i love so many things. music has this unnerving quality that you can just be stuck, seemly eternally on a loop. it could be just a few bars worth of notes, just a few seconds, but something about it just drive you insane. its like your brain got faced with this unsolvable roddle, and tries agaon and again to figure it out...which it can't...

i grew up listening mostly to jazz, but for some reason at some point when i was in my early tweens i got a double album; Glenn Gould plays the English suites.

its not Bach's most complex composition and not Gould most profound recording. but hearing this album changed how i hear classical music from a casual interest/nice-ish thing to total insanity.

i took particular interest in the A minor suite. i got the music sheetbfor the whole oppus, but this baby drove crazy. the prelude is my first seroous attempt at fugal structure and its a hard, merciless bitch a thing. (if the last time you did any classical music was age 10..)

but i got it done. then ti fnal gigue, is even more crazy. which is why i intentionally played it at a crawl. (if Gould can play with the tempo than so can i HaHaHa!!!!!!!).

i haven't stopped playing thos ever since. i just remember it all, without any need to think. i play it in school, in abandoned musc rooms, i played kt back home when my father died.

i even play it at home (though my girl doesn't lime Bach so much..)

someday i won't ay it any more.

but it will not be by choice!!

outside the grocery store at night, i'm pushing

an empty cart into its rack and it's raining out.

that little room inbetween the automatic sliding

doors- between outside and groceries- where the

wind blows strands of hair in my face, i think

of you. it's almost like we all pause in that little

room to collect ourselves, a gush of air sobers us

enough to push through the grocery aisles. i am

thinking of your hands pushing my tangled hair

back. i always wished it was windy just so that you

would do that. outside, the rain is leaving a reflection on

the asphalt, and this deep streetlight-gold color is

swimming there. the other grocery store people are

stepping in it, dipping little bits of gold on the

edges of their shoes, i watch it run off.

it turns orange and i am sinking. no not

orange, no. because orange is warm bread and

your poetry, forgiveness and the saxophone. it's the

sun bleeding against the horizon, your favorite

candle, and the shadowed folds between white sheets.

the colored squares of light from a stranger's kitchen

windows. it's fall leaves like a burning ember

whispering 'die with me', it's fridays and vhs tapes

with old videos of us dancing, it's the way your hand

felt on my back. it's orange and it's you, and suddenly

this ripping feeling in my chest. i'm rushing to my car,

because grocery stores on rainy nights are those little

empty human moments where we all feel a strange

yearning feeling. the empty pockets, like getting home

from a trip, standing up from a restaurant table, slamming

the car door, hanging up the phone, walking alone, and

that moment in the dark before sleeping. a vulnerable

aching feeling, like something is ending all too soon, all

too empty. i am leaving the grocery store with rain on my

windshield and food in a bag. my left signal is clicking loud in the

quiet, the street looks so lonely, my hair is in my face.

it's the little things inbetween distraction, where

we're alone with ourselves suddenly feeling very small.

before now, they were the biggest part of our life, you made

the little human things mean i love you. they are so so loud now, it is all

over now. max, i am driving home alone tonight,

and though it is the fourteenth time since you are gone,

it feels like the first

time i am driving home

without your hand pushing my hair back.

glances whispers rumors spark feelings without names igniting icy rage tinted jealous jarred thoughts unglued scattered lacking sentence structure because my mind has no lines no boundaries no control when wandering wanders too far i can’t retrieve the wanderers from the wilderness so i weep for the nameless soldiers of the war within the battles beneath breasts behind smiles masking chaos at its snowcapped peak cracking sliding an avalanche of aimless agony burying the excess emotions undesirable and ugly for no eyes but His and even those glint suspicious with partiality unspoken prejudice unrevealed instead put away privately but sensed and unraveled at the battlegrounds now a graveyard littered with death but bursting with new life choking out the mundane existence until the mundane departs and superficial standards still stand they still stand they still stand i can’t stand it any longer

this colour of grey and something else

something else that feels entirely like loneliness

a eternity of a drop

and yet is something soft and warm too

like a soft bruise that’s tender to the touch

but not yet healed enough

not yet healed enough

& so you feel the keening hurt

when you press your hand to it

even oh so

gently

another morning

and another

and another

never ending

i find myself

reading old poems

for a distraction

because

i can't tell them

that i want to disappear

that i still can't believe

after seven days in the hospital

and longer than that

in my bible

i wish i had never said a word

never been born to say a word

because all i know how to do

is let people down

You promised me a forever. I tried so hard to not let myself believe in that forever you painted for me. I knew one day you’d leave like all the rest and I knew that when you did, it’d hurt me like all the others. But maybe I haven’t been hurt enough, or maybe you meant too much to me, because I believed you like the fool I am.

