273

fourth of july, feet swinging in the air on a bus to downtown seattle,
my shoes were a bit too tight,
i remember this perfectly.

and i remember that day i had three water bottles in my backpack,
and a notebook with mostly blank pages i meant to fill out,
twenty dollars in my pocket to fill my empty stomach with food i could already smell.
it was great, children screaming themselves free from their mothers,
and those without mothers were allowed to wander the streets too,
walking next to me,
i felt them watching, like murderous eyes of pigeons, tasting the flesh of their cousins on grills,
waiting for the bread that wraps itself around those bodies,
ten feet above everybody else.

and seattle at night was really beautiful,
a light breeze constantly beneath my body around my feet,
fireworks outside my window, i could hear the sound of a creek with water rushing through like highway,
sleepytired, hungrythirsty, watched magicians on the tv in my apartment, families laughing through the cracks reminded me that i was sitting alone in the dark, back against the kitchen counter, and that this was the best vacation, and that i didn't need anybody to be happy, and that my tears will always be warmer than my face, and i was (and never again will be) more breathless than when i screamed out the sun.

272

you've lived every dream i've ever dreamt of,
because you belong in every one, haunting me or tugging at my heart strings.
most recently was three nights ago, you asked me where my house was,
and i told you it was back home in china where i left my little girl memories and little girl clothes,
where i spent all my spending money on dolls i never even looked at,
i'd put them in the corner and study on the glass table,
the house covered in plants,
great breathing air,
beautiful boys in the sun.

and then there was a pause in our conversation where i heard you breathe in,
then touched my face with your wet, trembling hands.
everything stood completely still,
as if i had said something to upset the entire rotation of the earth.

271

is there such a disaster?
there is such a disaster.

270

cut out pollution with your face.

269

that's not my head.
where is my head?
buried beneath your house.

268

dear feathers, who let you into this cave?
maybe you were brought here years ago when i dug this earth with my bare hands,
from the other side of the world,
through a well i fell through,
with the lid closed shut.
why did i dig? i had to dig! to get out, to see that sun again, to hear those birds again,
to be able to eat anything that was not my foreign flesh
and drink from springs not made of my own bitter blood that secretly poisons me each time i sip it.
so feathers, you must have been brought here to this cave back then,
when my hair was still short and my eyes dull,
because after traveling for so long, i have found that i now understand more than i ever would have wanted to know.

267: a lesson

i met an old woman in my dream, who stroked my hand gently,
and brushed my hair like it was her own.
her face wrinkled, mouth into a smile more beautiful than i had ever seen.
i could not help but imagine how gorgeous she must have been in her earlier years,
perhaps decades ago,
in a rocking chair on a porch overlooking an ocean of clouds and future memories.
when i finally got up to thank her, she did the same too,
and i saw these feathers fall off her dress and fly into the sky like birds,
and suddenly trees were growing faster and faster and her nails grew longer,
long enough for her to dig them into my arm, twist it all the way around until we both heard a crack.
i wanted to wipe my eyes of tears but i just stood still,
eventually aware of my surroundings, my feet on this solid ground, my lungs filling and emptying of air,
and then she tip-toe-whispered in my ear like a gust of september breeze,
"pretty girl, if you don't bend, you will break."

266

yes, a mix of sun and blood
dripping from the sky into her eyes as she said her goodbyes
to her favourite song, her favourite dog and books.
she was that kind of daughter, the kind you'd love to see burning in a fire,
wearing nothing but a smile through her entire body,
veins popping open,
my hands around her neck.

and this sunday she saw the sky, a mix of sun and her own blood,
she thought to herself, "finally,
i can feel the weight of my own damned body.
and finally, my feet are higher than any single clump of beautiful cloud."

265

how do your eyes stay bright
and your hands stay clean
all these months passing by, the back of your head knowing.
an ambulance, the back of this car,
the smell of fire on tv,
i have seen a file on you and all of what you have done.

264

i don't have anything to be afraid of,
because i have time on my side while i watch the world spin,
asleep,
drowsy drowsy into the night.
and i could write so many songs about not being afraid,
and how i believe i'll never grow old,
not old like this city, not old with the city.
tomorrow i'll grow new skin on my arms and feet,
tomorrow i'll prettier and better than ever,
watching this world spinning, spinning along into the night sky.

263

i have such strange dreams in which my arms are boats and i am carried out to sea but above the trees and in the sky the clouds are so smooth and your eyes are so deep and i keep sailing and sailing on into the deepest part of your head and hope that one day i can stay there without sailing a thousand miles and getting lost at sea.

262

i'm so afraid of growing predictable.
tomorrow i will do something different, wear something different, say something different.
i'll trick everyone into thinking that maybe i am somebody else.

261

when the world ends, it will happen faster than a single second,
and i'll be sipping on lemonade in my room, watching tv,
and who knows where you'll be?
maybe you are sailing on the lake,
or in an ocean far away from me.

nothing will hurt anymore, and we won't be hungry anymore,
everything will cease to exist.

then somewhere far away as we are all dying, a new earth forms,
and we will be born again.

260

i took you inside of me, cut a line down my side,
and you can spend this many days at the bottom of my stomach,
like the bottom of the ocean,
with buried treasures like hidden emotions i've swallowed, or learned to swallow, or need to swallow.
yes, there has been so many, i can't and i have lost count.

i have nothing to fear now,
i can spread myself like wings, tie myself up with strings.
outside my window, a windmill cuts through the air, loud like music cuts through my ears,
and echoes through my lungs,
and you will be hidden there too, for me to hear your voice
even when i am sleeping,
even when i temporarily forget about you.

