#corbinposting

6.29.23 // 1:13 am

and caught between the lines of being busy is the blank space void of craving what isn't there, filled with journal notes and scribbled statics equations that erase what was once there.

electricity and these calls are stupid fragile invasive capitalist forms of replacing human connection and i perish with every word

i swallow every picture i don't send every moment i can't share

fully convinced that dementia is a blessing so old people don't kill themselves from the utter weight and pain of knowledge because to wake up every day fully aware of all you have loved and lost must break you again and again and again.

fully convinced that in an ideal world, people affected by dementia wander away from their tribe and get picked off by predators, finding a merciful end and providing nutrition + fuel back into their habitat.

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8.18.23 // for sam who passed 6.21.23

farewell.

boy with the easy laugh tossed out through white teeth. boy with the fluffy curly hair like wind-strewn bird's nests. boy with the blue grey eyes where the sea meets the sky like he loves so dearly. to the artist's hands, the bartender's hands, strong and sure. to pow! finger guns and the fierce and the wild and the no such thing as too far or too fast. this world was not good enough to hold you contained.

rest easy.

forever somewhere is the long night. the sky is black and the stars are bright. we laugh together: you, your best friend, her boyfriend, their dog, my boyfriend, and i. lost in the jokes and the drinks, crashing my mario kart into hopeless ditches, i know from across the room that you are a good man from the way your eyes light up and your words pass across your tongue. like molten gold, like sunsets, you hold them and taste them and know their worth. your best friend, she tells me you might move down here, from canada to california. maybe we can see each other again; maybe we can do this again in the future. i give you the name of my favorite bartender youtube channel. it is the first and last time i meet you.

shine bright.

the bottle in your hands as you pour that night. tequila in ice. juiced lemon. shaken. i watch you make it just right. you can barely taste the alcohol. i will tell anyone who listens that it was the best drink i've ever had. i will wish when i see the news that i had a bottle to pour for you. i will mourn the loss of what could've been but is not. for now i just laugh, a happy haze descending on another simple, fun night.

you will be missed.

though i did not know you well, i still feel your loss intimately. you are an absence where once there was solid, immovable rock, an altercation in the familiar places. sometimes i still fail to resign imagination to reality. when i click on your instagram profile, i almost start to message you. i wish i'd done more, reached out, tried to know you before i would never be able to know you again. i hope you are at peace. i hope this, whatever this is, means something. i wanted to give you something so i write the words for you. i want you to know that it mattered, no matter how briefly. i hope you know how deeply you are loved and how beautiful your mark on the world is.

goodbye.

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8/19/23

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9.20.23 // inspired by reyn

10/3/23

you make me so happy that i cried last night. my heart fought against my ribcage like a trapped bird daring to take flight, and it beat itself stubbornly against my bonewire birdcage body until viscuous red blood spilled down the front of my chest. the last time i tripped and fell down the rabbit hole, wonderland mended my broken pieces and then spat my body rudely back up into the real world, leaving me alone and trembling, mended yet bruised once more. every time, every iteration, i tell myself i wont fall and do it anyways. dont love, dear heart, dont hope. they always leave me colder and more alone for the memory of warmth and company. nothing has ever made me feel so unhomed. yet here you are, daring to call me into flight again. we've made no promises but the words we've spoken hang loosely in the air like slow spinning stars, like morning dewdrops on cobweb, beautiful and lovely and luring me into a trap. you're dangerous, we say, you're a frat boy; joking or acknowledging i never know. you tell me im dangerous too, not knowing how badly ive needed to hear that, how madly i love you for saying it. because when im scared of being hurt, it is everything to find myself capable of hurting, too.

