"Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never one beautiful, it was just red." - Kait Rokowski

I wanna make poetry out of the way the boy who was my first grade best friend

there are years to work out the kinks.

my hands buzzing and my tongue stuck to the back of rusty teeth, i scream to write in an unmarked

language.

but spit wets the page instead.

i want to communicate by destroying our common language.

you are

one of the more lovelier sounds.

i find these days,

i can replicate you if i close my ears enough:

the clash of my spoon with the ice cream bowl,

the kiss my lighter leaves on the body of a candle,

The day I fell out of love with my body—

my capsule,

my shrine—

weakness gnawed away at the palms of my hands,

dissatisfaction consumed my waist,

and comfort withered away like the skin I picked at

day

and night.

I.

My lover is strong for a reason.

I was teasing her neck and giggled when she flipped me

  “play fighting”

hit flat on my back, seeing stars in broad daylight on the lawn

of the private school she would get kicked out of.

The sculptor unveiled a block

A block of marble bought with the

Cents, dollars, kept under lock

Kept under a lock and key.

The sculptor went home again

while rain and lightning poured from skies

Stepped upon the midnight train,

I have wondered why my body

looks the way it does in the sun.

Brow bone glittering, sweat

tricking like the last swill of water

down a glass, blood circulating

like clockwork, a gear so visceral

and rooted in its own

Was it the way the leaves fell,

streamlined, as I burst

bawling onto greenery,



or the first time sunlight peeked

through dark branches overhead—



or the reddish-purple skin

stretched over my sleeping body,

Let the Rain Keep Falling

O birthplace rain     I take what I can from

your mouth,    delivering myself

             from spring seeds,

wetting my tongue

One

It’s half past eleven, so

we find an epileptic street light & swap sweat

before I put my hands in your pockets &

tell you I feel like I’m in Riyadh with a roughcast of redsand on my tongue and camel skin beneath my feet

The deciding factor in

whether or not I’d breach the boundary between binaries

was a gender neutral bathroom sign.

I heard someone belt a show tune in the shower while

another howled. Someone else took off their jeans, stuffed

I will liken the heavy clouds that pass over my land to grey matter

              before my body remembers the practicality of pain

Today I pulled

my grandmother’s body

from the mouth of the river,

unpeeled milkflowers and seawater

from her hair, and knelt over her

the way we bend over our own reflections:

to drink.

Nainai, ni ren shi wo me?*

True silence isn't sealed lips

it's unread texts, deleted history

it's a phone that someone never picks up

The line the dead girl's parents still pay for

even though there is no one to answer it.

the principal is adamant on thoughts

I tried on a mermaid dress the other day, and waddled two steps before stripping it off;

I saw how it snagged on my hips and clutched at my chest,

first; to detect a charlatan, check pulse.

             is it too fast? then it’s a fake.

                          body too fat? a fake.

You walked into class two minutes late.

I noticed immediately; you were freshly shaved.

From the top of your sideburns all the way down. You had a baby face.

You looked the same as the day we met, back in the sixth grade, when we were full of optimism.

i have never loved another in the way i have found myself to love you.

i have loved you the way the sun loves the dandelions

and the way the tides love the moon.

i simply cannot imagine a world where we didn’t save one another.

The cold gross floors

Stomp, stomp, stomp

Black tiny spaces

In shoes that stink

Im confined for hours upon hours

The rigid concrete tears holes in me

get lost in the bed sheets

The first time someone called me fat was in the 1st grade.

I have always been chubby, and I knew it.

Moreover, people around me never let me forget it.

The hollow shadow of my figure beckoned my insecurities.

My reflection swallows round my eyes like twisted hair beads and pink oil

while the mirror leaks a frightening truth

that I go mad to.

I hold the wishing in my fingers

drenched in castor, tea tree, and peppermint

my scalp only blooms red

What is a body but a cardboard box

smoothed over with wrapping paper?

A shiny exterior that beckons eager eyes,

and a sheen spiral of store-bought ribbon.

she rocks on a satin sea

her crossbow jawline aimed upward

trained on the sun.

she shoots, trying to make

the sun sink to her,

make it fall

in love with her.

there’s a galaxy, all ink and stars, that spins below your collarbone, 

and i can’t help but wonder who drew it:

did they see you as i see you? did they mean it to remind me

of the truth that other hands have gone where mine just dream they’ve been?

The blood drips down my thighs in fighting harmonies.

Disagreeing on the weight in which to debilitate me, its desire to hurt me.

My body clenches, a shooting pain transforms me.

Demanding to immobilize me.

she could’ve found

anyone, I know, the boys

who promised her better in the

beginning would be

baffled if they

knew because she

didn’t choose

anyone (she chose me)

It wasn’t until I

could feel the wind

kissing my hand,

arm hanging out of

your old rusty van

that I realized that

I have a purpose

even if that purpose is purely

letting other people know

that sometimes

I.

If we could be quiet in the small spaces,

maybe they would make excuses for us.

Our bodies, forgiven only once in a while.

We look in the mirror, see dualities of ourselves

and ask them to break. I like the glass between us.

i have my father’s temper, my father’s eyes.

i keep my bloody birthrights in a clear glass jar.

all the things i’ve laid claim to with my mother’s fingers;

long, pale, five on each hand, like real people have.