cainconfessionals
writing keepsakes
dump account for the (very amateurish) stuff ive written !
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buying ramen at the convenience store
the performance is over and you're out with our friends. all that remains of us is camera flashes, your arm brushing against mine, and your back as you walk away.
when i look through the pictures there's something unspoken hanging in every last space between us, echoed by the lump in my throat. and the board you made is slipping through my sweaty fingers, but i can't say this out loud because i know it wouldn't make sense; how do you tell someone you're afraid of their handwriting?
forced proximity and implied distance speak to an irony that i will never fully be able to put into words. but you smile when i wave and we've never needed words to communicate anyways. so i hope you get what i mean when i say that sometimes when i look at our pictures i dont recognise us anymore, and i don't think it's just the masks.
the thing is that i don't know how to tell you this, because i don't really know how to tell you anything anymore. and i keep trying to write about something else, i keep trying to get away from this. but i've rehearsed this so many times that i could do it in my sleep, i've spent a lifetime learning the steps. when i walk onstage and the lights come on it doesn't even feel like performance anymore, only routine. how could i fight it? you're my first instinct, my second nature. so i can't help myself, even when there's a hall of people watching, even when my closest friends and family are sitting in the audience. i keep trying to write about something else, but everything always ends up being about you.
and some nights i feel like i could live on applause alone, when love comes calling in their voices and blooms in the bouquets they bear. but some days i get into costume and i can't breathe because of the collar around my neck and the tightness in my chest, like my heart is swelling up against my ribs and the only way to cure it is to bleed it out. so i dip my fingers in blood and start to scrawl, until all my walls are scarlet stained and the room stinks of iron. and i sit expectantly at the doorway, waiting for you to enter, only to realise that this dressing room is a cell, and your key is clicking in the lock.
i didn't mean for this to get gory, but i guess by now we're both familiar with my violent streaks. and you know i never mean to target you, but i'm sorry for turning you into collateral all the same. the problem is that you make me feel loved and one of us must be punished for it.
so someone needs to cue the exit, draw the curtains. flip the switches and let light flood the theatre once more. but where does one performance end and the other begin? and when i finally emerge, loaded with baggage, how do i look you in the eyes? i step into the spotlight of your gaze and the notes just come tumbling out.
i used to take it as a sign that we never needed words to speak, but now i wonder if it was a skill born of necessity. because what if i can never find the words to explain how i feel about you? performative sincerity and artificial authenticity and one day we will speak again but we will never be who we once were. history may repeat itself but i fear we aren't afforded that same luxury. and if art is subject to interpretation then all these words are meangingless anyways. i am my own biggest critic and you are the poem i can't stop writing. and it doesn't even matter what you say, because i'm inventing my own readings anyway. my text is so overwhelmed with annotations i can barely read the original work. and you have vanished beneath my vocabulary, sinking into simile and absorbed by alliteration. the very opposite of a missing metaphor — a metaphor for missing.
so when i look through these pictures of us i can't ignore the revelation. that this whole time i thought you were in the audience, clapping courteously, but you've long since walked out. i'm not just performing for you anymore, you have become the piece i perform. and i could spend the rest of my life reciting your name, but now the performance is over, and all that remains of us is this empty theatre, my last words ringing in the silence.
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the whispering dog
i've never caught love that i didn't have to hunt down like a dog, but im tired of tracking your scent. my bones weigh me down like lead, and arthritis creeps into every last joint. soon my hearing will grow muffled, my sight blurry, and my howling hoarse.
the problem is that i was bred for the chase, for the vast rolling fields and the wide open sky. i was born for the scent of grass after fresh rain, to run until my panting breaths were one with the whistling wind, in relentless pursuit of my prey. and what that really means is that i was trained to retrieve with laser-focused precision, to go when called and fetch on command.
but now my legs are too long and my muscles just atrophy, and i don't think i've caught my breath since losing you. so i sit and wait for someone to let me out, but i've never been on the receiving end of obedience.
does desiring the leash make me any less feral? i pledged a lifetime to you, only to find i was counting ones while you were counting sevens. it was enough for me to curl up at the foot of your bed, or beneath your dinner table. waiting for you to come home, day after day. so please don't send me back out onto the streets. i didn't mean to bark, i just don't know how else to say i love you.