let's start a fire, a bonfire that reaches for the high domed sky with its searching fingers to put out the sparkling starlight. maybe ill stop burning alive thinking of you and finally start to die if i can breathe oxygen into flames, inhale smoke into my lungs. let's watch the stars and ill play guitar pretending the strings dont lunge for my fingertips in snappy, jealous bites, remembering every other person ive played a song for in joy and sorrow, happiness and grief. you have a lighter and it makes me think how we are so enamored with fire that we carry them in little pocket-sized cases, unafraid to burn, how we carry fire like a companion to talk to and play with on a rainy night, how we perform with fire and cast warmth with fire and cook with fire and light twin cigarettes with fire and stare into firefight entranced until every other detail of life is lost in the dancing flames. i think of you flicking the switch of a lighter, and i think of my spotify profile with the boy flicking the switch of a lighter, and i fall asleep to your voice in my head calling out "pyro" like im yours and only yours.

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1/11/23

ask me to things, and i say no. the way you respond i can tell you're annoyed. no i'm not going clubbing with the frat, no i'm not coming to smoke. bail on the weekends, claim i'm busy on the weekdays. (most of the time, though, i don't need to. you're always too busy for me anyways.) every time you mention the frat i feel like i'm facing an opponent and i run the other way, terrified. and why shouldn't i? those are not my people, and you, my boyfriend, prioritize them over me. i'm okay with that (swallow down bitterness with the truth of it, the way we talked it over fall quarter), but how dare you get annoyed at me for not joining your lifestyle or not hanging out with your frat? all the shit i put up with from you, because your choice your life, yet you offer me none of the same compassion. "i need to get you into drugs," you said. why?

pretend pretend pretend you do not hurt me. pretend pretend pretend, as you put your arms around me kiss me say "i'm sorry" as you come back, your friends giggling because you fake-kissed the delivery person. "i didn't do anything!" you say, still laughing. and you and your many boyfriends. "i'm homiesexual." "jorge finished me off." "i'm going to make out with max tonight." i laugh, but at a certain point, the jokes get repetitive and annoying. and you seem to have no problem making them after fucking me. you seem to think that being straight gives you a pass every time you make gay jokes. i love you i love you i love you, we are sacred, words like poison spilling out of your mouth. you are unbelievable. "i'm sorry." no you're not. "it's just funny." to who? i watch paris cuddle with her boyfriend and feel a twinge of jealousy at how they team up, how he listens to her, how she whispers in his ear. we never do that.

i've given up asking you to magic or steel bridge. given up asking you, staring across the room at brody, texting darryl more than i want to, feeling more myself around jason than you, trying not to stare at the blue-haired boy in my calc class. i try not to wonder at how other people make more space and time for me than you. i think about breaking up with you more often than i think about dating you. i hate myself for it, hate you more, wake up sweating from a dream about cheating on you just for the sake of hurting you the way i'm hurting. the guilt washes away more quickly than the lingering desire for someone else. the way you hurt me, unintentionally, and will never know you do because i will never tell you. because selflessly, i will never make you choose me over anything. i'm not a pushover. i have boundaries. but i live with the consequences, including your irritability and frustration. you inspire my anger.

we are fine on the surface. we have no issues, right? no arguments. "communicate. please." i don't want to. "it's irrational"... you forget yourself. tell me that again, walking home alone late at night because someone you trusted was too inebriated, left you in the corner, got handsy with some girl upstairs. tell me that again, with 9 inches removed from your height and at half your strength. you should know all too well how men can change faces. everyone knows their frat bros like family until one of them rapes a girl. "we don't do that shit" and "he would never do that" and "i know him, that's just not him" comes out the mouth of every goddamn boy i've met. you think you're so different? god, for the person you are, you can still be so naïve sometimes.

have fun, is all i can tell you. stay safe. because i want you to come home to me, at the end of the day. because i love you, so much so that it takes over my body like the blood washing through my veins. and i can never stay mad at you, as much as i want to. i can never let go of you, even when i dream about it. i put up with it all- "you're going to have to come to the frat house to visit me this quarter" and "i want to see you even if we're just studying together." i could be hanging out with someone else. i'd probably be having more fun, doing something i actually enjoy. instead, i see you on your schedule and not mine. i do what you want to and am out of ideas when you ask me what i want, because i already know you don't have the patience for lying still on the grass next to me, staring at the sunset. i would do that with someone else. maybe i will. maybe i already have.

