august

1.
august heart suffocates--
dogged heat in hoboken,
walk nonetheless deaf to the tremble
of water. does it seem complacent?
settled?
meet you on third, my marine,
eyes lucent, blue unlike the hudson.
unsurprised, no hint of a smile,
and i try to choke my expression.

swell nonetheless--
a noon feeling;
this i try to choke as well.
this i slip past railings black,
into that green vein,
that fat hudson.
2.
he walks quiet, he talks animated,
and i follow at his side, eyes raised
to his rosy smile.

the speech winds to the future,
the present leads to the edge
of the pier--italian ice not even half eaten,
color perched upon his lips.

years take him to the desert,
past books and celebration,
to guns quick with screams--
noon years in hell. i want to ask,
how can you love a nation that kills you?
that kills your brothers unknown until
met at the end of bullets,
their blood speckled in your eyes?

be he is decided, quiet.

and i think, how can i love a man
that has never stopped in my stare?
who can't see me, curled in the sand
at his feet, like a creature caught
in the chaos of nations?

my marine, not mine,
his blue eyes clear to the heart--
his incalcuable noon.
his country cracked in his skin,
peering through blood.

untitled (car crash)

Staring at the ceiling,
five AM--goddamnit, sun.
Rise.
Night on the walls,
like blood before air
Your face silent and calm.

Affinity like the highway,
A stretch of possibility,
always tarmac beneath our feet,
an understanding.

You know what I could only feel,
could never put into words--
intrinsic shock,
East of Eden and afraid
I will never know that someone loves me:

Snakebite of brake lights
red in the air,
A balking.
Thread between cars pulled short,
my ears comprehend the screech of
brakes, no time for a flash,
just the night like blood before air
and the brake lights screaming closer,
closer,
a single thought--
no.

You feel the pitch of my scream through my skin,
the flash of fear, too quick for my pulse,
my uneven breath a casual
intermittent gasping.
All these signals missed by normal ignorance,
but you knew it was the quiet terror of being alone:

Immobilizing fear
like the sky shrinking,
snakebites growing,
then
the smack of chest against seat belt
against airbag
like a building collided with my ribcage
Scream sucked into the
screech of metal crumbling
head knocked into the window.

You let me into your bed,
feel a love that never knew sex
or the oil of intention.
just the quiet attention of
care.

You,
The moment my head snapped back
towards the dashboard, and all I saw
aas the windshield cracked like frost,
glittering spider web of glass,
the sky like blood before air

You,
the rush of breath in my lungs,
panicked, ecstatic,
screaming.

You, the moment of unadulterated sweetness,
the hiss of the engine’s death throes,
the smell of rubber and smoke like
hell on earth, the most beautiful torment.

You,
I wouldn’t trade for heaven.

Your heat, a security,
Your breath, a litany of words I don’t know
how to say aloud--like
thank you for existing.

I didn’t know other people loved
without reason or romance,
that they could love.
No because.

Your eyes, shut,
a soft hem of black,
a thin harbor of skin shining.
Waiting for sunrise in your bed
sleep elusive
your lips smooth and blushed
Thank you for existing.

mute

an absence of language--
she sits on the floor. her fingers
click and tap, her brown eyes, like
a dead leaf, flat and blind.

i sit on my bed, my words
glued to the floor
under dirty clothes and last night's
dinner.

a silent trembling within the air
pervades my skin, pale with the winter
and thin with anxiety.

she clicks
and taps
and stares
a perfect composure,
a polariod snapshot
of our separation.

my muscles tense,
then freeze, longing to
reach or hold or hit--
but nothing.
my tongue thick like an animal's,
all i want to say
i don't know how to say
just scream.

mixed signals

too fast,
tiger. watch yourself.
i'm not a tease-
but a warning.
your arm curls much
too fast
around my shoulder.
your laugh is much
too comfortable,
and much
too loud.
you think nothing
of leaving my bones here,
nestled under a facsimile of
affection.
tsk...you should know
how to stalk your prey.
i've been watching you
from beneath your chivalry,
from beneath your arm.
i've counted your momentum,
found it too quick
to endure--
and sized you up thus:
you are too fast, tiger,
to play this game.

what's awkward is your friends are little girls

vision rests,
his thin frame
a 145 degree angle
against the amp
straight across
his eyes seek mine
and stay.
he knows.
he's known.
he should have the
balls to say it
instead of staring
as if to tempt me
to wave,
as if to tempt me
into starting something.

in defense of the quiet kind

does it mean i'm boring
if i don't talk much when
i don't feel like talking
if i don't bounce off walls
when i'm not drunk
if i don't explode at every moment
and bubble with volubility?