and loving is to a hound what hunting is to a human. maybe something went wrong during my domestication, or maybe i'm just the runt of the litter, but i've never known affection without fighting for scraps. so i'm sorry for licking my lips the moment i tasted our love in the air, sorry for biting down too hard when i knew it couldn't take the pressure. i'm sorry for baring my fangs and snarling, and i'm sorry i sink my teeth into every hand that reaches out.
all you ever taught me was to sit, stay, and go. now it's time for your last command, and it doesn't matter how hard i try to fight it, submission is coded into my genes. all i've ever known is loyalty, all i can do is obey. so i know you still don't want me, and i'm sorry that it's all my fault. i know you tried to teach me, and i'm still not good enough. it turns out i'm just an old dog, and that's one trick i can never learn.
and i know now that you can't just sit in a shelter and wait to be picked, making puppy eyes at every last visitor. now my fur is matted and turning grey, and my claws are blunt and chipped. no one wants the worn out stray, and my begging has gone from adorable to abhorrent. so if you will not keep me, then just put me down. spare me from closure if it will just feel like rejection. you have stripped me of my pack, of my instincts, of myself. what's one step further in the name of mercy? what's one more instruction to a lifetime of compliance? make this as quick and painless for the both of us, and all i'll ever be is grateful for it. ask me to roll over one more time, and i will never get up again.
you can do whatever you want to me. i will do whatever you want of me. why can't that be good enough?
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all is fair
this is the frontline and your casket is loaded. silence lays over the fields like a muzzle, our breath caged within lungs, rattled by pounding hearts. i shift from foot to foot, hoisting the banner in the air and praying you notice its colours. but we stand beneath a wordless flapping, nothing left to say. no sound beyond the slightest breeze overhead and crunching grass underfoot. do you know what this crest stands for?
when the trumpets blare and the army cries the collision of our reunion shatters through the shields, and i will be grateful for the weight of your body on mine. all around us the air will fill with steely ringing and guttural shrieks, but i will still strain to hear your voice above it all.
men were never meant to use guns. hold your blade against my throat and look me in the eye. how fitting that our last reunion begins in farewell. if this is the end, at least let me go with finality -- a cool sting slipping into skin and all i can hear is the blood rushing in my own ears. your moving lips betray your last words -- at least, to me.
will you cradle me in my final moments? punctuate the carnage with the thud of a sword on the ground? strip yourself of your armour, and take me into your arms? as blood stains your hands, will you question whether it is yours or mine?
how many more must fall before the other side surrenders? all my white flags are now drenched red. how much more must i bleed before someone will stitch my gashes? the darkness approaches, the world grows cold. beyond a certain point, does it even matter? what is there left of us to save?
maybe i will spend my afterlife wandering these fields. maybe your last words will pave a path out of this purgatory. but i can't spend an eternity picking bones from stones. and i can no longer hear you, so what road is there left to follow? if i could i would crawl my way out of this hell, taste the air you breathe on my tongue and hear your voice once more -- maybe simply the sound of it would be enough to resolve my unfinished business. what else could possibly be waiting for me in the living world? the only thing i have left is you. but you have left me gaping like an open wound, and this phantom pain cannot be exorcised. and i cannot bring myself to find vengeance, but i cannot find it in myself to forgive. not you, not me, not this time. so these unspoken words rend a scar across my throat, and i spend an eternity choking.
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once there
once there was you, there was nothing else. so really, what more is there left to say? im tired of dressing up my pain. if only i could look at you one more time, speak to you one more time. if i could touch you one last time, would that be enough to make you stay?
i'll try to keep this short, there's no point talking if you're not here to listen anyways. what i'm trying to say is that the only time i sang was when you were there applauding in the audience, and im tired of performing for an empty theatre.
i'm living in the longest month of my life, i'm doing more than i ever have. i'm threading time through my needle and weaving it into tapestry, running it through my hands like silk in a loom. you've never seen a seamstress work like this, a spider spinning her web.
