oh god, I fell in love with you
as your contagious laughter
spread
tangentially into my ribcage.
we shook in so many ways--
who really wants to be taken seriously
in bed?
and I am a slave to
world maps, always jonesing
for an outbound ticket; yet,
your chameleon eyes take me
to so many places
I have never been
with no speed limits on the freeway,
meteor showers in your backyard--
endless vacations days.
you taught me another word
for kissing:
two points coming together
lines that never end fitting
together, the same curvature.
the first move only pretended
to be mine--
i told you i fall
so hard for words.
you never stopped sending
those songs and poems.
damn those two foolish years
i could have spent with you.
we visited
your demented grandmother
she constructed stories
of glaring gunshots and leaky rooves
but her questions were very real--
what are you going to do, so far away
from one another?
i could sleep forever
if only to stop wondering
if only to be in love with you,
forever,
as I am in love with you now
every time your touch
melts out of my skin
like permafrost.
I'll be your antarctica.
louisiana stole my platonic lover
He dated some girl named Leslie-- Leslie with the outdated, tin can braces, Leslie with the sheepdog bangs. My first day back in Memphis, she asked me to sit at her lunch table. After a half year of socially defunct Florida schooling, I judged people like an apocalyptic jury. Leslie was one of those awkward, overdeveloped pre-teens whose palms reeked of bleeding Sharpie. God forbid she try to run in her pants-- they were huge, chained parachutes-- and I hope for her pride that she has stopped wearing all of those Anime t-shirts.
She was the first one to misinterpret what I had with him. If you were to ask me how we began conversing, I would have to lie. My memory fails me. I do remember the first song he gave me, though: "Butterflies & Hurricanes," by some British band called Muse. It was the beginning of the most enticing, yet brief encounter I will ever have.
We were always attached to opposite ends of the same headphones, reading lyrics off each other's lips. Everything was euphonic with him. I could find eighth notes dancing among the freckles that decorated his cheekbones, and I could see musical staffs flowing in the waves of his unkempt hair. I veered dangerously close to appreciating the Southern accents; his voice was as languorous and sunken as the bass lines in "Scar Tissue." I had an apple green Ipod mini back then, and as high school loomed near, his illegally torrented harmonies began to carve a lingering beat into my tympanic membranes.
"I'm going to sing you something," he would murmur, "and then it will be your turn."
I would press my ear close to the phone until the walls of my throat could feel his songs. He sang me Sinatra and "Mr. Brightside," until he convinced me that "Hot Fuss" was the soundtrack to my life. I also nursed a personal envy for the Ava Gardener I could never be.
I am so much further than three years away from those blithe nights.
After one semester and too few days of summer, he sent me a trippy song by the Crystal Method and told me he was moving. I brushed it off as a joke. I did not get to say good-bye. I listened to The Dark Side of the Moon CD he burnt for a week straight, and by the end of it I was hoarding a mountain of crumpled Kleenex in my wastebasket. We still had our nightly mutual serenades, and I felt strangely safe. It was the kind of safe you feel under an giant, overworn black hoodie during wintertime. I slept better then.
His cellphone bill escalated to a damning six hundred dollars by October, and we have never really talked since. Sometimes he visits Mississippi, and I drive down there (alone) to pick him up and spend a few days with him. Things are different now; we exchange the occasional broken instant message, but it usually amounts to small talk. An entire Ipod later, his music, including some songs he mixed himself, still haunts my speakers. I can't listen to ten minutes of my library without thinking of that insufferably humid summer.
At the end of May, he will move back to Memphis. He will bring back a playlist of songs I will never hear, and he will speak with a strange accent I will never adjust to. I will be on the other side of the country by August, yet I find myself futilely repressing callow hopes of another summer he will not give me.
"Tell all your Cajun friends that there's an Asian girl in Memphis who loves you more than your own mother," I tell him.
"They'll make fun of m-"
The noise on his bus pressures the phone signal until it crinkles and rips. Connection lost, says my cell screen.
