And Yet You Loved Him?-ray Bradbury, The Utterly Perfect Murder

and yet… you loved him? -ray bradbury, “the utterly perfect murder”

even after this you loved. it took a long time. did you ever realise, in the beginning, what it meant? that no one came to your before-the-sun-rose almost morning cold glass window, painted blue with longing all alone did you know then? did you know then, maybe when you wanted to die. maybe that was a long time before you ever even thought of love. or did you know before the terrible, unutterable betrayal. did you know and so you left. and even after all this time. you held it inside of you, that inalterable past, without ever knowing why. held it in the hollow in your chest, the gap between your collarbone and the line of your ribs pressing against your skin. could you feel it when you held the edges. every morning after that you could see phantom bruises that love in the way boys love boys when they are young, you said, and evil but innocent, and evil. how did you fit such emotion inside of your mouth to swallow the pain. how did it come out in words like those. when did you stop using question marks to say why because you knew you weren’t getting an answer. did he ever call you after all those years, after all those years did you ever call him? and still you knew you loved him without ever caring when or how or why. all of that, inside of you, years and years and years- how could you stand to hold it and how, upon taking a train, bound into the past you thought could not have ever been returned to, years locked up inside your chest those bones old lives and leaving and broken windows how did you learn to let it go.

friday i'm in love (also i have your pants)

i text a lot of things at you without meaning because i’m meaning not to say too much. i got milk and look at this cat have you seen my eyeliner today, also i have your pants. you know the ones i borrowed and then i didn’t quite give back. i’m letting go now, i swear. we’re nothing more than friends. also i have your scarf, you left it the last time you were over because you left in a hurry. apparently you’re allergic to tulips or in some way to me because i hugged you on the way in and you turned right back out. god i hate myself more than i hate this or you. i text you still a lot, but never first; chivalrous and always after you. am i easier when you don’t have to look at me? also i like to look at you. every also i say is something i haven’t said to you. also i miss you. i can’t really miss you because i never had you. as your best friend i have to say i’m glad that you are happy. also it’s only just that i wish it were with me. also i’ll never do a thing about it. so i’ll just sit here and say also that i love you just a little and i’m not sure why. not a little. also i have your pants. also you have my heart.

aborted machinations

in the end i don’t regret this having such a body and these bones. 
they do me small kindnesses and in return i try to be more gentle. gentle is not easy. gentle: to hold with no intent to harm. to let go when it is needed. sometimes letting go is harder than holding on. you are brave for this. to recognise that in it all you may not be necessary. sometimes sitting down is harder than standing up, to say that you could both be wrong. sometimes we cannot truly see the right. i am trying to be more gentle but you say: what does it mean to be gentle anyway. what does it mean to be anything? i say: don’t confuse gentle with weak. this is not weakness. this is strength to say you can be happy without suffering for it. poetry does not lend itself well to happiness. a breath not caught, letting go without leaving a mark. we cannot stop clawing our way through reason in an effort for the undefinable this. every attempt is burned and we don’t know how to stop. how do you define happy? how do you know the difference between the words in cruelty and in gentle. stop everything before it’s over and abort these movements halfway through: happiness leaves everything half-done. this body deserves more than what i can give it, stopping a life unlived, unloved. this gentle that i show it; i am sorry for the motions that i put it through. for all of it in the end i don’t regret living with such kindnesses as a heart. a head. fingers that can play a piano, toes that can dance, lungs that fill unsteadily and wobble within a rib cage close to breaking. for the choice to give up gentle or to continue being draped across these bones: carry on. do not regret this, please, do not catch your breath. keep your lungs trembling in the new made light, one breath at a time. your heart will beat unbidden because of some small kindness in our making. that’s all i had to say. that’s all i ever had to say.

little teeth, little fists.

