it is not yet the end.

for K who lives beneath the moon.

“Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end” (Patel)

 

Nothing is thicker than love. That molasses you drip into metal bowl for the cookies you make this time of year does not compare.

The sky drenched in fog that forgets you need a light to get to the end of the block and causes you to lose track of space is not even close.

The layers that live beneath our steps that go from hot to cold to hot to mold and matter and all those animals, still alive, that arrived centuries ago. All that rock and soil, still not thicker than love.

Try to push it back. Challenge your stamina. Force it into padlocked closets, so dark that it is difficult to remember what really lives there.

Remember that you do not need another human to help you to feel this. Go without coffee for five days. Then, wake. Pour water and watch the bubbles heat. Measure the grounds and rain it into french press. Drown in heat. Sit. Wait. Drink with oat milk. That feeling is love too.

Sit inside a home that although locked and warm, is thin enough to remind you of the sirens and screams outside. Unhook your restricted thoughts. Call everything a poem, even your screams. Even the gashes of tears that interrupt your face. Each cough or sneeze. Each twitch of bone. Poems. Love.

Put on your shoes at 4am. Admit that you are still asleep and you can call this an interruption of night. Fill your skin with fabrics that are heavy enough to fix your nudity. Walk outside. Not too far, but enough to get a perspective of sound. Admit it is colder than you desire. Wrap scarf from neck around head and ears. Look up. Yes, like that. You know this as moon, but call it something else. Just catalogue how its thrill makes you feel. Count enough stars to make you lose track of the chill. Do not photograph this. Do not tell anyone of this late night encounter. Just feel it. Breathe in this entrance of genderless satisfaction. This feeling is detached from politics or trauma. It just is.

Stay away from others for awhile. Or. Move toward the ones that remind you of all this.

It is not yet the end

corset.

 

“If you have to choose between something that has form and something that doesn’t, go for the one with form.”   –Haruki Murakami (Chance Traveler)
Her hips are hard like dinosaur bones. I thought about taking chisel to each side to see what fossils forged their way against her custom-made curves, but I was too nervous. And I had this apple weighing down right pocket and the night was cold and scarf was suddenly too feminine to fondle my neck so I shivered my way in. Slowly. Coffee can be consumed at all hours of the day and into night. Much like the moon, it gives off the scent of paused breath. So we swim tongues into cups of caffeinated evening before collapsing them into each other. The first time is like that moment you learn a new word. The syllables aren’t always stressed correctly and you stumble and you whisper it out. Bodies bake into new shapes when pressed against each other. Her skin is a liquid. And mine is a campsite of burns and bothers. So I dig out farmer’s market fruit. And I unravel the lies that tumbled out of mouth between 7 and 9pm and what would happen if we painted each other’s skin with the reluctance vibrating behind teeth. What color is this. What gender am I with you and how stunning that you make room for my blurry politics. Notice that fountain; someone sucked up all it’s water. I still may jump in because you never know what puddles hide beneath all this city beneath all this tremble.

 

if you see something say something

I am joined by the rats. They have relay races over rails, creating music with their teeth against candy wrappers. I watch them. I watch others watch them. We take secret bets as to which rats will make it past this day, this week. Which are the strong ones. The smart ones. One tears open a bag of chips that fell to its death from human’s hands and sharp teeth make a percussion sound as it nibbles and attacks.

When they scurry over our countertops or across rooms in apartments, we scream. Here, we accept them as long as they stay below where the tracks are. We are the voyeurs above. Feeling brave as their presence does not shake us. I give each one a name. Wonder about its family. Is it happy. Does it wonder about me.

A woman with black-and-grey newspaper skin, crumpled and delicate, spits out pieces of candy bar toward the rats. One bite for them one bite for her. Her spits are angry– less about sharing and more about target practice. She spills coffee toward the tracks– a determined splash. And I wonder if she wants to clean them with her caffeine or get them addicted like her. She takes a sip then spills again. As B train approaches at Dekalb station in Brooklyn, she throws the rest of her coffee toward the rats to drown them before the electric shocked subway arrives.