**disclaimer to lurkers and those who don't know who this is about: this friendship was purely friendly.
She was the first one to misinterpret what I had with him. If you were to ask me how we began conversing, I would have to lie. My memory fails me. I do remember the first song he gave me, though: "Butterflies & Hurricanes," by some British band called Muse. It was the beginning of the most enticing, yet brief encounter I will ever have.
We were always attached to opposite ends of the same headphones, reading lyrics off each other's lips. Everything was euphonic with him. I could find eighth notes dancing among the freckles that decorated his cheekbones, and I could see musical staffs flowing in the waves of his unkempt hair. I veered dangerously close to appreciating the Southern accents; his voice was as languorous and sunken as the bass lines in "Scar Tissue." I had an apple green Ipod mini back then, and as high school loomed near, his illegally torrented harmonies began to carve a lingering beat into my tympanic membranes.
"I'm going to sing you something," he would murmur, "and then it will be your turn."
I would press my ear close to the phone until the walls of my throat could feel his songs. He sang me Sinatra and "Mr. Brightside," until he convinced me that "Hot Fuss" was the soundtrack to my life. I also nursed a personal envy for the Ava Gardener I could never be.
I am so much further than three years away from those blithe nights.
After one semester and too few days of summer, he sent me a trippy song by the Crystal Method and told me he was moving. I brushed it off as a joke. I did not get to say good-bye. I listened to The Dark Side of the Moon CD he burnt for a week straight, and by the end of it I was hoarding a mountain of crumpled Kleenex in my wastebasket. We still had our nightly mutual serenades, and I felt strangely safe. It was the kind of safe you feel under an giant, overworn black hoodie during wintertime. I slept better then.
His cellphone bill escalated to a damning six hundred dollars by October, and we have never really talked since. Sometimes he visits Mississippi, and I drive down there (alone) to pick him up and spend a few days with him. Things are different now; we exchange the occasional broken instant message, but it usually amounts to small talk. An entire Ipod later, his music, including some songs he mixed himself, still haunts my speakers. I can't listen to ten minutes of my library without thinking of that insufferably humid summer.
At the end of May, he will move back to Memphis. He will bring back a playlist of songs I will never hear, and he will speak with a strange accent I will never adjust to. I will be on the other side of the country by August, yet I find myself futilely repressing callow hopes of another summer he will not give me.
"Tell all your Cajun friends that there's an Asian girl in Memphis who loves you more than your own mother," I tell him.
"They'll make fun of m-"
The noise on his bus pressures the phone signal until it crinkles and rips. Connection lost, says my cell screen.
**disclaimer to lurkers and those who don't know who this is about: this friendship was purely friendly.
permission to gloat
when i was greener, you told me stories--
eskimo-kissed my flat nose to sleep and
lured me conscious with bacon by mornings.
when you were gone, I would live in your word--
pull your DNA from the backs of stamps,
and recreate you in my flightless bird.
when prison released you, he left his cage--
I buried his corpse in your new backyard.
and my brain found the time to disengage.
when you said you won't watch me suicide
today, I pulled the warmth out of my drink--
gathered the courage to tell you: I tried.
we left my wings, rotting, without headstone--
I cannot aviate without my will
perhaps I'm prepared for the great unknown.
eskimo-kissed my flat nose to sleep and
lured me conscious with bacon by mornings.
when you were gone, I would live in your word--
pull your DNA from the backs of stamps,
and recreate you in my flightless bird.
when prison released you, he left his cage--
I buried his corpse in your new backyard.
and my brain found the time to disengage.
when you said you won't watch me suicide
today, I pulled the warmth out of my drink--
gathered the courage to tell you: I tried.
we left my wings, rotting, without headstone--
I cannot aviate without my will
perhaps I'm prepared for the great unknown.
dialogue
release me out of my teems, let me destroy--
did you see
the way he was
looking at you?
hit him, push him-- do something,
I swear to god if you turn the other cheek
then it's over, you might as well die
what good are you to defend yourself in the pride you carry
around your neck; why should I be quiet? call me by my name when you
are speaking to me-- without me
your edge is gone; without me, you would be
scared break something, this isn't fair
why should they talk to you like that? no more hourglasses.