i never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. little teeth, we talk in small manners. cut sharp. little fists, hold on to what you know. don’t let go. we take what we want when we want. we are wanting, hungry, all the time. little, little body, draped in ugly hauntings. bite into the flesh of our wounds, ghosts claw to let the dark come out. see scars from needle teeth and swollen hands. living in the wild is what you know, hold, what you know: how to ravage. roll the skin you wear through your fingers, trick your body into thinking you don’t know. what it means that you can feel the crescents of your nails still digging in, the shine of a tooth aching with the rest of your moon-light jaw. carve your name with a knife into the trees, talking soft when you say i’m sorry, in a sharp twist spell out what lives inside, what’s taken over those ribs, you monster, monster, monster, monster thing without a home. don’t feel sorry. never for anything. not even for the wild thing eating you whole. little teeth, little fists, wanting always to forgive. forget. you could die and still you should have never once felt sorry for your wild, awful self.

venus hates apostrophes and burning

because they’re always to the dead. the dead can’t hear you anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you shout. shout louder, even, because they’re dead. or have a conversation with the sun, shout at him instead. venus is the sun’s abusive lover, living next door. not abusive; tired. the sun still shines and venus tries to reason him away. i don’t love you anymore, venus says, and the sun gets too close still- like he doesn’t understand what this means. that venus can feel him everywhere, the atmosphere, skin blistering at a touch, his whole self burned away to leave only ash, that heat trapped inside- and venus shines brighter because of him, hopeful for something but god, doesn’t the sun know it’ll never work? a coat of armour for protection, another wasted shield and still. still, venus can’t get the light to go away and blinding is the sun’s only setting. it burns down to the truth of it, that venus only wants an apostrophe in the words “the sun’s” like a possessive and he’s tired of writing love letters to the dead or talking to the ghost of his self before the flames, venus only says those things because the sun would be better off without the second best. second closest, not even brighter than a star. the sun turns away and turns back, he always comes back, and venus wants to cry again with the heat of his gaze. no arrows, no apostrophes, no burning venus hates burning because it always means the sun, and red hands remind him of what he’s done. i’m sorry doesn’t cut it when you’ve cut too deep. he closes the door, shuts the window, turns the key and he’s still shaking, cold at the core where the light never reached. 67 million miles can’t keep out a chill. 67 million miles and venus burning still. apostrophe, from apostrophiese, to turn away. i don’t want to keep running, venus says, still half-shielding from the light. i don’t want to keep turning away.

i. to live, we require an understanding of our our processes. 
how do we think? synapses fire. 
how do we breathe? expand and contract. 
how do we exist? i can feel it in my teeth.

ii. they ache (everything) to a point of exhaustion. i try for running, i end up exhausted. i try for exhausted, i end up running away. i open every window and leave the lights out to let the breeze crawl its way through this empty house.

iii. i’m making wine inside myself now, a heady intoxication. fermented, the warmth, it spreads through me- every step a wildfire.

iv. anaerobic /x/ adj. without oxygen, only certain things can survive. without oxygen, there is no flame. we ferment our own rejection inside us, call it acid because it burns. that sickness you feel is resentment, warming your bones. hatred. without oxygen there is nothing else and with oxygen-

v. look how brightly we can burn.

vi. to say the difference between us and stars: when stars collapse, we call it a supernova. they spread light throughout everything, permeate the dark.

we are made of stars, and our rib cages only send shrapnel in our shattering.

vii. humanity is a torch, burning through its bases with a wicked flame. at some point we stop calling this arson an accident and instead blame ourselves. we breathe in smoke but do nothing to put out the fire. stand in a burning house and watch it collapse: do nothing, and leave no one to regret how terrible it will fall.

viii. when the first versions of ourselves evolved out of the iron oceans, we call that the Great Dying because anything that could not oxidise could not remain alive. in other words, we took the air and made it poison. we burn, you burn with us.

ix. we burn to survive. a million combustions inside our bodies / raging to fight on against the darkness.

when we move, we are energy / we are wasted potential brought to light.

all that noise, all that emotion / it burns us out. in the end,

we are husks / we are ashes / we are burning and we don’t even know it.

REMEMBER WHEN YOU BREATHE :: o.m. 2017