It is almost exactly ten years
since we shared drunken kisses
in an unheated bar
in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Later that night, drunker still,
a kiss broke into laughter
when we rolled off my bed
and fell to the floor.
Ten years later: you
still in Tennessee, in Nashville, me
in Phoenix, Arizona. A catch-up
conversation: You told me about
your kidney transplants, addiction
to pain medication, recovery,
getting engaged, breaking it off,
buying a house, rescuing dogs,
traveling, getting happy.
“I learned a lot and am so not afraid
of things. It’s pretty great!” you wrote.
You said your health was the best
it had ever been, and we laughed
about the new series of Beavis and
Butt-Head. You had just found a
new boyfriend: “I am absolutely nuts
about him.” Seventeen days later,
you died in your sleep, forty-six days
past your thirty-seventh birthday.
Writing to someone who will never
read it—a worn-out poetic convention,
still in use only because of its necessity.
Elegies, like funerals, are survival
tools for the living. I write these words
of love, beautiful Danielle, because
silence fails me.
there is no love felt
in the light of a million diodes
and the laughter carried
over a thousand miles of fiber
still cannot fill the room
or be felt in my chest
a constant stream of unicode
tells me we are here together
but my heart tells me
if addiction a pain, then depression another,
said either decease or live and suffer.
yet frightened of death like none other.
now fix it the person who created the mess.
was it ego or was it ignorance?
saw a way out, still hardships surround,
yet it's the only path that the mind has found.
tried and failed not once not twice,
it was indeed, hundreds of times.
whenever gave up and asked, 'what is the point?',
the mind said 'future is dark, but it could be bright.'
I want to hear your voices, to gaze at your elbows.
There are only so many ways to do anything.
I want, I want, I want, I don't know how not to. It comes
in waves, rolling like a car over a speed bump.
There is no body there except the body, except
your bodies, folded over each other like paper.
Like dollar bills wadded in my pocket.
Like brows furrowed. Like trees' roots
always searching for nitrogen, or each other.
Flickering and lonely light
drifting away from the night
who could frame and sooth your pain
when you try to reach in vain
the ever fleeing distant suns
The red woven towel hangs limply from the oven.
I have already used it twice to dry my hands today.
The wind
outside
moves new leaves of bushes.
The ants have begun to build tunnels.
A metal shack
by the beat up street
has a padlock I have never tried to open.
The lock hangs from a handle that is rusting off.
The apricot tree nearby
has never been pruned.
Yet every year it produces new fruit.
Cars still pass
on Agua Fria street.
The sun still rises
and wakes me up.
I feel confused about how I feel
when each day is the same.
This endless cycle of waking
and sleep.
head in the clouds
i thought we had something
had was the word
why did you ghost me?
did that 2 weeks of texting mean nothing?
we shared a part of our lives
nothing private but it was more than just being strangers
i thought hm maybe we could be acquaintances
or something more
its been a month since we last spoke
i thought im over it
but, you blocked me
something i've never experienced
left me dazed and confused
did i do something wrong?
should i have never added you into 'close friends' list?
was that a mistake? probably
funny thing is who wanted to text off tinder & get my IG?
you.
who stopped replying?
you.
who blocked me off IG?
you.
made me realise that boys would do anything
to just fuck around and
when they're done, they're done
chivalry is really dead
but hey thank you and i would come back stronger and be better, while you?
idk, au revior M.
if its meant to be, it will be.
有缘再见。
In my dream,
the user interface was liquid,
encased in a rectangular wooden box
about 4 by 6,
composed of bubbles,
shimmering,
undulating,
jostling each other.
When I touched one,
it expanded and
smaller bubbles emerged from its depths
which were connected by tendrils
to other bubbles,
all composed of energy
of different kinds.
Beings appeared in the bubbles
at the ends of the tendrils
and wanted to talk.