Hand-me-down Armor

I was raised
to hold myself like stone.
Not proud,
just prepared.
To be the ceiling,
the walls,
the quiet floor beneath collapse.
To never knock on doors
I could learn to build myself.

I watched a woman
fold her life into corners,
softness traded
for survival.
She gave and gave
until she became
the empty space
between offerings.

And I watched a man
stay still
for so long
he forgot
how to leave.

I became neither.
Only what’s left
when love forgets

itself.

I know how to weather:
storms, silence,
rooms that echo back
nothing but my own voice.
I keep my tenderness
wrapped in bone.

But sometimes,
when the night spills soft
and the world exhales,
I wonder
if I’ve made myself
so unbreakable
I’ve forgotten
how to be held.

There are men
who speak in ellipses,
and orbit without landing.
You, especially—
mirror of my deflection.
We share the same distance,
the same refusal
to name the ache.

I almost told you once
about my mother’s wine
in morning mugs,
my father’s shoes
always pointed elsewhere.
But I didn’t.
Because to speak
is to need,
and needing makes one
fragile.

That’s what I learned
from a woman
waiting for
a man already gone.

So I keep love
like a secret
tucked between ribs.

Still,
there are nights
I imagine a voice
doesn’t ask,
a hand
doesn’t take.

Someone who stays
not for shelter,
but for the sound
of the rain.

Until then,
I remain
a tide that pulls back
before it touches shore,
carrying all this longing
like a constellation
only I can read.

« 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.

Demeter

Mom —

There are things I don’t understand.

Things about love,

the way it clings like wet laundry,

heavy on the skin;

the way it wraps itself tight,

until the air grows so thick,

each breath feels like a battle.

How can something so soft

feel so suffocating?

I love you, but I hate you.

And I hate that I hate you.

It’s a knot I can’t untangle,

a weight I can’t carry without breaking.

You say you love me,

but your love is too heavy—

it presses down,

until I can’t gasp for oxygen.

I wish you could see it—

how you twist into shapes

you think you should be,

only to feel whole.

You say you’re smart, but you refuse to grow.

You say you’re learning,

but you hide behind lessons that teach you nothing.

You’re stuck,

and you pull me

into the quicksand with you.

There are days when I understand

why Dad needed space,

why he wandered into someone else’s arms

to find a place to breathe.

I don’t forgive him,

but I feel it too.

It makes sense now, in the wake of it all,

why he slipped away from a prison

you call home.

Your disease spreads like vines,

seeping into every corner of the house.

It’s the way you need me

that chains me down.

How am I supposed to love anyone

when love feels

like a cage I can’t escape?

I moved out

into a room no bigger than my shadow,

four walls that don’t close in

but hold me steady.

I stare at the ceiling,

and it feels like the sky.

Here, silence doesn’t smother.

It cradles me gently,

gives me space to remember who I am.

In this emptiness, I found

myself again.

I am not running away,

but I’m not coming back.

Maybe distance is the thread

for stitching up the broken promises

none of us has ever kept.

(Hera →)