frame me up and take me home, mount me on your wall, you've always known there's nothing i'd like more than to hang like a fixture in your domestic bliss. living in your living room i can be eternal, i can be unblemished. my worth has always been determined by the price tag you stick on me anyways.
so really, what does it matter what i do? i think i've been running all my life, towards your outstretched hand at the finish line, and now that your fists are closed i look back and realise i've been on a treadmill all along. im sitting in the crowd at an award show and the winners are being read off. the cameras are zooming in on me and i'm slowly realising i was never nominated, never even invited, that this seat isn't even mine.
i don't think you get it, so i'm going to try again. once there was you, everything was worth it. i could bear the stuffy clothes and heavy disguises, i could dance until my body ached and my feet were sore, and sing until my throat was raw. it felt like – it felt like i had spent forever trying to gather loose yarn, and you handed it to me in a perfectly spherical spool. do you get it? my time spent didn't feel like a waste anymore – not once it was spent with you.
and i hate that. i hate how stupid it all feels now, hate how all that's left of my work is loose threads and frayed knots. and i need you to understand that. i need to look you in the eyes and know that you understand what i'm telling you now, what i'm trying to say, what i wish you could hear. what i can't stop thinking about. but there are no characters i can play, no body i can inhabit, time runs on its spinning wheel and i fear i've been cursed to prick my finger and sleep forever, trapped in this eternal nightmare. and there are no more stories left for me to tell, there are no more happily-ever-afters. this time, you know better than to come save me. and i know you don't get it, know you won't ever even hear. but i need to say this anyways: once there was us, and now there is nothing.
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with love,
actually i have nothing to say.
we pass the orange between us like a glowing sun, and warmth radiates from the palm of your hands. your jacket lays over my shoulders like a blanket, and any chill from the air-conditioning is lost amidst our laughter.
your arm is out and we're all leaning in, heads on shoulders and grins on faces, and there are no filters necessary, no need to turn up the brightness when our eyes twinkle like stars in the frame.
when the bell rings you linger at the doorway and your unspoken promise strings us along from pinkie to pinkie, and when we're finally ready to leave our voices echo as though the entire world has shrunk down into this corridor, and the breeze carries us along until tomorrow when we return home to one another once more.
and some days i get off the bus and wonder if i missed my stop. when the only light comes from unblinking streetlamps, i walk home alone and question when the weather got so cold. and even as the days grow shorter and the sun sets earlier i tilt back my head and scream at the sky: what if i don't know how to love if he isn't on the receiving end?
and on my very worst days, i think, this is how it will be. forever fallen to the creeping frost, trapped in eternal winter solstice. banging on the ice and begging for it to crack. my love drifting to the ground like snowflakes, singular and intricate and momentary, one second hanging in the air and the next lifetime melting into the snow.
but tomorrow, you will unpeel the orange like the birth of a star and hand me a slice, and when the pulp pops between my teeth, and the juice stains my lips, i will feel its sweetness on my tongue. and no burning, no blazing, no suns nor stars with their hydrogen-fueled fusion can compare to the warmth in my stomach.
so when night falls, i can lay my head upon my pillow and whisper my thanksgivings into the dark. and when i close my eyes to pray before i sleep, the answer rises like your bubbling laughter in my ears. of course i know love. because the orange is peeled, and your palms are warm. because this hallway feels endless, but with you by my side i find gratitude in perpetuity. of course i know love, of course i know how to give it. because i have first received it from you, and now it unfurls within me like a flower in spring. the love that was there then is still here now. and there is no more screaming, no more begging; i already know that God is listening, because He gave me you.
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how to find peace?
when you find me, i'll be on the beach, though it won't be much of my choice. like a ship to a lighthouse, i must return, amidst the crashing waves and rocky shores. the foghorns blow from across the water, and your voice echoes in every question they ask.
when you find me, peace will dance like dusk's dying rays, golds and pinks scattered, refracted across the water. we'll clamber into the boat and i'll beg you to row, and we'll sail off the edge of the horizon before we ever touch the sun.
and one day earthquakes will rattle the earth, the tectonic plates cracking apart beneath our feet -- or maybe coming together, who can say? they say the safest place to hide out from a tsunami is far out to sea, but i'd rather drown than cling to your driftwood.