tell me how to live (part 2)

then, believe

notice that stains exist on coffee mugs like blots of art created from your lips and sips that never quite made it in

notice that the moon is resilient–an animal in the sky, curled up creature snoring out a radiant satellite

notice the way she carries your tears like Atlas and the whole world / your salt in her palms / an entire existence on his shoulders

notice the arrangement of scars on freckled body resembling the cuts in sky from airplane soar

notice the way your teeth bite into human interactions and the slow digestion of new friendships

notice how others smile once you do and how magnificent it feels to be noticed

sometimes you need to remember how to love

An early morning sky resembles a history of love. There is yellow like jaundice, a bit diseased or perhaps an attempt at pushing out the infection left by another. It rises out of yellow and presses itself into blue. Mixed with bleach. A streak of orange which symbolizes the one that was unexpected but got away. Went away. Can one file a missing person’s report if the misplaced one chose to walk out of view?

A new way to make coffee this morning with alternative saturation process (suggested by magical friend). First gulp–because sipping is never an option–reveals a smoothness similar to the hair of a past love. Fingers always slid through it like a blond waterslide.

I know how to love books, poetry, the color green that can be seen on grasshoppers. I always remember how to love music, even when the words are too loud or fast to be deciphered. I can lose myself in the blend of instruments or hum of a singer’s voice slipping away from throat.

I need to be reminded the direction of how to walk. I tend to step backwards. I stop reading a book 10 pages before the end. I don’t want to feel like it’s over. Like I have to move on. I don’t like to move on. Practice the art of wavering; it eliminates the mourning process.

I can stare at leaves for hours. Or, Autumn leaves. The ones which are like mood rings. Hold them long enough and they shift color. Some are striped. Some are curved at the ends. Some have holes or are ripped or without stems. Some are so big, they fall apart when picked up the wrong way. Some are too small; they go unnoticed. Leaves are like bodies.

Blame the ghosts. They claim too much of our attention. The ghosts stick to walls and hide in the corners where cobwebs grow. The ghosts steal our taste buds, scratch our eyes out, stick bombs in mouth to numb our appetites. The ghosts turn off our alarm clocks, lock our bedroom doors, throw shadows into window panes to scare away our ability to walk away.

the most beautiful boy in the room or contemplations over coffee and banana peel

Last night, I watched a body curve into more letters than the English alphabet has ever revealed.
Last night, I watched a boy’s body curve into a new breed of animal.
Last night, Whitney Houston slipped through the cracks of Brooklyn’s walls and gave this boy reason to move.

Rain rode alongside me and rain fell over me and rain took away partial sight to see my way home and rain carried me into bed and rain made love to me.

How beautiful is ink on a forearm or how haunting is a drunk man gathering up the language to weep or how revolting is a woman collecting (inconsistent) labels in order to climb her way to the top of earth.

Dog outside window barks for me/ sirens outside window churn for me/ squirrel outside window scavenges for me/ birds outside window sing hallelujah and hip-hop intonations for me.

*
i wanted to ask him to dance but my pants were too tight but i wanted to finish my drink but i was too shy to show my body but he was too magnificent to interrupt but but but–

hey,
I’m thinking of a word that rhymes with forbearance.
When you think of it, come find me and take me back to that lake, that cabin, that tent, your bedroom, that rooftop, that field of mosquitoes and dandelions, that alley, that porch swing, that backseat.

[ok]

meant to wake up feeling

find time.

find knots on tree trunk and climb. and kiss.

find woman.

find meal.

find theoretic explanation for where tongues and memory hide at night.

find breath.

find panic in chest and pursue concrete sidewalk like a lover and collapse.

find voice.

find nature.

find turtle colony near the water and weep.

find beauty in burnt heart.

find comfort in first cup of coffee.

find love.

find passport.

find meaning.

find freedom.

find self.

do you take fog in your coffee?

to risk death leads one closer to love

The tip of two noses pressed like grilled cheese into sandwich and a cold is brewing in the summertime.

How many minutes per day do you think about death.

How long before your jump is gathered into the air toward pile of cigarette corpses not thick enough to cushion spinal cord.

Mondays are meant to deliberate, masturbate, hurl suicide notes against pillowcase, dyed red from wet hair traveling into cotton fibers.

What does it matter that she loved you once or that you won that award or that they clapped after your last poem or that you got that degree or that you survived childhood and that late night walk when that man tried to slice your face open or that you asked her to marry you and she said yes but now it is just a blur.