spring and summer. Every season reminds me of you. You’re a warm cup of hot cocoa on a beautiful fall day, the leaves are all different colors and I’m sitting on the porch listening to your favorite band, smoking your favorite kind of cigarettes. I’ve learned to love cigars more, my dad smokes them, they say your first love is just like your father, I begin to believe this. We have our first snow day and I spend the whole day thinking about what you’re doing, whether you’re out driving, doing donuts in an abandoned parking lot, or if you’re working on your studies. You are very smart, the intelligent type, the type you could listen to for hours and not miss a single beat, never zoning out, thinking about anything else, just on edge for what was coming next, everything you said was a masterpiece but you were so oblivious, I am too. Flowers are blooming and so am I, you always come back during the spring, even if we aren’t together you are always there watching from a distance, I can never tell if you love me. You were always hard to read, even when you were telling the truth, but maybe that was me. Looking back it was. Distractions and drugs are just around the corner, 85 degree hikes, driving with the windows down, laughing with some irrelevant friends, anything to keep my mind away from you, I always wonder where you are. Another year is flying by, it’s almost been six now, each season becomes less vidid than the last, spending all of my time doing whatever I have to to get my mind away from you. I eventually learn distractions are a good thing, I become more involved with myself, I begin to think of you less and less. I don’t love you anymore, I don’t think of you as much so I don’t love you anymore, this is what I tell myself. The question still remains, am I slowly losing sight of you, or are you fading away into another universe, maybe I’m losing it. The thought of you makes me feel sad, and maybe I’ll never know the truth, it’s almost summer now, you’ll be back before I know it, and the cycle will begin again. I am torn between soulmates and moving on, maybe I haven’t moved on for a reason, maybe I’m holding on just to hurt myself even more, it’s an open ended question, that’s what I tell myself, the answer is out there but only you know the truth, but the truth only lasts for so long until people forget, I’m sure you will forget about me, if you haven’t already, it's always seemed that way.
Run On Sentences // @floralcollarbones
I stay.
I stay,
and
I swallow your shadows whole
X
I promise I will never leave you untranslated, I will give you every word I have ever known.
from “Canción Bilingüe” by Irene Vazquez
If some book says Eden is a doorway to be reclaimed, what of this monument to undeath you call body?
Natalie Wee, “Better Than,” Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (Amazon / Goodreads)