when i wash ashore once more i will be down on my knees, scrawling in the sand, pleading for rescue. and peace will be the glint off helicopter blades, the metallic sheen of overhead planes, backlit against the sun. but the waves will come and wash the SOS away and there is nothing i can do to turn back the tide.
and one day i will stop lighting these signal fires, stop arranging these letters. cast away these hopes, send them off into the sea on rickety rafts. i will lay my weary body beneath the sun and beg for release, for finality. i will give myself over to the bugs and the beasts, until i am one with the island itself, out in the middle of the ocean.
and maybe peace is not so much the light of a setting sun, but the reflection of moonshine scattered on the waters' surface. carried in to shore on wavering waves, trapped in the seafoam, receding as quickly as it rolls in. and you can dig your toes into the sand and bury yourself up to the elbows in the silt, but you would sooner filter a drop of ink from the ocean before you grasp it in your fingers.
when they find us, they will write it off as another natural disaster. tragic in our inevitability, they will pass us around as a cautionary tale, a warning on how to read the signs in sea shells and fish bones. the aftershocks will rumble beneath the earth, and they will gather around the gaping chasms left behind, shaking their heads and littering condolecences.
and maybe we'll never cup the moon in the palm of our hands, but i'll still smile when i remember the scent of the sea breeze, the salt caking on my skin. and from where we stand, looking down from the cliffs, you'll pet my cheek and lean in close, and tell me that peace might not come riding in on a tidal wave, but it leaves its little, lingering traces.
when you find me, for the last time, the wind off the sea will sweep us off our feet, and the salt on our skin will sparkle beneath the crescent moon. the waves lapping on the shores will beckon with the secret to saying goodbye, and what's left of my soul will wade out into the waters and heed their call.
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during yet another period of no contact
i miss you.
the idea of starting a piece off with those three words is almost embarrassing enough to make me want to abandon it entirely. but the details of your face are lost to a blank profile and warped memories and my messages go undelivered so i settle with lying here etching my thoughts over and over into bathroom tile.
how have you been?
the question feels as self-indulgent as it is perfunctory, and even as it lodges in my throat i can't help but think about how we were doomed by our greetings, by the time my eyes first met yours and i realised your crinkling smile was a maze i could spend the rest of my life wandering through. if i could muster the energy i'd get off this cold marble floor and crawl the million miles up to your window, just to bask in the slightest warmth of your half-asleep exhale. instead i lie here, struggling to breathe, not even enough strength in these bare bones to beat away this heavy, humid air that hangs between us.
i want to say –
so much has happened since the last time we spoke. this desire to know you, to reach out and touch you, to brush my hand against your tshirt as it flaps in the wind, breeze kicked up by your running feet as you disappear from me, your back distant as the full moon on a cloudy night. what's more inescapable -- you, or the weight of what you've left me with?
i feel like –
from this point of view, foetal on the shower floor, the mirror is devoid of my reflection, and somehow that emptiness feels far more accurate than anything i could come up with to describe how i feel, to describe the lack of feeling, to describe this lack, this lack of a description. i can't breathe in this air and my nails are raw from clawing at the walls, and this is it for me now, this is what's left, of my life, of the world, because when we said goodbye you walked out the door and i've gotten lost retracing your steps because you were the walkway, you were the staircase, you were the bright sunlight on green grass and the wind through my hair and the cars zooming past on the street far away and out of sight, you were the view from the upper deck of the bus, you were the distant specks of birds in the sky, and somewhere behind me there was a distant slamming, sealing shut.
and you might laugh but do you remember –
how we used to laugh at everything, at nothing, at the stupid shit we would say just to get a reaction out of each other. now all that's left of our conversations is this never-ending silence and my punctuation-mark sobs. but when you're summoned to the court that presides over all my trials there's no expert witness to test the salinity of the tears, no jury to be moved by the emotion, regardless of how genuine, and no judge to be impartial, so when the bailiff comes to cart me away there is nothing i can say, nothing i can choke out between shuddering snot and tightening lungs, nothing i can do to save myself from your damning eye-witness account. this sentence drags on for longer and longer and nowadays i can't see it as anything but a punishment. if this was nothing more than a crime of passion, then at least it would make sense why everything that comes out of my mouth sounds like an apology.
i love you. and maybe – maybe you could never get what you wanted, but you'll always have me.