I'm allergic to salt water; let's slaughter
all things in a two-mile radius. hate is us
and it fuels our divine fire.
take another step towards the confrontation,
this is my favorite part, let's create a way to start--
death is impossible and we are invincible so
there is nothing tougher than our image.
i grow fond of the anger; stranger than the others
i come when you least expect--
torment is caused it's a job well done; torture our
opponents we know the world as they know it--
listen to me and do everything i wish
then we'll dominate, claim privilege to
all the things we see--
you don't use me enough, i come out
to rescue you and this is the thanks i get? i never get recognized for my brilliance--
only the pain and the destruction and
the negative effects i cause to the innocent.
the temperature rises; let's get psychotic, intimidate;
get a reputation for being untouchable and I am the voice
no turning back,
the strength when you attack
i'm here forever, never forget i control you--
and god gave me the on and off switch,
I use it for your own good; these others
do nothing for you-- with me
we advance and collect scars
and walk tall
and talk about whatever we want
i've watched you grow and collect power
now it's time to use
immortal decisions
and the moment is only half of what we want--
the energy is our destiny; grab as much as you can
without thinking about the sand; i was giving birth.
your teasing and abuse-- now we all face the truth:
without me you were nothing.
so acknowledge my
existence so you can never distance
yourself from the
things that keep you alive--
sit back and get ready, my student,
the ride is going to be painful and incredibly intense
we walk as two, but we'll leave as one set of
tortured
footprints
re: My Original Personality
Hello there, it seems we haven't spoken in a while. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've zeroed in on what's going on. I understand. My original personality (you) works like a dick husband, and my mental stability is the emotionally abused wife. So you go to work every day, come home for about twenty minutes to give me a pity fuck, and then go off to your younger and more vibrant mistress. Lately you've started drinking a lot, and I noticed that you've also taken to hitting me. That's okay. I don't mind being battered. I'd just like you to come around more often. You see, in our decently long marriage of almost seventeen years, I've lost all ability to survive without you. Personalities aren't meant to be changed or lost like cheap earrings. I'm going to selfishly yearn for you every goddamn minute you're off having sex with someone else.
And I'm cataloging the bruises you're leaving all over me. Let me tell you, the friends that I think I have are beginning to notice. You can't get away with this forever. Eventually you're either going to have to just leave me alone so I can find a new husband, or stick around. Do things right for a change. I may be a hopeless, deranged nymphomaniac, but I know that you are not fulfilling your obligations as my primary personality.
Don't get all offended, either, because I have wanted you around, but you just bail on me all of the time. Do you know how confusing things get without you? Then all these other dumb shits try to play the game. It just doesn't work. I need you.
So I guess, what I'm trying to say is...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I repressed you into submission when you got too emotional. I'm especially sorry that I am not very in-touch with you.
My predicament lies in the fact that you have all of my social skills. Bring them back. Please?
And I'm cataloging the bruises you're leaving all over me. Let me tell you, the friends that I think I have are beginning to notice. You can't get away with this forever. Eventually you're either going to have to just leave me alone so I can find a new husband, or stick around. Do things right for a change. I may be a hopeless, deranged nymphomaniac, but I know that you are not fulfilling your obligations as my primary personality.
Don't get all offended, either, because I have wanted you around, but you just bail on me all of the time. Do you know how confusing things get without you? Then all these other dumb shits try to play the game. It just doesn't work. I need you.
So I guess, what I'm trying to say is...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I repressed you into submission when you got too emotional. I'm especially sorry that I am not very in-touch with you.
My predicament lies in the fact that you have all of my social skills. Bring them back. Please?
the devil only exists because of your belief in him
On Mondays in kindergarten, my teacher always asked what we did with our Sundays. Each time I relayed my churchless afternoons, she acted as if she had never heard of such a thing. The other students were similarly bewildered at the concept of life-without-Bible-verses, and life-without-dad-slapping-you-during-customary-prayertime-shut-eye.