the point is, i have no problem doing what i enjoy with other people and not trying to drag you into it. but your disappointment and irritation at me when i ask you to do the same hurts. i already try, babe, can't you see that? i went to the party. i'm coming to visit you at the frat house if you want. i would be down to hang out with the frat if it was nearby, say hi to them when you talk to them in the dining hall. why are you still so frustrated at me? why do you ask more from me? when i am already trying my best, why is it not enough? i never ask more from you.

last night i wrote about wanting to spend my birthday in privacy with you. i wrote about how much i miss you and love spending time with you. i wrote about the second time we met up, how i got butterflies looking up into your eyes. but in daylight, analyzing your reaction as i decline yet another invitation, i'm starting to feel like maybe i want to spend my birthday with someone else. darryl, or jason, or somebody. someone who has asked me to hang out on my time and enjoys it. someone who could lay in the grass and stare at the sunset with me. someone who dances on street corners when i do, touches glowing lights like me, interacts with my shadow and takes interest in what i do. yes, someone like darryl and not you.

i don't know yet. i feel at the precipice of some breakthrough, and i refuse to make it yet because i want to enjoy the idea of you, stunning and perfect, a little bit longer. i told you that the guys i hang out with aren't threats to you. and i mean it. i don't feel anything like what i feel for you around them. but sometimes, they are the only people i feel like i can be anything close to myself around. sometimes, they are my only escape from you.

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1/14/23

when we tumble we fall. like leaves, like lightning striking ground in angry messy petty thunderstorms. you called yourself a child of ares, then changed your mind and said you'd be a child of zeus. you could not see yourself in anger and warfare forever. i agreed. i did not think i could live a life with someone so full of rage and temper.

you claimed i'd be a child of aphrodite, because i love you so selflessly, and then changed your mind and said i was apollo's, for my multifaceted life, for my many interests, and most of all, for my poetry and healing. you know me so well, i said, and laughed in the rain. you slipped your hand into mine.

it is with long paragraphs texted in the middle of the night that you wound me so, and yet it is with still more, still longer paragraphs sent just before dawn that heal me so fully inside. we get mad at each other easily when we are insecure and uncertain. yet we always seem to explain ourselves and slowly, word by word, intention by careful intention, we undo the behaviors we once survived on. i can only hope that, as i give you compassion, you offer me the same. i can only hope we both offer the benefit of the doubt, as one must in a trusting relationship.

because i am sick and tired of "they left me on seen/read for [...]" and because i don't like hearing about people going on dates. is that okay? because i'd rather spend just one more night with you, with your body curled around mine, with my back crushed against the wall and your hands tucking blankets under my chin. when you leave me on seen i want to close my eyes and count to five, send a heart and then leave instagram off for three hours while i work. i want to check back and smile because you messaged even while you were busy. and i want you to check back and smile because i messaged even while i was busy. to smile because i remembered to text you back after i left you on seen after opening your message in class.

see how this is, this benefit of the doubt thing? when we suspect nothing, overthink nothing? it is how a healthy relationship should be. it is the hardest thing in the world.

when you joke about your friends giving you head i want to laugh. i never tell you to stop and i know i should because it does hurt, but i also never want you to stop. in a twisted way, i like how it stings.

when you joke about being okay without me, i wonder if there's an inkling of truth in that. but then, in a moment of vulnerability, you make it known to me how earthshattering a breakup would be. maybe it's the rarity of your authenticity, but when you text like that, i remember everything. from the first moonlight night to the sunlight streaming through your bedroom window across our naked bodies.

it's all going to be okay. child of zeus, as every storm serves a purpose, does every storm pass in time. child of apollo, share beauty with the world. maybe then, people will look around them with compassion in open hearts and shining eyes. for "poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." and isn't it so poetic, so beautiful, so lovely? that two human beings, not demigods, stand hand in hand? two fragile mortals, blinking and breathing steam, look out into the pouring rain and see eternity together.