i think excitement
preys on the unexpecting
and stalks them from the
mundane. i see it in the silence
of the quiet, in their bella donna eyes
in the wrinkles of their expression.
i see life behind the quiet,
the buzzing and warbling constant
you cannot always know it
but it is always there,
and this mystery drives
me insane.

flourish--shades of youth

like fungus, they appear
bright and soft,
or dark and fatal,
attitude and aesthetic
in perpetual rearrangement
one night leather, gold,
and liquor--
in the morning, watercolor
plaid and tired jeans,
coffee cradled,
cigarette fuming.

a language i can't understand

i wanted something
i could not pick apart.
nothing cement, just water
as a voice should be
i wish i were born
in a different country
or maybe that my mother
hadn't given in to america
so my lips could mold
around subtle notes.
my mind only passes
rich sentences along
i admire the dance
of syllables, i curl into
the emotion of
the tongue
and let the specifics
fall to waste
even the song
could not disguise
the tone

virgin mary at the YMCA

she likes to talk about you.
i pretend not to care-
you change the subject
quickly and nervously,
like you're flicking
the pages of a magazine
with your narrow fingers
past the ads for pretty
asian girls with massive
insecurities and small
frames, past articles about
staying friends with your
ex-fuck. i can imagine
your eyes darting from
picture to paragraph
and back again. your
tongue teases the curve of
your lip, your fingers
flip the pages once more,
and finally you throw
the whole mess out of
your bedroom window.

brooklyn

i remember the sweat--it was cold. february. brooklyn. the sun set over the city and you pointed out the projects where jay z lived. the train was suspended, and we got off. i was afraid i'd fall through, just a passing fear, a fleeting moment of insecure footing.
we walked. we asked a man where the street was, and we walked. the sun set quickly, and we waited in the cold outside john bosch's house. a crowd was gathering.

inside, we waited for hours, and finally, everything was alive.

he broke my heart playing wednesday night drinkball. he broke my heart playing 2,400,000. i screamed and cried and laughed and screeched. i wanted the crowd to tear me apart, i wanted to music to blast my head to pieces, i wanted to be the dirt and the beer and the sweat on the ground. i wanted to be the remains of an experience, of a moment of truth, i wanted to be the evidence. i wanted to be swept away, to be wiped clean, to disappear.

and he broke my heart when he sang. the beautiful torn voice, the vibrations in his howl. i wanted to give myself to him, to give myself to anyone for that one moment of beauty--richard dalloway with flowers in the doorway for clarissa--and like richard i failed, i left, and he lifted my soul for the moment, but i could never rise that high again.

i couldn't connect with a single person, my heart couldn't tear and open the way it did that night.

imitation, reaction to sebald

Soft earth and cool, almost moist grass cushioned our thighs on the campus grounds. Outside of Murray Hall, the sky expanded in afternoon blue, as if in one continuous breath. The trees dotting the courtyard provided speckled shade, a fair light to sit in.

I did not notice you standing by the walkway earlier. I was searching for your face, clear in my memory, but not as clear as reality, and was taken aback when I had turned around and saw your demure wave. You walked towards me somewhat awkwardly, with a slightly ungainly shift in your stride, but your smile never faltered from pleasant, and your eyes never left mine.

I thought I was bold in looking others in the eye, but my moxie in this department was no match for yours. As we sat, much too far from each other for two youths with poor hearing, your effulgent blue stare captured my line of sight and held it for the duration of our conversation. That kind of honesty in expression made me uncomfortable and anxious. It was pure, like your voice, garbled by a habit of mumbling but free from cynicism and malice. Oh, you’re taking Topics in Math for Liberal Arts too? Isn’t that class so boring? you said, with a genuinely excited smile. I hardly go. When I do, I just drift off into space. Probably explains why I did so bad on the midterm. A sheepish smile followed, and beyond your face I could see the white and green tents of Tent State, pitched farther off on the verdant courtyard. The sun shone from the tops of the cracked vinyl and polyester material and glinted like pairs of eyes blinking in the distance. Birds chirruped from the trees, and I strained to hear your voice through their buoyant lilt, but could only piece together meaning from watching your blushed lips form half-lost words.

