DEPARTING FROM THIS LIFE

DEPARTING FROM THIS LIFE

this leaving is not fire or burning or catastrophe; instead a hung rope, knotted with careful precision a blade cut deep enough but not too deep. quiet. gentle. drawn out like a noose wrapped around a thin neck. frantic gasps of breath like starting to drown, the thought that you can breathe water and the ache inside of flooded lungs. everything in this world will one day drown. from love or from absence a lack of oxygen with a knife’ precision cutting through, you with the sad eyes know what this means this leaving, how it is a loss of air in a void no fires can burn don’t call this a catastrophe-destruction, and i cannot tell if the word i am looking for to describe this is tragedy or eventually and i am not sure of the difference in between.

like a sunrise in reverse

i could believe in a fate / where none of

this happened / there are worse things

/ than making it up as we go / than

headlights driving south / and a song

like waves crashing into a cliff /

singing of oblivion / and the hope inside

it / the way the headlights / shine down

the road in front of us / curving around

the mountainside / we drive into the

abyss / and we are swallowed by the light

/ of passing possibility / eighty miles an

hour / headlights / glorious and merciful

and bright.

lost weekend

second time in two days that I’ve fallen asleep on the car ride home, been woken up by someone shouting that we’re here. weekend road trips and blurry eyes under the fading streetlights of an empty road, windows down just to feel alive. we’re driving by streets that i can’t pronounce the names of and stopping in all-nite diners for a roomful of truckers drinking coffee and us, ordering one of everything on the menu, stealing jelly packets or sugar, no one can tell which. back on the road for fourteen hours with half the car asleep while i drive straight on through the quiet night, headlights flickering down the roads in front of us and everybody dreaming towards a neon tomorrow shining like a gas station sign in the middle of nowhere waiting for us to pull up and ask for directions, do you know how to get to another lost weekend? and the girl with bubble gum hair behind the counter says keep driving and you’ll find it, drive through the week endlessly and stop when we get to Saturday, dream on past the edges and into the splatter-painted night. kids in a truck with empty hands and big hearts and something waiting to be lost or losing, time slipping away across state lines and highway lights like the road beneath us. half-asleep waiting to be woken up, staring out the window hoping nobody ever tells us that we’re there and we can just keep searching, for ourselves or for a miracle whichever one comes first.

COUSINS IN THE SUMMER

red lipstick & chlorine. a flower headband. eight dollars on the dresser with bobby pins crossed for luck. bathing suits & the smell of sunscreen, an almost rainstorm walking home. the sound before the thunder comes crashing in, that empty silence. & then: the rain.

can i have a story about a girl who loves a girl 
because she’s got paint splattered all over her arms 
and a smear of sharpie across her face connecting the freckles, 
books falling out of her arms and hair in her mouth running late to class 
laughing as she spits it out.

can i have a story about a boy 
who loves a boy because of the marks 
his lab goggles leave around his eyes, 
dark like he hasn’t slept for weeks 
too in love with it to stop, 
measurements and quotes written in all of his pockets 
because he always forgets 
but he won’t ever let anyone else think they are not worth it.

can i have a story about somebody who loves somebody because they are intelligent, because they are kind.

can i have a story about a girl 
who loves a girl who runs touchdowns 
on the football field and writes 
as fast as her feet move, 
pen never lifting from the paper because her thoughts just keep 
pouring out.

can i have a story about a boy 
who loves a boy who used to be in love 
but he got hurt. 
real bad. 
so bad he thought he couldn’t love anymore, 
couldn’t tell anyone because they wouldn’t believe him 
because how could he let someone do that to him? 
and he couldn’t tell them that you don’t ever let someone.

can i have a story about a boy who isn’t always a boy 
and a girl who isn’t always a girl 
so they say use fae, use ze. 
sometimes they are nothing and sometimes they are everything 
and love is all that is in between.

can i have a story about somebody who loves somebody who is strong, somebody who is brave.

can i have a story about a boy and a boy 
and a girl and a girl 
and another boy and two other girls 
and everyone is still in love, 
girlsgirlsboysboysgirlsboys 
because nobody ever said love was just two.

can i have a story about a boy and a boy who never kiss. 
can i have a story about a girl and a girl 
where they don’t fall into bed.

can i have a story about somebody in love with more than one somebody and that doesn’t mean they love anybody a little bit less because that’s not what love means. can i have a story about somebody who’s not in love at all.

can i have a story about a girl who loves everyone for who they are, or a boy who loves boys and girls and thinks everyone is pretty.

can i have a story about a boy who didn’t think he could be strong, trying to hide in oversized clothes and bound bandages.

can i have a story about a girl who thought she’d never be pretty, putting on her sister’s makeup in a corner mirror and taking it off before she came home.

can i have a story about somebody who loves anybody they like and somebody who loves boys and girls.

can i have a story about boys and girls who used to be and love who they are now.

can i have a story where in the end the punch line is not AND THE QUEER ONES DIED and instead it’s a story about how they lived and how there are different kinds of love other than the ones they always told you about, how people are more than just a single story.

tell me a story about the world where we are more than just a story, more than just a body hanging from a tree. more than a boy painted red and a girl blue in the face from screaming and somebody faceless hiding in the dark.

god, i want a story with a happy ending and something good. i want this life to be bearable.

can i have a story about love without boundaries, no end to dreaming in the infinite skies reflected through all of us rainbows scattering across the prisms of our hearts. can i?

and the world says, write it.

WRITE IT :: o.m. 2016

tell him that there are other ones and zeroes

10100 / 101 / 1100 / 1100 1000 / 1001 / 1101 10100 / 1000 / 1 / 10100 10100 / 1000 / 101 / 10010 / 101 1 / 10010 / 101 1111 / 10100 / 1000 / 101 / 10010 1111 / 1110 / 101 / 10011 1 / 1110 / 100 11010 / 101 / 10010 / 1111 / 101 / 10011 00000000000000000000000000000 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111