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the salmon and their river
this season i am learning to let you flow through me, like silver fish in a sweeping stream. the only trace lies in darts and flashes, reflecting the light of a fresh sun. you flicker away beneath melting ice, and nothing but bubbles trail in your wake. branches hang low and light along the banks, and spots of green unfurl to welcome winged wanderers home. new melodies fill the air, and for once their notes spell out something other than your name. winter is a thawing dam, and spring is bursting forth.
but time stalks me on padded paws, and in its canine jaws i am but a crippled fawn. and before i know it, each season sets in on me in feral hunger, smearing crimson across my vision and blurring together like wolves in a pack. spring-summer-autumn-winter-spring, autumn-winter-spring-summer-autumn. four seasons and i find myself right back where i started. even in the blush of spring, autumn is just a season away. it beckons now in golden tones, and crisp leaves crunch beneath my feet. i stand beneath the weeping forest, and as ember-like tears brush against my skin, i wonder if i am looking forward or back.
my thoughts of you gather like salmon at the river mouth. soon the rains will fall, and the race will begin. hundreds of thousands of them, determined to make it through. against the current, against the predators, the salmon remain steadfast. they will make it through. no matter what tries to stop them. no matter what i do. they leap over white rapids, around coursing riverbends, and the cycle runs its course.
desperation comes in a mighty flood, waves beating down upon the fish. but these waters can do nothing to flush them out. choked by the crashing foam, the fish do all they can to keep going. beneath the torrent they are stripped of their scales, red bleeding into silver. spines contort, eyes bulge, fangs sharpen. unrecognisable in this great run, entirely other, entirely alien. total transformation, for the sole sake of survival. nothing left of who they once were.
did the monster always lie beneath your skin? or is this simply a trick of the light -- a distortion of the water? i must keep you at bay, must break out of this vicious cycle. i cannot allow you to fight your way upstream, to claim even more of me as your territory. i try to drown you out, and still you tread the water. but the further you get, the more you persevere, each time your monstrous maw breaks the surface -- as a river carves its banks, am i only carving a monster out of you?
this season, all that is left of us is blood on a bear's snout and tangled entrails staining the water. but soon the cycle finds completion. from river to ocean, i must allow you to flow once more. beast released, sinking beneath the waves. eventually autumn will fall upon us again, and these waters will birth new monstrosities. but for now, i watch the light glint off your scales, and cradle you downstream. back to the ocean, where you belong. where you will be free to wander, explore and grow. and one day, i hope, return.
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emptiness is a presence too
to crawl into a vacuum; shedding sight, smell, sense.
one last goodbye, what's one last goodbye?
Our goodbyes began from the first time we spoke. I hadn't known what it would mean then, when you first waved at me from across the road, and I watched you disappear through the rear window.
hunger can be filling too.
to be nothing, to choose nothing.
nothing as a choice. to want nothing.
Then there were days in the backseat, basking in your presence, my head on your shoulder and golden sun through the glass. Always fading, always setting. But what did we care? As long as the bus kept driving, you were all the warmth I needed.
indifference can be comforting too.
which is better – to be apathetic towards everything, or hurt for nothing?
The destination never changed. The bus stopped, and I got off first. Because home was waiting for me, and I couldn't be late. Couldn't let you carry me over the threshold, or even walk me to the door. Not when they were there all the while, waiting for me to come home. So all you could do was wave from across the road, watching as I disappeared through the rear window.
but what happens when the bus reaches your stop, and you get up to leave? do you cast one last glance at the rear window, and question when my absence grew so present?
can 'I don't know' be an answer too?
would you rather brutal honesty or blissful ignorance?
which do i have left to give?
as the door shuts and i am sealed away
am i standing within the vaccuum
or is the vaccuum within me?
love doesnt feel like emptiness,
it feels like being emptied.
the light dims reluctantly, whispering well-wishes and goodbyes. one last goodbye, and you will not turn back. silence is a farewell too.