We continued on in this way, me struggling to hear you, you staring through me, until thirty minutes had passed. You rose from the grass, brushed off dead leaves from your jeans, and smiled brilliantly, until I could not stand the frankness of your warmth and turned away. Only after a few yards, by the Objet d’Art tent, I stood under the vanilla awning and watched the blue plaid of your shirt disappear behind the golden double doors of Murray Hall, tinted that way by the afternoon sun. Through the tents, the people ambling or playing an energetic game of frisbee on the lawn, each group of them going about their own business in the kind of leisure that perfect weather on a Monday afternoon will bestow, you were a tiny patch of striking blue intensity in a buzzing world.

portrait of a handsome bastard

He thinks his hands are girly.
They are not so much feminine as they as are meticulously kept. I don’t ever remember his fingernails being dirty. In the courtyard, on a bench, I’d watch him pluck a cigarette from his lips and rest his elbow complacently against the wooden armrest. Slouched, he’d bend his neck back and blow a spindly stream of smoke to the sky. His fingers would balance the cigarette between themselves, skin touching paper touching skin, his tapered bones parallel. He handled everything like that cigarette--instruments, pens, the wheel of his car, my own hand--as if all that touched him was invaluable, and only he could be trusted to treat each item with due care. I loved that precision--those goddamn hands made the most banal gestures graceful, almost sinful. But when they actually were sinful, grace fell aside. They ripped. They threw. They clawed and pulled and negated their soft skin. I’d lie still, shocked, just staring at his brown eyes, down to the slope of his nose. I never knew what to feel at this moment, and should I have to pin it down, the closest word I could come up with is ‘prey.’ How could I not feel like prey? His violence, all in satisfying measure, belied his soft countenance. He could cuddle and attack in the same hour--this parallel left me paralyzed.
His recklessness was engulfing. He would grab my arm, push it forcefully against the dull headboard, and hold it there with his own until we both forgot that it hurt. His pale, slender arm would recede, then his fingers would trail my ribs, glide across the divide between my heart and hips, and at the moment I’d believe he was playing nice, his hands would tear the skin, leaving long, blushed marks--sharp evidence of where he’d been and a clue as to where he would soon go.
At that second, I’d look up, amazed to find his quiet eyes considering me, meditating my movements, my noise, my gaze. He’d smile, lips closed, then bite his lip, and allow his arms to bend like right angles on each side of me. His hands would gravitate toward my head, toward my hair, pulling it away from my face. One finger would trace the pithy curve from the top of my ear, to the point where it meets my temple, and follow along the bones of my cheek until he could lay his fingerprint on the corner of my nose, forever branding me his.
His hands aren’t girly. They’re exact.

vapor

your ghost drifts into my head like poison gas at the moments i've lived over and have been doomed to live through perpetually. a woman smokes a cigarette beside me on the bench at the train station. it smells like you after work, tired and crawling into my bed, into my arms.
no--the cigarette is not a camel. it smells like phil on the couch, leaning back and relaxed, ignoring me right next to him.
here in the present the smoke drifts into my clothing, soaking its scent there. i sit with your ghost on my shoulders, curled up against my neck.

september 15th

i am suffocating in here. my arms wrapped tight against my middle, i am trying to keep myself in. i am trying to keep from running. i only look like the anxious basket-case in the corner.

i admit that i am.

p.c stands to the right of me, sipping a cheap beer every few moments. i glance up at him now and then--he meets my stare and we both snap our heads to the forefront. it's as if he's saying, i know you, but i don't want to know you. he can't pretend that i don't exist for long, though. eventually he looks at me for an uninterrupted second, and says awkwardly, "hi."

"hello," i respond, quietly, as if my words are going to eat me alive. he turns away, and a hot blush crashes across my expression. i gnaw my lip, almost breaking the thin, chapped skin. i never know how to react to people--i can never tell if they want me to greet them. especially here, in this subterranean hollow, surrounded by people that have seen me at my absolute worst--i can't tell if they care that i exist. i don't know if they hate me, if they like me, or if they are indifferent.

around us, the music thickens the air. with the heat and the must, it is impenetrable. bodies flail, trying hard to break through the beat, but they follow it instead, and resolve to break each other.

every part of me is stopped up--my muscles are frozen, my eyes have tightened into a dry gaze, my stomach claws at itself in apprehension. around me, everyone is drunk and drinking. i try harder to make myself invisible, but i can only curl up so much. the pit grows, and a girl with thick chocolate hair bumps into me. with the palms of my hands, i push her gently, taking care that she doesn't tip too far forward. she turns to me, her big eyes rimmed with black, bursting with an apology. i don't know what she's sorry for. she can't help the waves of the crowd. for these few hours, we are ruled by it--especially her and i, small girls in the corner, prey to imbalance and overcome by the mass.