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3.7.23

if the universe can be infinite will my love last long? can i hold you close? we're spinning off the axis of my heart you are gravity, i am space debris

if you lose me you might never love again you said it like a cataclysmic end

so if time still flows, let it end my dear i would sooner kill, if you disappear lose my sense of self, let my dreams all die there exists no me, only you & i

you don't want to ponder the thought a life worth living can't be lived without and when people ask how i found a lover and when people say they're surprised by me all i know is we were made to last no fragility, no sparks gone too fast we were forged from fire we were born from stars

if i step in front of a speeding car if i take a drink, if i get too high if i step in front of a speeding car is mortality such a fragile thing? could i live to say that i was saved by love?

you hold me up before i fall a guardrail between me and the earth your hand gripped tight, jacket on my back your breath comes fast, you don't believe that

i will last

so i don't take the tumble and i don't survive with you i'm fully living my life so i stay on the sidewalk, i don't run too fast and the stars above me start to laugh

i am human born and i am mortal true i have a lighter in a shade of blue i hold you tight, a secret woven through my veins and if i start to bleed, let it not be in vain

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3.19.23

"i fell in love again. we were laying in the park at 1am. you lay my jacket on the grass. at one point u slapped my ass."

i still remember. these flashbacks. like how the night was dark and the trees began to spin and i could see the car lights sweeping past your face. and it was like i could do anything.

ok, 39. you're looking far from pure these days.

we're wild and beautiful and free. and i'm so deep in love. remember cuddling with you on your bed and watching movies and how you wake up and turn on your side to wrap an arm around me. i love falling asleep like that against you. so safe. so protected. so loved.

when you text i'm not obsessed, i'm just happy. i hate being awake when you're not. living without you hurts.

i hope i look back in months or years and feel nothing but bliss. see how our relationship has evolved and love you all the more fiercely. i hope we're together forever. cuz you're my whole life rn baby.

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3.20.23

oh how lovely to be dreaming of you~

if i could make a coffee or a tea with your essence in the brew, i'd drink it every moment every day. so i can always have a part of you.

it's 1:31 am. feels late when i don't have you. the night grows younger when you're here, time spinning backwards. the dawn breaks through, shattering my illusion. once i stayed up so late the sky started to lighten. terrible, how terrible, the things that happen when i'm alone. once i fell asleep against your body at 3:37 am. and in no time at all i blinked awake to sunshine, morning light, white walls and the blue of your eyes. how beautiful to be waking up next to you. how loved, when you only have eyes for me.

you deserve simple cliches and your favorite things. bouquets of roses (red and white), handwritten notes, chocolates and oreos. you deserve "i love you"s every day, "this reminded me of you"s, funny videos and dog memes and doodles. to be loved like you are everything. because you are everything to me.

i can't fall asleep. so i'll lay in bed staring at my wall in the darkness, thinking of you. my hands clutch the plush cat you gave me for my birthday. it's been exactly 2 months since you gave him to me. so i can feel you near, even when we are apart. nothing will ever be enough. but as the drowsiness creeps in, like betrayal, the cat keeps me tethered to the thought of you. as i sink, i fall. i hope it's you i fall into. i hope it's love.

i hope it's forever.