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in those days
time slipped through hands like water, and no matter how many times i brought my cupped fingers to my lips, i was left with nothing but thirst.
if we were two boulders
sitting in a stream,
we would eventually find
ourselves eroded,
as water crashed
against us endlessly,
tiny bits and little pieces of ourselves
lost to rushing and rapids.
repetition, relentlessness,
just keeps coming, just keeps going.
even though we couldn't move,
two boulders, sitting in a stream,
stuck
firm and heavy to the riverbed,
even though we wouldn't be able to
swim against the tide,
tread the water
breathe
stretch our hands out to
each other.
eventually, after long enough,
we would find each other.
two boulders, broken down
tiniest bits and littlest pieces,
flowing along the same riverbanks, washed out
in the same open ocean.
they say a river, by definition, always flows to the sea. i hope what that means is that we will find each other.
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Exodus 20:3
when they greet me at the gates, i will tell them this:
i lived a life of pious devotion. i laid myself down upon the altar, and gave myself over to the fire. i clung to the promises of a deaf deity, and poured my trust into an empty glass. i scrubbed the dirt from every pore, clawed every last blemish from my skin. only the finest livestock is deemed a worthy sacrifice, and so i was bred from birth to bear this cross. purity drilled into my spine like a prophecy carved on bone, every reflex rigid with righteousness. i was offered up like mindless cattle, body nailed to the temple walls. i let them inscribe their scripture upon my skull, so that even as the high priest held his hand over my eyes, and his blade to my throat, i bowed my knees and bared my neck.
when they judge me for my sins, i will tell them this:
when my blood came spilling like ruby-red riches, it settled a debt not incurred by the work of my hands, but the want of my heart. that the sickest desire of my fallen flesh was to crave the warmth of your touch. that my worst sin was in loving you. and no matter the punishment, i will never repent.
when they condemn me to hell, i will tell them this:
i spent a lifetime on my knees. i prayed until incense became haze, until it clogged my throat and seeped into my lungs. i collapsed at marble feet, only to look up and meet a cold statue's empty gaze. and when i was nothing more than a sacrifice, bound and gagged, your forgiveness was the ritual knife that severed my bonds. after a life lived to be laid down, you lifted me into your arms. you took my hands and smoothed out my calluses. you caressed my wounds and stopped my bleeding. you whispered in my ear that there was no price to be paid. you weighed my heart in your hands and proclaimed my innocence. i looked into your eyes and for once, saw worth in my reflection. and as our lips met i tasted a purity that no sin could taint. after a lifetime on my knees, you helped me to stand.
if i could see you again, i would tell you:
i searched for God all my life. i was desperate for something to believe in, and eventually the only faith i had was in my own failures. and then i met you, and there was nothing left to find. for the first time, i had nothing to atone for. and now, you are the only religion i believe in. there is no afterlife that could compare to the life i lived with you.
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Genesis 2:24
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
In the name of God, I take you.
no Father escorts me down the aisle. our hands brush at the altar. your gaze locks on mine, and i know any objection, even by Son or Holy Spirit, is sacrilege against our holy matrimony.
the vows begin, and your words come sweet and tender, whetting my appetite. you take my hand and slip the ring on gently, bending to kiss the knuckle it sits upon. my eyes trail your lips even as you straighten once more. the priest continues, but there is only one sense i can pay attention to now. our mouths were made for so much more than just speaking.
To have and to hold, from this day forward.
we pledge ourselves to one another. longing sweeps into belonging as your arm slips around my waist and you pull me in. forehead to forehead, cheek to cheek. pressed so tightly together, not even your cologne can hang between us now.
mine. you are mine. we finally find one another, tongues intertwining. from this day forward. onward to eternity. your taste is divine, your aroma intoxicating. my first bite, and i already know my hunger will never be satisfied. bare teeth grazing skin, your blood like honey, dripping down my chin.
starvation takes control, and the feast begins in earnest. the breaking of bones one with the breaking of fasts. digging in with bare hands, fingers on fingers, piece by piece. you fill me entirely, the only delicacy i could eat for the rest of our lives. a coppery scent fills the chappel. and still my hunger begs. there is no pause for breath, no savouring your flavour. only this vicious, choking desperation. let me in your mind, let me crack open your skull and live on your thoughts. let me split apart your ribs and devour your heart. let me consume you, wholly, entirely, completely. before you, i am nothing more than a hound and its bone. yours is the only humanity left within me. you are all that can sustain me now.
this ceremony needs no witnesses. i strip you of your scarlet-stained suit and enshroud myself, your blazer my pall. but there are no corpses here. and when they come, all they will find is a skeleton, imprinted with teeth marks. because now, you are mine. to have and to hold, in my sulfuric depths. where brimstone and fire can never harm us.