259

i don't know pain and i don't know joy,
but i know what i like and what i enjoy.
when i pull you apart like a pair of knees,
the sun will burn and the ice will freeze,
explorers will whine and drown in all the seas
in the world
twisted and curled,
cabin boy to college boy, education in illinois,
what can't my mind deploy?
what can't my two hands destroy?

this darkness, i know, must be in you too.

258

you are never enough, but i know i am more than enough.

257

the deadline arrived without me realizing,
so obviously while drifting down the gentle waters of the indian ocean, you looked at me as if you had forgotten my name,
puzzled look in your eyes,
asking me if it's too late to turn back now.

256

sin is the name of this game.

255

you've caught me again, thick rope in your left hand around my breath,
i've escaped once but you've caught me again and kept me close, kept me until it got so dark outside.
and even when i am sleeping you won't let go, and what strange dreams i have! they are identical to yours,
where i am glowing and growing and glowing on a hill, like a tree, no beating drums in my system.

suddenly, we were in a lake and swimming never seemed so hard,
and the water was too cold,
and fish nibbled at my toes,
and when i finally wiped the water from my eyes and hair from my eyes i looked at you and the rope has disappeared and dissolved into your arms around my waist and only then did i realize how desperately we need one another.

254

when i am healed i'll tear a cut in my stomach again
and let this cold old blood pour out into your open mouth.
i'll bleed without feeling a thing except the tugging of your arms around my neck
and you will say between breaths that you have been so thirsty for so long
and you have been waiting for me for so long,
and all i'll be able to do is smile when you thank me for my love.

253

how great would we have been?
the answer is not great at all.
i would not have brushed away your insecurities,
and you would not have comforted mine.
i know when tonight is over tomorrow is another day,
and that your hand was soft wrapped around mine, for six days and six nights until our hearts broke, and before that, it kept me warm like home.
when will you forget about me? find me in the air.
when will you remember me again? will it be as fast as the new sun arrives?

252

don't believe them when they tell you to marry a pretty girl,
and do not try to marry a handsome man,
do not fall in love because that's the last thing you should do,
i know, because money bought me love long ago.

251

when i finally see you i will wake up and live,
grow myself up inside of you, in your belly where you keep your secret shells that made you.
oh messy life! we meet again, don't we? even though this time everything is red through your skin.
i'll still write you that love song, i still owe you a good time,
when you come back, and i wake up and live,
i'll name it "untitled" and grow my hair out just to see you before i go again.

250

sometimes i want to touch your legs to check if they're warm,
will they disappear, set free by my fingers?
i wonder because it's happened before, months ago, when i let those words go between my lips,
when you let them slip inside of you through your ears,
and you screamed as if you loved me, ripped out the moon from the sky and threw it into the ocean,
in front of my eyes, a wound in the sky where you and me both were sucked inside, it was like a machine,
and where there was a hole in the sky there is now a billion eyes that watch me grow tired of you in the dark dark dark night.

249

tonight here i lie, i am so tired and undressed,
and there is sweat in my palms from gripping on to this feeling for too long,
waiting for it to settle in,
on my bed.
if you want me to run, unwind me and reset me and leave me undressed.
if you leave, please leave the window open too.

248: something i wrote in 2004

look at elise, sitting near
how i wish i could walk up to her and
express regret.

look at elise, standing now,
how i wish i'd said
nothing at all.

look at her, walking away,
oh! how i wish i weren't so
sensitive to her.

and now look at elise,
broken like a summer dandelion,
all her pieces blown away.

(2004)

247: bad dream

words sometimes leak through cracks on walls,
through the paint, peeled after years of water beneath the white.
men talking, talking, talking, until all i can hear are the sounds of my own footsteps
down the hall,
and maybe the wind through the open windows.

i look left then right while walking, peeking through windows
on those silver metallic doors with no handles,
the air is moist, i almost cannot breathe.

the last door on the left of the hallway was not empty when i looked inside,
two men standing naked, with ties and top hats, and in front of them an unclothed girl sits.
i let out a gasp and they all turn to look at me,
the men had no faces
and the girl's mouth was stapled shut.

246

kept awake by the sun,
kept away by the hungry men,
we left that rancid city behind.
this is how my heart beats,
how it pumps blood,
traveling from north to south on the back of an animal with the same kind of heart as me.

245

show me which constellations you know
and tell me the stories you'd rather forget.

244

tell me what this is all about
whisper it to me and let the words dance around my head.
like my memory, in which the young leaves kiss my footprints, in northern towns, living well,
a wife in a little summer dress, black,
a landlord.
this is where we used to live, sugared hospital beds,
carrying the strangest news of tiny newborns the size of how the moon looks in the sky, from the ground up.

it could be great this way,
it would have been great this way,
living quarantined, crossed out. the hills are violet,
and your words are too,
dancing around in my head, whispering,
waiting for sunset to follow the sunrise.

243

sometimes i sit completely still in bed, eyes searching for salvation.
i can't believe the things i have created with my own two hands.

242

before the winter came, there was a small snowfall
that met the autumn wind, of a billion snowflakes,
dancing until they saw the sun.

and from where i was standing on that chilly day,
i could see bits of the blue sky through the thick grey clouds,
heat trying to come through to my skin, under my clothes,
i breathed in and out deep,
but it was anything but calming.

and the next day the sky was opened up by a pair of old hands,
and on the road, it seemed like nothing had happened the night before,

cars honking,
people running away.

241

what great places we could conquer,
with our house by the sea, in the morning, a translucent film of fresh day.
among the grains of sand and those trees that refuse to die, even in salt water.
a certain morning will mark the return of the birds we chase,
incomplete,
it's far too early and without my glasses, the world is far too blurry.
i want to tell you all about my dreams,
but as usual, i've forgotten how to speak.