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3.31.23 / 4.2.23 / 4.3.23

fireball whiskey, hot cinnamon burn in the back of my throat. the light on the ceiling spins and blurs; vertigo. i close my eyes. my body moves on its own accord, floating, falling, carried. up stairs, my mind pitching in the dark as on a ship deck, every step a rocking motion, every rock pummeling against my pounding head.

there is love in the arms that carry me, in the hands that brush my thigh. love in the gentle kisses in my hair, cold wash of raindrops.

cold white porcelain, the creeping awareness of my body shaking against two arms that hold me tight. the wretchedness of the scene, me retching in some college dorm bathroom. the hundreds of students who came before me and the hundreds who have not yet arrived. there is calm in the sickness, understanding in the tremors, knowingness in the voice that tells me "you're going to be okay." there is love in the hand that passes me cups of water and wipes my face.

dazed, doze off. when it all stops, i fall deep down into unawareness, the abyss, the void. unknowing cocoons me in warm nothingness. conscience is raw sense: cold, sadness, fear, nausea. overcome by the tightening of arms around me, someone who draws me close. there is love in the strength of that hold, in the warmth of another body sharing the bed. love in a chest, a heartbeat against my ear. love, so full and overwhelming, drives away the hurt. in its place, a soothing peace. and how did i not realize? i've been happy all along.

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...the same |

i feel a little nauseous when i drink oj or sprite now cuz of the phantom taste of mixed drinks in my mouth i strap on some heeled boots and a pretty girl's little black dress cling onto you cuz i know no one else, god, how am i in this mess?

your stupid friends my stupid hands on your stupid neck pass out in bed get drunk forget i'm a nervous wreck

every party feels the same blurry mess i don't know their name and what if i never came? would i still be your flame? would you love me the same? the same.

i wake up for my 8am, realize i'm in your arms morning light, ocean eyes, and guitar from my alarm i pull myself together just enough so i don't cry you wake up just to say "i love you" & i hope that you don't lie

your stupid friends my stupid hands on your stupid neck pass out in bed get drunk forget i'm a nervous wreck

every party feels the same blurry mess i don't know their name and what if i never came? would i still be your flame? would you love me the same? the same.

if the frat was your lifeline and i never called you mine would you love me the same?

the same.

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4/8/23

your kisses linger, bandaids to the slights you left like papercuts against my skin. healing a wound takes time but you love me, hate me; "you're mine" is the taste on your tongue as you whisper in my ear, before you turn around to cuddle some guy. i pretend not to notice when you move close but don't really kiss him. why does the other guy always pull back first? there's a knife in your hand, and it hovers at my throat. a trail of microcuts across my neck, teeth in the hickeys you leave.

am i jealous? maybe. i don't know. i wish you showed me the affection you show them in public. i wish you touched my body less and hugged me more, medicine for the soul and warm soup and sunset dates over the nights i spend in your room in your frat's house, fucking you and staring out the window and wondering why it feels just a little bit like a cage. i wish you asked if i wanted a condom every time you fuck me instead of just telling me you're going to hit it raw. i wish you held me after it's over and kept calling me brave. i wish you looked at me more than you look at your phone after i come over, wish you told me when you have plans with friends so i can leave leave leave... gone with the wind like tree leaves, my love a fragrance you lose when you forget to spray it after a few days.

and i wish you held me every night the way you held me the night i threw up, or the nights that i cried in your arms. because baby i'm not addicted to the alcohol, or the high. i'm addicted to you. i'm addicted to the version of you that loves the fucked up versions of me.

i hate your shadow in front of me but i hated it more when i turned around and your shadow pulled further and further away as my feet brought me to some bathroom to cry. i hated your hand on my shoulder and i hated it more that you let go when all i wanted was for you to pull me closer. i hated "why don't you just go to class?" the same way i hated when my mom pulled over on the side of the road and told me to get out of her car and i walked away from you the same way i walked down the road towards the hills, praying in intervals that the wolves would and wouldn't eat me alive.

i don't want to love you like this when you drift further and further away. like a battery with a broken charger, i come back to you even though i can never have all of you, stay in your arms even as the voltage fizzles out and my circuits short and i lose my mind pretending like everything is okay.