In sickness and in health,
you are the pill i gulp down in feverish daze
the liquour that quiets the violence within
the warm meal at the end of these long days
grace i seek before i eat,
my prayers carved into your skin.
domestic bliss begins in the kitchen
and ends with us in bed
a mattress of soft dirt
a blanket of silken grass
a pillow for just one head.
just down the road, six feet under
twin headstones like double doors
one grave marked with your family name
not a single lily flower
Til death do us part.
Nothing will part us, ever again. Not in this union found, finally, one flesh in death.
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thoughts at the ramen store
no, i could never lose you in a crowd; i look for your face in everyone i meet. now, it doesnt matter how many people come over, how many hands i shake or names i exchange. these living, breathing rooms fill with guests and yet all i can see is the empty space where you should be.
a joke cracks and for a split second it's as though i can hear it coming from your own two lips. but as it reaches my face, suddenly all i can think about is how you once said i had a natural smile. i'd heard it and never wanted to stop smiling again. how fitting then, that it would be lost along with the rest of you.
i could find you anywhere. could recognise the beat of your footsteps in the echo between my ribs. could trace your silhouette with crimson ink. even with my eyes closed, your face is burned into my vision. now i stare at the sun and hope to go blind. i never realised what a curse familiarity could be. now, it weighs so heavily upon me that some days i can barely move. at the slightest provocation, it rears its ugly head and threatens to consume me. it recognises you in everything, in the cadence of a voice, in the hairs on a head, in the blink of an eye. i could find you anywhere; i couldn't stop myself if i wanted to.
i could never lose you. i could find you anywhere. i will never lose you. i cant find you now. i cant get rid of you. i shouldnt see you anymore. i dont want to lose you. i will never find you again.
these days, there is only one person i desire more than you. and when he comes for me, with his gleaming scythe and flowing black robes, i will be grateful that his arrival was more merciful than yours. when he lifts me in his skeletal hands and carries me away, maybe i will even smile again, and in this departure i will finally know peace.
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reckless driving
ii.
monday evening, time dripping like a leaky faucet. the roads feel clogged and we are a pipe dream about to burst. the engine idles. who knew a tunnel could feel so claustrophobic?
stuck in a car and the radio is dead silent
my body tenses further with every breath you take.
stuck in a jam and getting nowhere and the whole road is so god-damned full of cars -
stuck beside a boy who never learnt to drive,
reading outdated maps and taking wrong turns.
stuck with this shitty broken aircon in this sweltering metal box sweating my ass off and praying for a crash because at least that would involve some movement.
and i could get out and walk the rest of the way, but the seatbelt is like a noose around my neck and my shirt sticks to my skin and sticks to the seat and you're pounding, fists clenched like hammers against the dashboard, and if i could collapse myself into this seat i would, god. youre screaming now, your rage rattling the windows, but all i can think is thank god it isnt me, not yet, for now, thank god the car in front cant hear what you just yelled about its driver but thank god it isnt me.
hours drag themselves across the tarmac, skin melting and bodies bloodied and still i cower beside you in the car and i beg for a light somewhere to turn green so that we can go, go, go go go please lord let me go let me go. over and over the words stumble over themselves until i can feel them clawing at my tongue, scraping their nails down my teeth, biting into the soft flesh of my lips. and still the cars watch and wait, making no attempts at movement. for a moment it feels like all their headlights are trained on us and their horns blare deafening and vulgar and now it doesnt matter how hard i bang against the windows, the locks are on and you dont even need hands on the wheel of a car that isnt moving.
and then, a great hulk of steel roars onto the road like deus ex machine, and ive never been more grateful for a prayer to be answered, never received a vision clearer than through that windshield. i never met God until i saw him in that driver's seat.