I was a child aglow with questionnaire sieges, so, naturally, I asked mother why we had family bike rides on the Sabbath instead of bible study.
"The people around here raise their arms in praise to sermons about sins of alcoholism, then they go to work with hangovers on Monday morning. They condemn gluttony and watch their waistbands stretch out. They give their vows under the nose of a priest, then they sleep with their neighbor's wife."
My mother never sugarcoated life for me, not even at five.
Both of my parents managed to maintain the consistency of sand dunes. After they began to home-school Julian and me, we transmuted our near-Atheistic beliefs to Catholicism. There was never much of anything to divulge in confession, though I suspect I would have eroded my rosary to dust if I was Catholic these days. My mother strung a brazen crucifix over our front door, inherited from her late grandma. She stopped braiding my hair and started pulling it instead. Bruises don't show on the scalp. Julian was never good with his Hail Marys. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
From the radioactive decay of my mom's days in Salt Lake City, there was a lady by the name of Mary Baugas. She made decadent birthday cakes while relaying passages from the Book of Mormon to my family. I started to question Catholicism. It didn't have enough icing.
We played touch-and-go with the Baptists. I went to vacation bible school, where they gave us candy for memorized verse. They told us that Catholics were occult. I felt withdrawn from children my own age, so I never made any friends. I thought there was something wrong with me. I told one of my VBS teachers that one day. 1 Corinthians: When I was a child, I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child.
I became a member of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian church. The preacher there brimmed with self-righteousness until he shook at the pulpit. He gave all his children the same leaky-tap-blue eyes. I found his daughter on a social networking site a month ago. She blogged about the time she drank herself silly with altar wine. Not all churches have mellowed to grape juice. That one sip was always so bitter. My parents never touched a drop of alcohol, until my mother became a single parent. I swept up the shards of 80 proof bottles one afternoon in the seventh grade. She told me, "Never get your stomach pumped. It hurts."
I joined Bellevue right before I turned twelve. No one there ever knows your name, but I think that the fragments of my family liked it that way. Services there have more singing than preaching, more tithing than fellowshipping. After we stopped going there, they still gave us the food we couldn't afford to buy. Years later, our advocate and counselor was convicted of molesting his son. Many of the church authorities had known for twenty years.
By ninth grade, I had read the Bible in New King James version and New International version. I had dabbled in the Quaran, obsessed over karma and nirvana, and attended churches of Lutheran, Methodist, and non-denominational persuasion. At fifteen, I renounced all religious affiliation I previously upheld. Though I publicly denied the existance of any deity, I was personally convinced that God hated me, and began to insert it as a sort of interjection in any given conversation: "God hates me."
The truth is, I spent hours of my childhood trying to convince myself that someone was listening to my prayers through a styrofoam cup. For every day that nothing changed, I pretended that maybe my prayers were lost somewhere along the string between God and me. After fifteen years, I stopped despising religion. I started seeing it a sort of answer key, a flashlight to help people make their way through the dark. Who am I to hate that kind of thing? I'm no good at answering questions and I can't even walk around my house in broad daylight without glasses.
1 Corinthians: When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. I stopped praying through styrofoam cups. I stopped praying at all. I'm my own Jesus now, and I'll save my goddamned self.
I was a child aglow with questionnaire sieges, so, naturally, I asked mother why we had family bike rides on the Sabbath instead of bible study.
"The people around here raise their arms in praise to sermons about sins of alcoholism, then they go to work with hangovers on Monday morning. They condemn gluttony and watch their waistbands stretch out. They give their vows under the nose of a priest, then they sleep with their neighbor's wife."
My mother never sugarcoated life for me, not even at five.
Both of my parents managed to maintain the consistency of sand dunes. After they began to home-school Julian and me, we transmuted our near-Atheistic beliefs to Catholicism. There was never much of anything to divulge in confession, though I suspect I would have eroded my rosary to dust if I was Catholic these days. My mother strung a brazen crucifix over our front door, inherited from her late grandma. She stopped braiding my hair and started pulling it instead. Bruises don't show on the scalp. Julian was never good with his Hail Marys. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
From the radioactive decay of my mom's days in Salt Lake City, there was a lady by the name of Mary Baugas. She made decadent birthday cakes while relaying passages from the Book of Mormon to my family. I started to question Catholicism. It didn't have enough icing.
