so we beat on.

one thing i'll do as a teacher is i will draw on the board when i'm alone.

the highlights in my novels always forming poetry.

it suddenly occurred to me

that i never wanted to leave;

there was something,

it glided through the air—once—far—

and i thought i wanted to chase that shangri-la,

but i have no wind in my lungs,

i wanted to stop—asked god—

if i could, and what it would cost.

“i thought you wanted to be happy,”

he said to me.

but, i didn't want to get lost.

i wanted to be happy,

yet i looked fresh out a cemetery,

but i know nothing, so maybe i was.

it used to be ours — the whole universe — but i didn't know that. i didn't know the time i wasted like wine spilling over my dress, dazed and smiling, was the time your hand was around mine. i wasn't looking. your eyes were turning volatile and i wasn't looking. your fingers were orbiting mine, not quite touching, and i thought nothing could sever this.

so i never told you i loved you, but i should have. now i dream of saying it to you in different ways on days already behind or ones that are not mine, and it bothers me that the need to say it persists even when new hands reach for my hand. i still wish for it.

if only you knew how often i did. all these charged afternoons and long evenings on the streets – were the last time i'd see you without trying to. i can't dream of it now, and i walk on the pavement alone. your voice is distant in the hallways upstairs, and i understand. why wouldn't i?

yet the spirit wanders

if the body's dead.

i've been saying this to myself, collecting our memories in my journal for when we get old and i forget. the spirit will wander on my side of the earth. my love for you is not whole, but it's true. i'll reread what you wrote me, tell myself what you told me like a prayer, play all the songs, and the sun you moved for me will rise again.

because the spirit wanders

if the body's dead,

if not love —

the spectre of it.

.......

(i have to tell you something, when can i see you again?)

11 june 2025.

grieving.

i tire;

i tire;

i tire;

i write you letters

until i fall

down,

down,

down,

into a black hole,

and it opens into my dreams

like a wound,

infecting my mind, body, and soul,

i know the show must go on,

but i need your hand in mine when i sleep like your heart needs a beat,

so when can you take me home?

29 march 2025.

wouldn't a flâneur like yourself possess an ebb-and-flow yen for the stars?

without the glazing bars — i mean.

the lighthouse you chose is warm,

but there's a vastness outside your walls.

turn the lantern off,

look out at the waters,

why are you only ever looking out for the martyrs?

they're all siren calls.

i'll gather you long-sleeved and short-sleeved clothes from the drawers

while you lace your thoughts and shoes

and wait for me by the door;

the water ebbs and flows --

it ebbs and flows ---

we don't have to be fugitives anymore;

lovers underneath the pomegranate trees.

lovers underneath the pomegranate trees.

the clairvoyance-tinged future feeling you give me hangs in the air like a dry wreath. it may not look like it's having its best days, but it will have lots of them, like the romantics' song:—

“odours, when sweet violets sicken,

live within the sense they quicken.

rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

are heaped for the belovèd's bed;”

if your golden light leans in

close to my touch

it spills down my neck and i falter like a wallflower.

you're close,

but you're still the image of the future.

— i resent the world.

i've not changed my mind about that,

but — i drink up your words,

and i soften like water in a daisy's mouth.

you drink mine,

and you're familiar with my sad stories,

little childlike patterns,

big dreams,

young songs in the kitchen,

and lingering obsessions,

the nighttime, a certain romance, and sylvia,

the delicacies in the heart of asia,

the quiet in a battering day

- march, july, august -

not wanting to explain.

and i want more of you on me

like sticky summer air and heat

the one you can't scrub away.

and if i hadn't known you,

i would have missed you all the same.

now the once-bright leaves are sleeping beneath the earth,

and after the fall,

there's no choice but to look up.

11 august 2023.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning-- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

i painted gatsby because the last paragraph has a substantial weight to me no matter how many times i've read that novel. believing in my dreams is a constant state that seeps through every thought i have. that's the way my dreams swallow me whole the way they did gatsby.

the future i dream up, sometimes kinda feels orgastic. could be transient and touch-and-go.

but just like the novel doesn't end on a note of despair, my dreams persist for some reason. i think we all have a jay gatsby inside of us.

i want to love you

and let you love me but —

away from the stages,

in a quiet back room,

without an occasion,

don't like the crowds

and their city-hall gazes,

i'm so afraid

of the men with loaded guns

hung on their waists

and their hands red with blood,

and the old women

with eyes like needles

clutching your necktie

knotting it harder

round your glowing skin.

i want to love you

and let you love me

when the song of the village sings,

when every night you whisper

“buona notte, bella.”

14 july 2024.

a gavel for a heartbeat,

but paradise is lost —

i don't see much higher than five feet

— but i have to lock pandora's box.

if at last, i get an idyllic cabin

sheltered in the clouds

with a magic circle of grass,

i fancy an oven, strawberries,

and an enchanted little dress

that changes color as days pass.

i fantasize about a boyfriend, yes,

but never want him in the flesh;

won't let him cross my circle

and break the spine of my plans.

i want a friendship — holy —

dried flowers, candles, and nine cats.

oil pastel stains on my carpet

and rose gold glitter on my hands.

i want to see the angels,

sit at the door at night,

talking to blessed mary,

and — this time,

you don't have to choose me,

i don't want you to be my mother,

i want you to be happy.