I believed in that forever where we’d still have a place in each others’ lives. One where we’d still meet up and text and talk to each other. One where we’d still keep in touch, as if we weren’t going to entirely separate schools 382 miles away from one another.

You gave me hope that it wouldn’t end like all the others. Where I wouldn’t be waiting, always waiting, always hoping that you would still want to stay my friend. And I was bracing myself for that ending, because you meant the world to me, you still do. You meant so much to me and it hurts knowing that I didn’t mean as much to you. It hurts knowing that I simply cared for you more than you cared for me.

I let myself hope for a single second that you’d keep your promise. And just as I began to believe in it, just as I began to open my heart, just as I began to envision a future where the two of us were still friends, you broke your promise.

Because now I’m waiting for texts from you, whole days passing in between our messages. Now when I reply, it’s like you don’t want to be a part of the conversation. Now it’s like you’re forcing yourself to be my friend. And I have to wonder, what did this friendship mean to you? Because if it’s that easy for you to walk away from it, the laughs, the smiles, the fond memories, then maybe it simply meant nothing to you. Maybe you aren’t the person I believed you to be.

It hurts. I’m not going to lie, it hurts so incredibly much. Because now I’m left wondering if maybe I did something wrong. I’m left asking myself if you even still care for me as you once did. I’m left grasping at the question of whether we’re still friends or not. I knew it would destroy me, and that’s why I didn’t want to let myself believe in a future where we were still friends. And yet, you made me believe and I fell for those sweet lies, drunk on that taste of forever.

I wanted you to be a part of my life, I wanted you to keep having a place in my future. But I guess you didn’t think of me the same. I guess you were ready to say goodbye sooner than I was.

But do you know what hurts more?

Knowing that you hurt me and still holding onto you. Because I’m still waiting, I’m still hoping, I’m still letting myself believe. You put that knife through my heart, but I’m the one twisting it deeper inside.

I can understand you wanting to end it. But if you’re going to do it, then please just do it. Please just cut me off, because it’ll be easier that way. It’ll be easier for me to grieve, for me to mourn, for me to begin to heal.

(Please note this work isn't finished and will likely stay that way.)

Artistry is your mother’s greatest weapon, greatest song. You are five when you first touch a piano- she hires a tutor a week later. The glory in this gesture is how you agreed. After all, you wanted to be just like your mama, fingers gracing the keys, painting the air with art and love. Yes- you wanted to be just like her.

You are six when your mother decides you’re ready for your first recital. An hour before, she straightens your hair and kisses you on the cheek: You’ll make me proud, dear love. I promise. She laughs, and the heart sinking to your stomach lurches. Yet you say: Okay.

You make no mistakes that day- your melody, simple and true. Your mama is in the first pew, and she claps, face lit up. The shine in her eyes makes the butterflies disperse- or maybe sink lower. But you smile, bow, and take your seat.

From then on, your piano tutor starts coming every other day. He assigns you new pieces every week, and you learn them all obediently, hands deft and practiced. Your mother sits in, often falling asleep to the sound of your work. The sight makes your chest warm- your accomplishments are mounting to something, after all. Your skill level is slowly approaching hers, and every night you hear her grace the keys before bed. A sonata here, a tune from your childhood there. It’s breathtaking- you’d give anything to sound like that, to be like that. In your mind’s eye, she had mastered the art. Yet she tells you often: You are on your way to mastery yourself, dear love. And well. Is she wrong?

You are eight when you win for the first time. The elation thrums between your knuckles, a heartbeat of its own.