with her is i., a boy who lived in my dormitories last semester. he looks everywhere but at me. i can tell from his expression that he's trying not to: his eyes skip awkwardly from the brown-haired girl, to the band, to the teal mattress behind me. he is too tall for this basement. his carefully arranged black hair, straightened to an unnatural stillness, grazes the string of lights hanging from the ceiling pipes. the pit swells again, and he laughs awkwardly to the girl, "you have to be like this tall to mosh here." his hand gesture is exactly his height, but it doesn't explain why he isn't dancing.

when the band stops playing, everyone files outside, through the white staircase splattered with blue mold. in the gravel parking lot, two floodlights brighten the scene. groups of kids start to separate. everyone talks, laughs; the conversations blend and roar. there must be more than fifty people here. everyone's skin is covered in sweat, and bleached white with the light. pairs of eyes, hazy and wavering, glisten in packs of twos and threes. every so often a pair wanders in my direction and remains. it's as if someone has come from behind me with a silver chain pulled tight against my neck--i gasp, involuntarily, and look down at my dirty gray converse. my cheeks flame, and i bite the corner of my phone.

another pair of feet step in front of me. i follow the body upwards, past the snug jeans and the blue button down shirt, into a brilliant smile. jarrett's eyes sparkled free of judgment. "hey!"

"hey," i breathe, startled. his face is a relief, genuinely happy to see me, someone he didn't even know. "did you want to donate..." he starts off, but i cut into his question.

"yeah, of course!" i sneak a ten out of my pocket and stuff it into the glass jar he cradles in his hands, then move quickly into the lot.

"wait, your change!" jarrett stops me. his timid hands drop a five into mine, and i smile, puzzled. the money means nothing to me, but it would be too awkward to interrupt him. "thanks a lot!" he says, his enthusiasm barely contained in the polite reply.

suddenly, a large figure in a soaked white shirt lumbers down the stairs. his stringy bronze hair sticks to his forehead, and murky green eyes peer through the people. he makes his way through the crowd, stopping to talk in certain circles. he walks closer and closer, and my breathing accelerates. in my head, images flash through seconds--his grass-colored eyes, lazy with alcohol, pore into me; he is too close, and i can smell the sweat on his shirt, can feel it on the side of my cheek, can taste it on my tongue; his beard grazes my nose, and i am too close, way too close, and only getting closer. i am stunned into the present by the shock of the memory, and slip quietly away, further into the crowd.

he follows, unintentionally, and stops at more groups. i stand by a beaten gray car and stare at the gravel, feeling my legs locked into place. p. walks closer and stands in front of me, his left shoulder directly in my line sight. he shifts his weight and faces me--my heart stops in fear, and in the absent space of a heartbeat, it restarts. i gather what little composure i have left and flex my stiff fingers into a wave. he avoids my greeting and walks back into the house.

soon the crowd follows him. i lose myself in the numbers, letting my feet walk blindly forward. dead dog is on next, someone announces, but i don't think anyone cares. their conversations gather in the air and climb down into the basement with them.

i find myself in the same corner, against the same mattress, but surrounded by different people. from across the room, m., a king of a man, glances in my direction. our eyes meet, and his gaze hardens slightly. his distaste tinges his countenance, and the amber light falls in a shadow beneath his brow. i shudder and twist my head to the back of the redhead in front of me.

a familiar voice bites through my memory. "he called you a bitch," j. admitted.

"..but, why? he doesn't even know me."

"he said you were all over phil, that night at the parlor."

a thick girl in a striped blue shirt pushes past me--the memory disappears, but the guilt doesn't. i remember m.'s stare, the way he lowered his chin an inch, as if preparing to attack. he could read the sin in my eyes, but he didn't need to. i was drenched in it. my air was that of a man who should have gone to the gallows, but instead walked among the vulnerable and innocent public.

i look behind me in a force of habit, towards the door. j.'s pallid skin and deep-set brown eyes jump out at me, and i am crushed with another swell of guilt. he nods, and i meekly smile, but it doesn't touch my eyes.

i am holding myself tighter and tighter, and soon my breath stops. the heat closes in on me, squeezing my head and quickening my heart. i turn to the stairs and navigate swiftly through the people. by the time i reach the door, i am almost running, and i throw it open to meet unfriendly green eyes.

i choke on my breath. there is no air in me, and my face blushes deeper. he could have shot me and i wouldn't have been so shocked.

"hello," p. drawls, the condescension in his voice slight and unmistakable.

