lazily counting down one hundred thousand words.
because writing's a craft, and i need the practice.
photos every now and then.
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prose | poetry | fiction | photography
I am the aneurysm to you
a wilting tulip in an empty kombucha bottle
that rains like it always does back in Jakarta
when the monsoons bleed through tin roofs
I am a bit over twenty-one years old
with a face that people should want to punch
that can’t turn towards oncoming traffic
while waiting to cross the street
I am an ape who sits and dreams
about silly things like walking out
while the cars are rushing past yellow.
It’s eleven and the sun is being dampened by a bout of mid-April showers. Beth and Karen are sitting at a cherrywood table on the second floor of a coffee shop, a few steps away from a screened window.
The rain cuts through it and covers nearby tables in a soft cloud that nudges against the creases of Beth’s brain. She was only halfway into sleeping off four Old Fashioned’s downed under low-hanging indigo lights. You can tell from how her hair tangles from a makeshift bun and her glasses drooping down a bridge of caking foundation. Karen, sitting across from her, takes her right middle finger and starts picking away at its nail polish with her left thumb.
“I said he was selfish and I said he was weak.” Karen’s left leg rattles under the table, the flat sole of her shoe flapping helplessly against her heel and the ground. It matches her cadence. “Because I sure as hell never considered calling it off, and I sure as shit didn’t put myself through the wringer.” The words fell out of her with half a stutter.
“After that, I wanted to leave but he grabbed my keys and said, ‘You know what? Think of the thousand more things you’d want to say to me and give me just one word of it.’” An apostrophe forms on the right side of her mouth. “So I called him a cunt.”
One of the last things my Dad did
was teach me my native tongue.
He said the word for my liver
is the same for my heart,
so I think if one’s this ravaged
then it’s okay to destroy the other
but when you twist around the syllables
of what to call a set of hands,
you’d get the word for being calm.
Every time I can’t sleep
because it’s raining like it does
back in Jakarta and I remember
that he’s just sitting in a box on a shelf
in Texas, my fingers start shaking,
and I start thinking you’re here,
dreamy with the promise that even then,
you’d still hold them close.
In the eighth grade
he was still afraid of thunder
but once he read that lightning
could shock through his pipes
and leave the bathwater stagnant
with his body, he feared that instead.
I could never kiss that boy
without wanting to bite off his lips.
My tongue always felt foreign
pushing through his aching teeth,
they’re a tin roof chattering
as the rain picks up.
On St. Patrick’s Day, next to you
barely wrapped in cotton and down, I wake up
in a pool of sweat shaped like the birthmark
staining the back of my crooked right leg.
I become more conscious of my stomach
when I look over to check your breathing.
You’re not quite asleep, opening your eyes
just to watch the nightstand stumble.
“The daffodils always bloom on St. Patrick’s Day,”
you slur, “even on that hill, with the view.”
Your heater starts clicking through the dark
and I’m sure you notice me sneaking outside.
I sit in arrhythmic silence on the fire escape
for maybe three or four minutes,
when I’m back you’re a bit more asleep
sighing, “Even on that hill, with the view,
and all those dingy little houseboats
christened by the Puget Sound.”
Maybe I’ll start showering
behind a frozen sidewalk of tile and
a soggy shore, your bathmat,
and wipe my face with your towel
that always leaves blue fuzz on my cheeks.
Maybe I’ll dress myself with the blinds open,
peeling what’s left of your hair that’s sewn
itself into to the arms of my sweaters.
Maybe tomorrow morning
I’ll wake up in the difference of you.
For now I catch blinks of you across the table
drinking coffee, cooking my eggs
over easy, eating a plate of grits
doused with salt and pepper
with a strip of bacon and a slice of toast.
For now I ask myself if my brain is stuck
in eastern time or if it could fry
like yours did. All of a sudden, last night.
For now I ask myself if the keys are still with you
as I’m locking the front door.