The first time you freeze up in a performance is when you are twelve years old. You are auditioning, or competing, or something of that sort; the sort where all eyes are waiting for you to fumble. And you do. Your heartbeat flails for a fragile moment mid-piece, and you are overcome with the sudden sensation that you cannot breathe. Yet it ends as soon as it begins, and the silence is stronger than the preceding song. You start up again- of course you do - but it is not quite the same. You finish, exiting the stage with a strange feeling behind your wrists. Your mother looks confused. You feel like crying, suddenly, but you don’t know if you can.

It doesn’t happen again for a while, and your walls glimmer with the gold of success. Or maybe it is accomplishment- it feels too empty anyways, and you don’t know what prize will fix it. In the moments when your mother isn’t home, you find yourself at the bench automatically, playing dissonant chords into a broken melody. It is sad, simple- unoriginal. Worst of all, they are not beautiful, nor are they the art your mother weaves out of wit and vision at night.

They are yours, though, in a world full of things that are not. And for now, that will have to be enough.

You are fourteen when you first consider quitting piano, after an announcer calls your name and the audience claps politely. It is a national honor to win something like this. Your mother is cheering too, crying a bit. Once upon a midnight you might have cried at the chance to make her proud too. Right now, though, you are tired. You can no longer hear the melody, or even the heartbeat. Yet you come up to the stage, shake the announcer’s hand. Take your bows. Smile automatically. On the plane ride back home, though, you find yourself repeatedly touching your chest. You think you are looking for a sign of a pulsing thrum, a sign you are alive. Your fingers come back cold, and you are not surprised anymore.

You tell your mother at sixteen, and she cries for a long, long, time. And the relieving thing, the sorrowful thing, is: your mother doesn’t shout in a blaze of anger, but shuts herself away for hours upon days. You do not understand, but you do- the art she so treasures you are throwing away without a second glance. And once upon a midnight, you would have been horrified at the thought. Music is in your blood, entwined between childhood and memory. What would you be without it? Yet a question comes anyways, in wary mornings as you stare at your reflection in the mirror: What am I with it, anyways?

And so the piano gathers dust, a dreary layer of grey upon once pristine keys. You never meant for her to stop, but when you tucked away your sheet music into a forlorn attic, your mother tucked away that part of her heart as well. It confuses you, her not playing- and you ask her about it, once. The refusal to continue to melody. So your mother looks at you with grieving eyes, and takes your fingers gently, pressing your thumbs against your heart, then hers. You don’t know what you’re supposed to feel, so you pull away (and you only see her hollow eyes for a moment)- but you inspect your thumbs a lot that night. 

You take down your trophies, medals, certificates. They don’t mean anything anymore, though you suppose they hadn’t for a long time.

You were never quite as academic as you were musical, you will admit, so you end up going to some nowhere college in a nowhere place. But it’s fine. It’s fine, because the melody had been lost years ago. You stand at crossroads with no gilded twine, no pulsing heartbeat to guide you. It’s foggy.

You are tired.

You are twenty when she dies. Your father (how dare he) calls you on the phone, tells you the news flatly. Once upon a midnight, you might have cried; your fingers turn towards your chest again, begging for something, anything. It is cold. Your chest rings hollow. 

You hang up and go to sleep.

Your aunt texts you a week later, asking if you could play the piano at the funeral.

So you return home, dust off the piano, retrieve the sheet music from the attic. Finger a tentative note, and then another into the clarity of the morning. A memory flashes: your face innocent, hers shining.

You look up, and it is well into the afternoon. Later, you fall asleep on the couch, and it smells like sonatas performed at dusk.

But here is the tragedy- you tried. Yes, you tried, you really did. But your hands were too shaky, too stiff, for it to be anything close to art anyways. Your aunt pats you gently, hand on the phone. She is calling a for-hire pianist, and you don’t think your mother would have wanted that. Then again, when have your choices ever been ones she’s wanted?

The funeral is nice, you guess. The pianist made no flaw, but the melody did not reverbate as hers did. You look away from the coffin as you pay your respects and leave before lunch starts. You’re on the plane again within the week.