We played touch-and-go with the Baptists. I went to vacation bible school, where they gave us candy for memorized verse. They told us that Catholics were occult. I felt withdrawn from children my own age, so I never made any friends. I thought there was something wrong with me. I told one of my VBS teachers that one day. 1 Corinthians: When I was a child, I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child.
I became a member of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian church. The preacher there brimmed with self-righteousness until he shook at the pulpit. He gave all his children the same leaky-tap-blue eyes. I found his daughter on a social networking site a month ago. She blogged about the time she drank herself silly with altar wine. Not all churches have mellowed to grape juice. That one sip was always so bitter. My parents never touched a drop of alcohol, until my mother became a single parent. I swept up the shards of 80 proof bottles one afternoon in the seventh grade. She told me, "Never get your stomach pumped. It hurts."
I joined Bellevue right before I turned twelve. No one there ever knows your name, but I think that the fragments of my family liked it that way. Services there have more singing than preaching, more tithing than fellowshipping. After we stopped going there, they still gave us the food we couldn't afford to buy. Years later, our advocate and counselor was convicted of molesting his son. Many of the church authorities had known for twenty years.
By ninth grade, I had read the Bible in New King James version and New International version. I had dabbled in the Quaran, obsessed over karma and nirvana, and attended churches of Lutheran, Methodist, and non-denominational persuasion. At fifteen, I renounced all religious affiliation I previously upheld. Though I publicly denied the existance of any deity, I was personally convinced that God hated me, and began to insert it as a sort of interjection in any given conversation: "God hates me."
The truth is, I spent hours of my childhood trying to convince myself that someone was listening to my prayers through a styrofoam cup. For every day that nothing changed, I pretended that maybe my prayers were lost somewhere along the string between God and me. After fifteen years, I stopped despising religion. I started seeing it a sort of answer key, a flashlight to help people make their way through the dark. Who am I to hate that kind of thing? I'm no good at answering questions and I can't even walk around my house in broad daylight without glasses.
1 Corinthians: When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. I stopped praying through styrofoam cups. I stopped praying at all. I'm my own Jesus now, and I'll save my goddamned self.
teddy bear
I have known for a while
as I watched the hem of your pantleg
scaling your ankle
that my fabric would fade-
emerald in autumn.
the air stuffing my fibers, sucked away
by the lungs of all your lovers.
and my button eyes lost
their shine, as you outgrew me
faster than a soggy wool sweater.
and your primal moans blew me
like you blew him, off the bed
into lost-sock world, dust bunny
graveyard. besmirched by bedskirt,
finished by philanderers.
I will try to find the curve of your
elbow between the books of
the shelf you buried me in-
repress your dessicated snot that
I stored from your lamentations.
so you move along. will me
to Goodwill, with all of your
nights of opened eyes. find
someone with arms that hug and
a mouth that kisses back.
remember, though you boxed
me up, you cannot contain bad
memories within corrugated walls.
she will depart like stars in the morning
and I would have never stopped loving you.
as I watched the hem of your pantleg
scaling your ankle
that my fabric would fade-
emerald in autumn.
the air stuffing my fibers, sucked away
by the lungs of all your lovers.
and my button eyes lost
their shine, as you outgrew me
faster than a soggy wool sweater.
and your primal moans blew me
like you blew him, off the bed
into lost-sock world, dust bunny
graveyard. besmirched by bedskirt,
finished by philanderers.
I will try to find the curve of your
elbow between the books of
the shelf you buried me in-
repress your dessicated snot that
I stored from your lamentations.
so you move along. will me
to Goodwill, with all of your
nights of opened eyes. find
someone with arms that hug and
a mouth that kisses back.
remember, though you boxed
me up, you cannot contain bad
memories within corrugated walls.
she will depart like stars in the morning
and I would have never stopped loving you.
