Playground at the End of the World

My shadow has sat heavy in this placethat isn’t mine— on the swing setwith the creaking, shrieking chainsthat bit my fingers, wildthings, as they filledmy mouth with sky, on the slidethat I had long outgrown,twisting like a lock of hairor like a lie, that bright andstatic-sprinkledthing I’d lay uponas I’d pretend to fall, on the…

The Sculptor’s Love Sonnet (After Percy Bysshe Shelley)

what can i doif i can’t wait for you? i was a traveler in an antique land.you were a story that you told me. like the sun, i used to touch your hair. in the sandstorm of mymind, you are a cracked andcrumbling Ozymandias,ruined tyrant, just standing, just sovery still. i’ve broken every fingernail onyour…

Lockdown

So strange That we sit here, seventeen and nowso used to quiet grief,a ritualno different from brushingour teeth or feedingthe cats. That we have to settle aroundthe empty places, arms awkwardly aroundshadow shards and memories andunbrushed wilding dust. That we have to fill ourselvesright next to them. That we’re emptying all the same.That it’s all…

Pierre (I)

Darling, I almost remember whenthe unhooked stars and sliced-up moonwere not enough to light you, whenthe sky could fit inside your fistor underneath your heel. It hurt, I know, I know, to seeyour face in every window andcracks in every mirror andbullets in anybody’s eyes. That someone would save you,that the universe would save youa…

Pierre (II)

It’s two a.m. andyou can’t see. The skewed sheets clingto your coiled legs, nowspringing goosebumpsagainst the open window (you just wantto smell the night). How can anyone sleep,you think.How can I goalone again. The dark is allaround you, enoughto drown, to swallow, andyou would be long devoured were it not for that summer scent. You…

Natasha

You have imagined fallingin love a thousand times. It should hurt, shouldn’t it,like all falls do, a heart-shapedbruise, breath snatched from lungs,nothing easy, nothing soft. But tonight, you thinkjust this, justthe hand in yours, justthe rain-polished pavement, justthe low sweet laughter,oh— maybe this is it,darling.This is where you land. by A.J.

Andrei

When you were twelve you decidedthat you would believe in God. It happened like this: sitting on the swingset youfelt you were too old for, youfelt the sunlight, sudden,on your skin, and the air smelled of the flowersthat hadn’t yet bloomed, andthe breeze tasted of August,months away, and the sky unfolded its warmthupon your shoulders,…

Digital

fingers on a keyboardvocal chords forgottenthis is supposed to behuman? a glaring screendistorted soundsthis is supposed to replacelife? where is theHumanthat I should besurrounded with where is theLifethat I’m used to fingers on hard metalcoldwhere is theWarmththat comes withLifethat is soHuman where is it in this world? by C.H.

Hair

I see yourhair, peeking out from under yourhat, it makes me wantto slide my fingers intoits curlswhere I know I’ll neverhave to let go hold you close to mefeel you run your fingers through myhair, relish in thiscloseness, thissymbiosismy heart, isyours by C.H.

First Story

My mother said I was born angry.She said I came out hungry, too, twoeyes like pinwheels spinning into nothing, spinningempty fairground rides, tunnels of dark, tunnelsinto the deep inside her, the deepwhere I had clung when there was nothing left to fill me. I came out small, too early, face pinchedlike that of an old…

Moment

It’s cold out here.It’s cold out here, and you are warm. You are warm, yoursoftness, your solidity, yourburning fingertipsaround me. Your skin, bright like thewinter sky, blanketed gentlywith new-fallen snow.I trace your constellations. Your eyes, threadedwith scraps of sky,twilit, electric,cloudless and kind: you shimmerlike stardust, shinelike rain-polished,streetlight-streakedsidewalk, alivein the dark, newevery time. And the kiss:…

Midwinter

wild joy pressed between your fingers, the spacebetween your bones, alive, electric, a streakof gleaming white speed about to beginits becoming, your beauty, soft lines painted bythe roughened scraps of twilight thatsettled in the coolness ofthe seats, the rare and wondrous quiet daring, sharpeningthe secret corners of your smile, and loving youis the easiestthing i’veever…

Perhaps

I run my fingers along the jagged edges of your laugh.I imagine the taste of it, pink-smeared, bittersweet,like chocolate only used for making something else. Your watch will drone its gleaming tick,its face so cold and delicate,filling your shape with whispers of weight. But your hand is warm in mine, and I smell rain,darling, there’s…

Wakeup

It’s time to talk about the dead girl. The one you’ve shovedinto a bathroom draweramong the dental floss and never-used mascarain the spacewhere the sharp edges used to be. The one who sits crooked somewherebeneath the flowered carpetthat has always sunkits roots into the bedroom floor.(Her bedroom floor.) The carpetthat our mother has since replacedwith…

For You

My friend, Sometimes I see you reading in the grass.I see you splayed out beneath the fire-white sky, like the petals of a flower, or a new-broken window,refracting fractals of light and shadow and brutal, breaking, broken edges and edges andedges on end, the end. Fuck that. I’m a liar, and you know the endings…

Army Jacket

There will come a daywhen a wire hanger will becomethe bony pair of shouldersthat will bearthe worn-out weight of you.It’s the weight ofa rope in the hangman’s handsand also an embrace. You will smelllike spiderwebs.You will tastelike the tearthat landedon the collar long agounfurlinginto the whiskers of dew-strung grassmy fingers chasedmy lashes brushed it’s quiet…