selected works

i.               whale-tale license plates

ii.              surfers, stoners, skaters, coders, white people with dreads

iii.             your grandmother, who helped raise you

iv.             thinking about —

vii.           your thirteen-year-old brain

viii.          the loneliest place you’ve ever lived (you think, until you move to New York)

ix.             anxiety, eating your mind from the inside-out, like a malignant worm

x.              an impressionist painting, an A24 film, a fever dream. a description of the countryside, straight out of a Romantic novel.

how

am I expected to watch Faye Wong repeatedly break and enter that guy’s apartment

when you keep stroking my hair?

slipping your fingers up my sleeve?

Impossible.

dried blood on my knees

wide blue sky

my own heartbeat under my hand

i never knew what a comfort it could be

my own skin

my muscle and bone

you kiss me, my mouth—
against my eyelids I see
fresh snow, everywhere

you made your bed

lie in it.

you were sitting across from me At porchlight and you
were so far away my Hands were covered in tequila and
candied ginger They were making this sticky
smacking sound Everytime I pressed them together and pulled them Apart
you put your hand up because you wanted to know
what it Felt like my hands didn’t make the sound when they
were on either side of your hand But it didn’t matter because you
had offered yourself up to be touched by me I was touching
you your skin and bones Instead of feeling your hand Float
over my back Through my tshirt

I could feel it The moment my hands pressed
on either side of yours noise Rushed in to fill
the silence the first silence - Which wasn’t
silence at all it was corporate chatter My heartbeat in my throat Both of us
staring at your hand Sandwiched by both of mine

and the Sound of something deep unEarthly unstoppable

rushing

through me

sew your body into mine

palm to palm

hips to hips

your tongue

to my teeth

your mouth

to mine

stitch us together again

I’ll rip them out

later

when I'm back in New York

(you won’t even have to watch)

you say

do you have more freckles than I remember?

I don’t know

I’ve never seen my own face

you tell me.

i asked you once
what you were thinking and you said
sometimes you ask me that
and im just thinking your name over and over

if you’d wanted to i
would have cracked my
chest open so you
could crawl inside

you jog across the street

smiling and brilliant,

against the light,
to get to me

to wrap your arms around me
to touch my elbow
my waist
and lead me into central park
in the wrong direction

let’s go this way.
and I followed you

and I would again
happily, eagerly,
instinctively