Math is Hard

They say the earth is so quiet now

that it has risen itself from the dead

my chest is so still now

that I can finally hear a heartbeat

It’s been so long I didn’t recognize it

Thought it was the pounding of the fists

of all the words I swallowed instead of saying them to you

the rhythm of resentment and regret, fighting one another to the surface

war drums of the things you said to me that went right though my skin like bullets and planted themselves inside me like weeds, choking any happy memory of you, curling and crushing Polaroids of your face in the California sun

sixteen horsehooves pounding the road built of my backbone, four horsemen for each year I slept beside you, recalling the lightning storm between my teeth the first time you laid beside me

a long-conquered heart, memories riddled with the pox of knowing, a hungry ache between my legs- a white horse named for the day I began to die inside

A dying proclamation of the creature we once were. One born in the summer, under stars and streetlights in cities now barren.

A pair of small fists, a prisoner alone with your name scrawled on the wall 1,460 times

No, just a heartbeat. A solitary heartbeat, a sonar in the night, waiting to hear yours answer the call

A deafening silence, an agonizing pause that never ends. Just a single, solitary heartbeat.

The only one left in the world.

here’s the full comic written by highschoolers and the homies of YPAC, and drawn by me.  SROs are trash, I had bad experiences with mine when I did highschool. My mom issa teacher and she spends her own paycheck on supplies for her students cause the school is too busy pitching funds toward school cops who are negligent (at best) or escalate violence (at worst).

This collision

is a reaction

it’s electric and

synaptic

And it crackles

along your arms

down to mine

A repetition

of attraction

It’s supernatural

and I’m actually

not just along

For the ride

opening arguments in the front seat of your car

cross examining everything you said to me at the bar

Closing arguments echo off the buildings

As we fight on the way to the car

the way back to the car

our way back to the car

my back against the car

pressed up against the car

On the drive back to my place

you’re deep asleep in outer space

and the highways black as space

on the drive back to my place

This collision

and attraction

just pick me up

and tell me things

Vacation Rental in Skykomish,

WA. 16 miles from Stevens Pass.

Carlota & Sara

it’s a zipper pinch late Friday night

corset cinched one more inch

I don’t need to breath alright

How many drinks until

you think I’m as pretty as everyone else does

How many more shots

So you can blame the feelings on the buzz

it’s the booze talking

and holding my chin in your hand

it’s just the lighting

that puts your heart in your pants

and you can’t tell the difference

and you become your other you

I admit I look for him sometimes

when you say I smother you

when you’re cold and mean and dark

I try and find him, a familiar face and heart

but he’s buried so deep inside

only booze and sex can find him

a fleeting full moon midnight carriage ride

a daybreak coffin

Do not open

Dead inside

A vampire novel I’ve read so many times

I warn myself and repeat the rhymes

that this isn’t real, this is only make believe

your arm around me, hand in mine

Is only smoke and peppers ghost

and dirty barroom mirrors

One more shot until you love me

Two more blocks until you fuck me

Three words that you’ll take back

For the the fifth time, if were keeping track

but back to slurring, stumbling, back to hazy

hundredth time you’ve driven me so close to crazy

distracted teeth and tongues and lips

no better bedfellows than your hands and my hips

a heavy pulse rock, heavy yes, heavy maybe

anything to hear you call me ________

you sleep alone Im six feet under

I’ve dug myself in another

a plot, a row, a graveyard full

and wrists numb from scissors dull

You haven’t noticed I never say good night

when you’re sleeping next to me it’s only a matter of time

you get there first waiting for me in your sleep

And I join you as fast as I can, and meet you in my dream

where we are ghosts, haunting a battlefield, white dress, black coat, a sweet cold eternity

You wait in the trenches, or in a city red with memories

A waterfall inside a church, a bloodbath of our enemies

Your mother braids my hair tonight, while mine sews a dress of silver light

A bride fit for the fog that slips down past the tree line

A cathedral made of giants skulls and lined with silver feather pine

The children of your mountain ghost

A haunted winter northern coast

A cabin we share like little kids

A ceiling made of whales ribs

Bare feet rubbing together in the cold

if we hide in here, we will never get old

I’m sorry for waking you while you sleep

I’m sorry for burying my face so deep

And crawling up beneath you

a secret passage underneath you

To the cabin in our woods

to the city ruins that stood

above us as we sleep

my heart in your hand

for you to keep

I wrote this for the times you’ve lit up bright to bass. Your face alight with lyrics you felt you’d yourself would write. Right on the money right on the nose. Knows you inside and out

somehow the beat knows your soul.

We are at the light at third street. The red light and your eyes meet. And I have search for a pen so I can write this first piece.

It won’t always rhyme plus I’m no good at rhythm. So listen while I butcher your religion with my godless infliction

Oh baby, bear with me. Just bear with me and then we’ll get on with our night

It’s just I can’t help but notice this light that shines in you. It’s been ten years together and yet how you seem so brand new.

So familiar, so worn in like the lucky t shirt I stole from you. But still baited breath. On what youre gonna go do next. Waiting and wondering how you keep it so fresh. Like a first date heartbeat. A Saturday all-night back seat.

Shit I got ahead of myself again. I’m sorry but you know you mess with my head. You’re the source of at least half my crying and a good percent of my lying. How I pretend I’m not around just so you and I can skip town. Count down until the next breakdown. A shakedown where you hold my heart ransom. A handsome arrangement is all you’re asking. Tasking me with holding it all together. Keeping you together. Keeping me together. Keeping up your blood pressure.

But still I wait with baited breath. Honey you will be the death. Of me, of you, of us. Still a first date heartbeat. Stole your shirt and your bedsheets.

I see neighborhoods in our sleep at night. A home under the California sky. A mile in your smile to a corner apartment and both the kids in kindergarten. A rose garden and undergarments.

Forgotten drawings and 3 am yawning in your car while you blare the heat and the beat of a song that made you feel young. We keep each other young. We stay until the song is sung and our clothes become undone. How many years now have I seen our bodies disappear until the morning sun. And I smell your skin in the grey in the quiet in the sad. I pack it up and put it away in your bag and wait for you to wake.

Wait on baited breath. Honey let me catch my breath. My arms are tired and full of death. So I wear your sweater to hide the evidence. It’s irrelevant isn’t it. All that matters is you’re

waiting with baited breath. Baring down your mouth on my neck. Just like the first date heartbeat. Pounding like the rhythm of the song you played for me on 3rd street.

©️ one hundred stories down 2019

I keep trying to write about it

and just as the words get to my fingertips

instead of spilling out

they scream against the inside of my chest

and spring eternal in hot tears and cold sweat

and you sleep through all of it

How do you sleep through all of this?

How have you slept at all?