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reckless driving
i.
thursday night, and time is dripping like a faucet not quite opened. the moon grins at us overhead and the day's sun has long since faded into the tarmac. the signs burst to life under our headlights, welcoming us with shimmering, metallic embrace. the road unfolds before us wide and clear, leading us on to some dazzling destination we've only heard of in our wildest dreams.
im in the passenger seat, turning the volume up, watching through the windshield as the world is illuminated in flashes of green. then it disappears, a fading blur in my periphery, left in our dust. youre in the driver's seat, foot on the pedal, hand on the wheel, and with the top down the air rushes in, as though it too is desperate for a brush of your hair. we turn towards each other as the music swells, and the glimmer in your eye is the brightest light on the road, the curve of your smile the only direction i need. the radio's crackling echoes and we are drenched in warm yellow lights as the tunnel unfurls beyond, eternal and everlasting.
and then the chorus hits and we're speeding, beyond the laws of state or science, launching into overdrive. the engine roars and our cheers fill out the perfect chord, our bodies as weightless as the breath erupting from our lungs. heat surges from our burning rubber, wind swirling through our hair. on and on we drive, no more red lights, no more stop signs, further and further and faster and faster, until our fingers meet and we are a single entity, pulsing and thrumming and tearing our way down this tunnel, nothing standing in our way.
racing through the night, the universe collapses into this single vehicle. we are a comet ablaze, tearing through space. and i never knew emptiness could be beautiful until i ventured out on these roads with you.
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celestial bodies
Let me be a celestial body. I’ve always been a little too obsessed with the stars, with their light, with their beauty. Let me escape the confines of this tight skin, the burden of this flesh. how willingly I would give myself over to gravity! How close I am to collapsing in on myself, how desperate I am to be nothing more than gas and dust. Let me hang suspended among the stars, another beacon among the heavenly hosts.
Let me be a celestial body. I've been told creation began with a single, resounding ‘Bang!’ and its consequences have been echoing through time since. Was it an accident? Did some great, big, infinite being drop His box of toys? Are we simply the scattered pieces left on the floor? How could it be that the entire universe was birthed from that singular bang? It seems just as unlikely that I will someday be grateful for the terrible coincidence that led to my formation, will escape the dissonance of the chord being struck within me. Maybe resolution only exists in theory.
Let me be a celestial body. I send my prayers up to the heavens above, wishing on every last star, every last pinprick of light. But even now I question whether they can hear me, all those lightyears away. How can I trust my wishes to make it through the atmosphere, across a distance so wide it can only be measured in time? What if no one in space can hear my screams? And even now, gazing at these stars, how can I trust that conspiratorial winking? How can I be sure that when I finally ascend they will still be there, waiting for me on the other side? How can I be sure that their lights have not yet faded out, just like mine?
I’m sick of squinting at the sky, wondering if there are any left. So let me be the celestial body.
Yes, let me be the celestial body. Enough of this desperate praying, these worthless sacrifices, this bloody altar. Enough waiting for an old, wisened god to fling my cold cadaver up into the sky, to scatter my dust in that empty vacuum, to turn me into another constellation no one else can interpret. I am an implosion waiting to happen, a ship careening through an asteroid belt. I am a set of lungs filling and the dark of space pouring into them. I am the black hole and I am the helpless mass it consumes.
Let me be the celestial body, and my light will finally make it straight through that dimension of time, finally fall on the followers, the believers down on Earth. I will be their guiding light. By my rising they will know the way they should go, and even as they fade into twilight, I will never set on them. I will be the Sun of Men, will never turn my back on those basking in my light. I will set myself ablaze just to warm another’s clasped hands.
Let me be the celestial body, so that when my time comes I go out in a supernova. Let me be radiant and beautiful, so the stargazers look up at me in awe. Let me capture their attention, captivate their imagination. Let me hear their prayers. Enough of this hollow, human shell. If my body must be given over to flame, let these ashes not be all that is left of me.
Let me be a celestial body, because I’m already all burnt up.
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