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4/14/23

you said i'm not worth anything so i walked right out your life and it's funny how things have changed smoking weed and getting high

i use your money for my escape dance with my boyfriend at black diamond, start to laugh cause i've become something you hate and my inhibitions are the reasons i've had enough

you wanna know what i've been up to? i let your calls ring till voicemail and delete them without playing, run my hand up thighs, leave hickeys on my boyfriend, who i love drinking with, so tell me my body's decaying well no one's asking but i also got three tattoos

cloying sugar sweet miss waitress all this time unafraid to turn up the heat well i'm no perfect daughter mime

and i used to listen to recordings when i felt like shit so i could hear your voice yelling back at me i thought that's what i deserved, you bitch too bad i went and set myself free

i wanna say fuck you, fuck you, fuck you your lies manipulating what i knew your hands, your words, took all of my belongings you should be in the trash instead of my things

this stupid ruse i can't maintain and i refuse to feel your shame if you wanna call me a fuckup, then know that i was yours and no little kid raising themself ends up alright in the head say what you want, it won't matter in the end, just accept that you will lose. fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

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sex. | last night, 4/30/23

endless, breathless cycle warm tongue, long licks, like a caramel ice cream, salty sweet turn up the heat there are generations of us with tissue between teeth your hands on my neck, in my hair, pull me where you want me to be and you grow in my mouth, luridly hit the back of my throat's aching, you're shaking with the art of me.

blanket thrown carelessly over bare thighs, necessity our hands trailing down stomachs, up legs, don't drown keep moving, hips grinding your body, i'm riding frenzied fevered action you shudder, sigh, oh hon you weren't ready for this one feel you deep in me, throbbing i build you, wreck you, robbing you of wet warmth, on my bare cheeks, like rain, tears, slide, drip. these weeks of sin, no hell, no heaven nobody coming for us but us.

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5/10/23

listening to this at 1 am realizing i don't like the person i've become

(gross by penelope scott)

like when did i start wearing a dress and going to parties and talking to girls about guys [again]? when did i start lowkey shit-talking my boyfriend to "blend in" with these other girls when i so unequivocally love him? why do i feel like i need to fake it all to make it work, when he said he'd accept me for who i am? why do i feel so particular about how i look again, why am i so insecure, why do i prefer to be inebriated over being sober?

the other day i tripped up in the grocery store and blacked out while ordering food and i hate myself for it and i hate how i resorted to acting like my mom in that moment. but i hate even more that afterwards my boyfriend started lecturing me before catching himself and stopping. i'm not his fucking kid.

i don't feel much like myself anymore, except when i'm not around my boyfriend. at steel bridge or magic & more or some other club maybe, some other person. luke says go get walk-in interview experience at fucking chick fil a. it almost sounds like a good idea. i'm terrified i'll freeze up again. i'm not myself these days.

when my boyfriend is frustrated or stressed or upset he carries tension like a strung bow between his shoulder blades and doesn't like to be touched. i am caught between him telling me to stay and my inert urge to be far from him. when he tells me he will never hit me i pretend "hit" is synonymous with "hurt," because it fucking hurts. he apologizes later and says he will try not to take it out on me in the future. his apology is the relief, a validation of my feelings. my internal monologue lately seems to enjoy beating me up over my "womanly sensitivity." i have never felt more terribly, wrongly Woman with a capital W than i do now.

how do you all live this life? to be a woman is a terrible burden.

i am trying to make this work, to bask in the sunshine that is my boyfriend on his good days, and he gets frustrated so rarely anyways. i love him so unconditionally that every obstacle is simply a problem to solve. and yet. some days i catch myself wondering, just what is the matter with me?

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because he can't give me away | 6/6/23

when he already left and she doesn't deserve to share in my happiness after everything she took from me, i am honored and grateful and joyous that you picked me when i was told no one else would ever tolerate me like they did.

because you say i'm smart when they say i'm dumb, and you call me cute unprompted when i look at you from your bed. because you bought me food when they said they're the only ones who will ever provide for me, and you offered to let me sleep over every day next year. because you called me yours and said one day you will take me away from everyone who wants to hurt me with such conviction that i believed you.

because of the taste, pink starburst on your tongue. because of the feeling, your hand rubbing my hip. because of the nightclub, spinning dancing drunk in your arms. because of a date in the park, when you showed me the turtles. because of the video you took of me laughing unabashedly as you chased me across the roller skate rink.

happiness, a drug so precious. i put my mouth on yours and breathe it in. and because i do, i do, i already do.

