« hey you »

humid june / sweat on your neck / a cologne / i breathed in a little too long / your name / not mine to own / on her tongue // racing pulse and cigarettes / everything smelled like / foolish / or honey / depends who’s asking // i said you were right / just to win / just to lose / but hey you / paris was only gold if / i didn’t blink / and i didn’t blink // you dreamed brooklyn skyline / through your teeth / like a secret / i couldn’t translate / maybe it meant something / in another life / but this one / hurts fine // smoke in your voice / was it distance / or was it / just me / again // in another life / trains have no doors / to get on / just to get off / but even there / i’d still have / waited. 

Playin'

 

the sound had hands
i wish
were yours

a breath
inside a breath
still no walls
kept me

i became the room
of our aftermath
mischief in fabric
smells like you

in the sea
of spinning blues
your eyes weren't listening
to the song that
drowned me

Cowboy

the traffic
held its breath

a red blink
too soft
i mistook it for
a heartbeat

grief is a boy
who learned to ride a bike
with the arms of an ocean
wrapped around his waist
pretending to be still

my skin remembers—
your warmth becoming
a kind of weather

and some mornings
i wake
to light
shaped like you
leaving

Small Hours in Paris

I packed
a carry-on heart,
too small for the weight
I never unpacked.

Feelings
are delays,
so I ran on time
and arrived
alone.

The metro sighs,
it knows
no one ever stays.

I walk past lovers,
hands in each other’s pockets,
and slide mine
into my own.

Some cities ache,
some cities wait.

Some cities won’t hold me
when I walk away.

Today

The sun is
a whisper through the bones.

The ocean ahead,
the city behind.
I belong to neither.

I close my eyes.

For a moment,
there is no purpose,
no past,
just the wind,

weightless,

carrying me home

to nothing

and everything.

(Kennedy in August →)

日蝕

光芒悄然逝去。
一隻渡鴉漂浮於幽暗，
雙翼描繪
沉默的邊緣。

樹木佇立，脆弱如骨；
冷漠的天空蜷縮在內。
我在這漫長的日蝕之下
等待、
思索––
陽光是否曾屬於我？

渡鴉盤旋一次，
或許兩次。
我無法分辨，
她是迷失
還是自由。

Trip

The night caught in my teeth,
it does not have a name.

What was I chasing?

I promise it was on the tip of my tongue.

What did I find?

A memory I’m not sure is mine.

The shadow pulls over me like a blanket.
Whatever it is can wait.

Aquarians

Sundays, borrowed from you

but I always forget to return.

I almost tell you about my mother,
how she drinks her wine in a coffee mug,

and my father, how he leaves
before the dining table is cleared.

But we have learned never to ask each other

questions that don't belong to us.

From my lips to yours,

an apology.

The rest of us
untouched.

triangle of sadness

everything i wanted you to tell me

dissolved in a breath of salt.

this year was a cup

half empty.

i am only ever water— 

one part ocean, one part rain,

endlessly dwelling

in the labyrinth of blue.

each step forward is swallowed

by the tides behind.

i woke up from a dream  

(in which i spoke a foreign language),

to the vowels slipping

through my fingers like vapor,

and the words returning

to the sea like storm.

my longing guts

reach for the door.

on the other side is a season—

she can leave or linger if she wishes.

oh alien planets! they never

have to know what comes after spring.

but my moon pulls me back,

the more i push, the more i drift.

like the ocean, i return

to where i began.

Interstellar

The anatomy of constellations on your couch -
our skins mantling two solar systems, one running
endlessly after another but could never get there
fast enough.
Our chests exposed like two caskets 
holding pain as if it was all
we were made of.

Ambience tapped on your window,
you let Winter swallow it whole.
I stared into your eyes and remembered darkness.
So I begged you to set me on fire
until my bones become stardusts,
dissolving into the night
into you.

You poured us your favorite scotch as you watched
me burn,
then you rained gently on me
like early summer that tempered the flame.
My body, so honest, I am a walking overdose of pain.
I can't lie to myself. I chase it again
and again, and again.

Aren't my legs tired of running
in an orbit I don't belong,
my arms tired of reaching
your hand that won't open.
I swear this is the last time I comedown
like meteors poured from your cosmos.
I know now, I can't hold what won't hold me.