"hello," i reply, too shaken to say anything but a frightened mirror of his words, and hurry past him, fully running now, my eyes hot and brimming.

where the wild gizmos are

i don't think he's honest, really. there are moments when the silence takes him--his brown eyes flare up, frightened, then harden, his emotions impenetrable. some truth hides beneath his blank expression, and he won't divulge it. instead, he changes the subject quickly, almost perfectly.

he's blunt, when he wants to be, if he feels like talking to me at all. this is why he isn't afraid to tell me what my father would say, and this is why i don't listen to him.

even now, at the coffee shop, his voice fades in and out of my attention. a cup grates against the plastic tabletop, and then makes no sound.

"maybe you shouldn't drink so much."

he breathes calmly. the air lifts his chest, every breath a dissipated rush of authority. i sigh, defeated, and stare at the table beneath my hands. he's right, of course, but i can't exactly find the words to admit it. the walls of my throat burn, speechless; my thoughts aren't words, only the quick pulse of shame. i don't know where to look.

he makes me feel like a child.

again, he's right--i am. my thoughts crash against themselves--half-memories that feel like dreams, fill my mouth with the taste of orange juice and vomit, dry my sight with the smell of newports.

they are brief glimpses of a past i don't remember. for a few seconds, clearly, i see the face of a stranger, shouting my name. zandra?! zandra! his eyes are black, large, wild with an emotion i don't understand. blood, purple with exhaustion, pools under his lower lashes. my wrists are bound in the stranger's hands, large and warm and too tight--they hurt. his hands are calloused, the nails are set into my skin. zandra! something cold hits my cheek--water. it drips down my hair, into my eyes, my mouth--my lips are bitter, like orange juice and...his shape begins to crumble into shadow, and he disappears.

"zandra."

my stare snaps, focuses onto the soft lines of his lips. they're pink--the cheerful color distracts from his eyes, dark and unwavering. my jaw tightens, and i turn my head to the left, to the happy couple next to us. they seem perfect, of course, captured in the blind moment of my gaze. i don't want to look any further, to burst the impression i have of them, and so i turn again to him.

i close my eyes, exhausted. the words pass my lips, barely audible, "yeah."

can't sleep.

a subtle chill draws our bodies towards each other. six am--the sun is rising beneath clouds of blue. someone snores in the bed a few feet away, a jagged breathing, almost like a snort. the sound makes me smile, and i push my body into the curve of your torso, strong and wide, as if to cover every inch of my back with the warmth passing through your clothes. my hips fit into yours, a wealth of heat, and you throw your arms lazily across my waist. your hands find my hands find your hands, a casual embrace of fingers. i can feel your heart beating onto my back, in the plane between my shoulder blades. the hair on your chin tickles the nape of my neck. your even breath grazes the skin, a steady pulse of heat. the smell of your hair, sweet like home, faint but certain. my leg tossed between yours, the line of my shin against the stretch of your calf. foot nestled against foot, the cold cotton against our skin.

holiest night

black light--strange blue orbs in everyone's eyes, a reflection of white in the dark room. smoke seeps into my skin, into my hair, and the smell invigorates me in a memory of excitement. the heat thickens our exhales until they feel like sighs, as if heavy with lust or desperation.

a boy stands dead center against the left wall. brown hair, too tousled to be bedhead, crowns a pale face that glows in the dim atmosphere. he stares at the crowd, a mottled array of hipsters in a sampling of the urban spectrum. the collection is a pulsing whole, and each of us dance like suffocating cells. he is too handsome to be standing amidst this sweating group. his lips are full and bright lavender, his cheeks are high and haughty.

i feel a familiar heat rise to my face. sweat trickles down my temple, slides down my neck to rest beneath my shirt. he never turns--the profile of his face is frozen in my sight, and all i can feel is the warmth of fifty people surrounding us. my lips twitch, and i bite them in frustration to keep my thoughts at bay. the only thing i want to say, i don't know how to--only feel.

look at me, i think, a broken platitude, as invisible as i am.

middle

she is clean.

a curious honesty hides itself in her eyes, a clear aquamarine that immediately endears anyone towards her. they are timid, observant, and most of all, secretive. perhaps this is why i like her--her lies are few and transparent. her nose crinkles as if in distaste, and her irises tighten, worry themselves into shame.

she walks among my least favorite people, the filthiest spirits one could imagine--heartless grays bent on hedonism, their pretty faces ashen with the dirt of youth. and yet her sweetness is untainted, triumphant, somehow humble, an equal. her expression is always amused, as the rational will be in the sensual world. the hudson trembles with sin, but even when she purses her childish lips to the dry edge of a blunt, the blue in her eyes brightens as if to stubbornly clear her sight through the smoke.