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6/26/23

i miss your presence in the room. i walked in and you pulled me close to kiss me, into your lap to claim me. i'm yours. beside you, i forget i don't know how to dance. so i wrap you inside my arms and sway and twirl and scream.

when i go to sleep i have nightmares, so i go to bed later and later every night with the cat plushie you gave me wrapped inside my arms. on the road today, i thought i'd get sad as we approached west valley and remember everything i'd lost. but all i could think of was everything i'd gained. you told me to keep busy so i'd forget, but i was learning to drive today and imagined you in the passenger seat. we would go somewhere far enough away to pretend we'd run away together. i imagined driving into these empty california hills with you and fucking on the hood underneath the stars. i hit the curb and almost laughed, or cried. i don't know.

you asked to call tomorrow instead of today and i said yea ofc, but i miss you so much and i can't explain in words how hard this is. i feel you slipping away from me the less you text, and i pretend not to notice. sometimes i sit here thinking, don't leave me. don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me. don't leave me like the hours, morning sun fading into midnight constellations. the time is so short.

i forgot to bring your red flannel back to san jose, so i cling to the bra you love the most and imagine your hands inside my shirt.

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7/17/23

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8/15/23

how do i tell you about the black wisp beast of my anger and pain and frustration? it starts with a mother. it starts with a touch. it starts with an invasion, of privacy. it is disrespect and ignorance and a lifetime of being the better person. it is the beatings until the day i snapped back, the scratching of nail-claws, the biting of teeth. it is silence in the voice of screaming sirens. it is succumbing to the emotions. it is a child's temper tantrum. it is trying to explain, not the action, but the intention. it's about the principle of it all.

oh, life is unfair, all right. life can be quite cruel. but it is your duty, isn't it, as a lover or a mother or a friend, to combat that with kindness. it is your duty as a human being to impose some justice, to show some affection, to care about each other and unite against a hostile world. at least, i would hope so. what else could these bonds possibly mean in an otherwise insignificant, brief flare of liveliness?

hate is a strong word. but lately i've found my black wisp beast to writhe and seethe, red-eyed, snorting with hatred. hate is a love betrayed so fully that it rots and decays and transforms. hatred is the reasonless rage and wrath and violent urges. i only use it for one person.

before, when i was younger, i envisioned sliding a knife down a throat. i imagined twisting it to dismember the tongue, to disfigure the esophagus, to mar beyond a shadow of a doubt the mouth of the woman who tortured me in my waking hours. i imagined a silver bullet and the sharp recoil of a pistol. i breathed smoke, for her to burn into nothing but ash. then, i came back to a frail body, a hacking cough, red-raw joints aching with disuse. i did not want to see but my eyes saw. i did not want to hear but my ears heard. i did not want to feel but my heart kept beating. and i felt sorrow. and i felt shame. and i felt fear.

the woman pokes hard fingers between carefully built bars. the black wisp beast raises cold eyes. sniffs the air. rears its ugly head.

now i lie beside that body and dream of a time when i will return to college. my escape. where the black wisp beast curls up to snore. where i will begin, almost against my own will, to unclench. the driving desire to uproot this place, to thieve and vandalize, to destroy that which has taken so much out of me piece by piece, fades a little in the southern california sunshine. in the salty pacific air. in the youthful cherry blossom branches. i walk the green fields and into the arms of a boy with the ocean in his eyes. i fall onto a bed too small for the two of us, warmth thrown like a blanket carelessly across my shoulders and hips and thighs. i sleep beside the body of a man who will fight for me, and win every time. i sleep.

and the black wisp beast sleeps too.

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8/20/23