So you are twenty three when it hits you fully. You had graduated with a degree in something that didn't hit too close to home- history, or something like it. There you are, getting in the car after working 9 to 6 at the office, turning on the radio, when you realize yesterday was her birthday. It hits you then, a surge of what some people would call grief. She’d use some other word in a lovely language she never thought to teach you, a word you vaguely understood not as sadness but as longing- regret and love and wistfulness; a promise repeated over and over under roofs and sky and sun, not through words but through heartbeats and thumbs. The melody did not say: look at me, ma, you’d be proud; because would she be proud, really? No, not that, but something like: 

know me promise me come back come back let me feel your pulse again your symphony again your thumbs under mine

Well, you return to your old house a week later, unsure of what to expect. Maybe the melody will still echo silent. Maybe the heartbeat will never come home. And yet. The bench is pulled forward, hands poised unsure and unsteady. There is no choice, you think, somewhat bitterly, somewhat thankfully, but to move on. To move on and continue the symphony, the song, the sonata. To finish hers, even, and start your own. 

(unfinished transition. poorly executed.)

Your thumb presses the middle C, and then again. Another. In and out, dear love. Press forward, in and out. 

It fills your lungs- do you understand this? You are alive and breathing under brilliant skies and gentle dirt. This is the heartbeat, the sonata. The melody she dedicated her life to. The melody she tried to teach you. And she failed, didn’t she? Or maybe you failed- you never understood, but neither did she. This careful dance of burden and blame will not lead anywhere, you think. In the end, it led to the same place anyways.

Try a chord now, dear love- dear dreamer. Press forward. Hear it ring deep within your chest. Oh, the well has been empty for so long now. Aren’t you ready to fill it with something new?

In and out, dear love.

In and out.

I imagine dipping my hands into thick,

s t i c k y

ink

as it drips down my fingertips,

and then sliding them against your curves

and those countless

parallel lines,

pressing my signature into you,

y e s

I caught fire when licking my name off your thighs

and those wounded,

rose petal stars

each letter , ink tattooed in cerulean blue

and pressed into your skin,

I wrote me,

in a soul clustered map against the lines of your body

your heart

your mind

into the tapestry of your love

forever claiming you mine

_______

*mine as I am yours

.

you should end back at the center where you started.

all things should return neatly to their place.

i want you to be tender with what remains.

the absence of love leaves no fossils.

your hunger will not return to the earth.

to decay, first understand

the feeling of palm against flesh.

first have something to leave behind.

something you want them to know about.

i am on my knees in the dirt.

i am burying my tenderness - i keep a little

for myself, my friends, the earth.

the shovel sings hard and cold.

i understood rot by understanding growth.

i am sure someone will be here some day.

at the axis of the end.

where love and death intersect

if indeed they ever cease to do so.

to have my hand, you must have one of your own.

get dressed next to me in the mirror.

i understood complexity by knowing simplicity.

how every color makes up the next.

i am not sure you will be here tomorrow.

tonight the air is fragile and the sky bold.

we exist as a handful of everything.

exhale onto your palm and spread me across the world.

despite myself, i want to see it all.

i want to walk into the darkness

and bring back souvenirs for your nightstand.

you should end back at the center where you started.

with your body three-dimensional.

existing in the plane of existence.

and the sky will be bottle-green tonight.

and the hands we will hold, only now alive.

sinew beneath flesh above bone.

would your mom love me now

the same way she did when we were twelve

choreographing Blurryface songs

in the backseat of her car?

or when we spent entire afternoons

lining up Littlest Pet Shops on your windowsill?

would she still love me now

even though i rarely dance or sing

or even laugh anymore

because none of it feels real?

brooklyn,

would you love me if you knew

i might not love you back

no matter how hard i want to?

i want to play minecraft with you,

counting the auto saves to keep the time

i’d like to find all the trees

into which we carved our secrets,

the trees we loved

i wish i was there when you dyed your hair

scrubbed the pink from the bathub

so your dad wouldn’t see

i wish i had more of you than a Polaroid

and all these memories that hurt

because they belong to a different version of me

and i think i just want you to know

that i think about you

always, and hopelessly