slowly,
S l o w l y is a time traveling memory that warps the future without changing the past. It freezes the ticking hands so that the hands still in my lap don’t add haste to the moment. S l o w l y is a seduction, a kiss on the forehead, a kiss on the cheek and three to the back of your neck that makes you remember the base of his. And s l o w l y is how I choose to forget.
old photograph, ‘10
Somewhere on an old roll of film that belongs to a Leica camera that belongs to an old man is two photographs of me at the Fountain Di Trevi, with a notebook that’s only half full. In those two photographs, five minutes apart from each other, are two versions of me, five minutes old apart, and a time-locked photocopy of my notebook that no longer exists because the rest of the page is now filled with Catholic patterns and statues of a saint being stabbed at the heart with an arrow of gold. I sat in front of this statue for two hours, staring at the ecstasy of a woman who drew such pleasure from knowing God that her state was immortalized by rivered marble. I drew her as I saw her, locking her in a still in a time that only belonged to me, just as a two parts of myself, five minutes from each other, belong to an old man with a Leica camera and a sweet smile.
i blame the cookie
i blame the cookie for my misfortunes.
for its scripted proverb -
that was probably misquoted from the internet,
then printed in china with ink from india,
before it was shipped to san francisco,
where they wrapped and fried the dough
into fat croissants, ugly crescents -
that said words i don’t remember,
but am still trying to constantly organize
because those generic words had a coincidence,
and that coincidence made me trust red strings -
like how you turned a book right to my name,
when i’ve been dreaming of yours all this time,
like the timing of seeing you as we walk to class
right as you are crossing my mind,
like how on the night when this love became terror
the screen of your phone became webbed,
as i smashed mine against the pavement.
- but the ending of this was not seen by the scripted proverb,
someone else on the same flight probably received
and was fooled to hope in unbalanced fate.
so yes, i can blame myself for forgetting,
but i blame the cookie for telling me.
the fault in my veins
Dear John Green,
You are no Van Houten (which is why I address this letter with a Dear instead of a rude insertion of just your last name), but you are the writer whose sentiments concerning the earth and humanity have organized this letter I am writing. In light of the recent end (for me) this letter is to you, because you (and the nerdfighter community, really) understand the context and subtext of this language (and hopefully find it earnest and honest, not dramatic or creepy).
There’s basically a lot of buried words that have been huddled up inside me since I’ve started to get to know him. (And it’s unfair for me to unload all of these feelings on unsuspecting him, so I write with the mind that he understands me as much as he’s portrayed himself to have accepted me.) And I know this is coming late, random, and sudden: A confession of realization with graduation coming a month too soon, but I like him – a lot. I know, I know. It’s basically a cry into a void, a shout into oblivion (because everything ends, and this experience can be easily catalogued into shelved memories that are only retrieved in dreams, but that can easily backfire: like how I thought I’d forget how much I liked him over winter break, only to find, as a result, myself wishing that he was there to share these experiences with me, to notice how standing on a cliff could lead to death but also give access to the distant sea where the waves crash grey and white).
The thing is: you’ve taught me that some infinities are bigger than others, and that this last month is very much an infinity between end of March to early May. It’s an infinity that I want to spend with him because I understand that at some point the world will shift the scales from 0 to 1 and started counting the spaces between 1 to 2. So if this end of March to early May is the counting before the shift, then I acknowledgeablely want to spend it with him. I want to spend this month the way a person wants to spend it with someone who makes them happy enough that death is not a frightful coming, but a satisfactory ending.
But it’s unfair that, yeah, I guess I’m making this difficult by giving him the choice (or perhaps I should not give him a choice at all and no longer contact him) but I think with recent knowledge from Hank’s advice about being friend-zoned, I know I’m not able to make the choice of staying his friend. If what we (he and I, not you and I) are is composed of me longing to see him and waiting to see when I fit in his schedule, then I know I do not want to spend this infinity doing so.
I want to put the ball in his court, so to speak, but I’m guessing that this last desire of infinity is not an option. So, I want to share how it was always his existence that made me smile, and when I make this decision (today, possibly, after spending time with him for the last time) to no longer be his friend (by no longer initiating or speaking with him), I will thank him for his time and that infinity. I’m happy with the past choices and I will survive this next one. This letter will probably remain unsent to the source of this sadness.
Although I hope, John Green, that you read this because your novel is beautiful and reading it has been very much an unfolding infinite moment which has now been forcibly moved to the next stage of infinities.
However: Thank you for filling the void with a story that makes me appreciate the simpler pleasures of existence.
to anon: what is he like?
Describing him: I can use words to tell you his height, stature, genetics and personality but that’s sinking too common for a writer. I don’t know how to describe him, I don’t even know the color of his eyes and his hair seems to change from milk tea to dead tree brown. Although I would prefer his hair to be shorter these days, and for him to shave the uneven stubble, that’s for him when he remembers. He is tall but when I’m next to him I don’t feel small. He appreciates the details, and smiles even though I don’t say a word. His presence and the absence of it regulates my anxiety. He doesn’t make me panic, he slows time and treasures the silence. He is open: like a secret introvert underneath an extrovert’s skin, and his politeness and effort despite the lack of time and his stolen hours makes me wish I knew how to speak. Whatever he is is how he affects me. He is a puzzle to me, and I don’t want to solve it. I like how he is predictable but unpredictable because the world of opportunities are out of his control. And so in the end, it hardly matters what he looks like to me anymore, it’s more of the idea of him that makes me feel okay.
the dream of consciousness of a girl in like
I dreamt that he frantically wrote me a letter after I tried to run to work. Instead of work though, I ended up at a diner with three other friends, and he had joined. He wore glasses and was beautiful, and agreed with waiter that we were on a date. And upon that admission, while we waited for my friend to finish her payment, he wrote me a letter. The admission of a date, of like and in like in mutual satisfaction, was enough for me as an agreement. So as he wrote the letter, I laid my head on his shoulder. But I didn’t look at his note. It was frantic, written on an ad because we had no time, I would wake up soon. Still, I remember the feeling of me and his shoulder, it sits like a well adjusted pillow, but it’s a touch that was never real between us in reality because I am too afraid to move into the realm, and so I just long - no, why am I digressing? Now I’m forgetting it - the letter - I’m trying to hard not to lose the words, but at first it was a poorly constructed letter of just “You’re a great friend” notes, until I opened up the paper and found a flip-side. Oh god, don’t slip away now. I woke up just to write this so I’ll never forget. I woke up and thought it was real, and I wish all my real life instincts are right on this note. And the letter, so the letter said, “and she said, just make one good video please. and i want to try so hard for you. and if you asked me to travel halfway across the world i would do it.,” and then there was an email address noononey@yahoo.com - something strange and ghostly that made me question the exact reality of the dream - for me to use for future contact when we parted onto different continents. There were so many words, but such simple words, and he was a stupid boy who wrote blue ink on black, on top of an advertisement for Paris with gypsy eyes over the Eiffel Tower. I can remember reading every single line written in a hard pressed ballpoint pen, but the exact words are lost to me now. Still, the intent lingers like scent that’s not mine, a breath that’s still here, fighting with reality as I want to describe it and reality as it was in words, but I’m forgetting it now, although sometimes it comes back. Not now though, I think the words are completely gone now… No, wait. When I woke up, I thought so vividly that the feelings were true because he wrote, I care about you a lot you know. Okay, I remember that now.
the idea of it
I don’t want to part with… I’ve been walking this city knowing that you aren’t breathing the same air, and when the admission hit me, I found myself suffocating. It wasn’t the kind of breathlessness that I get when I hear the haunting tones of Bon Iver. It was the kind of inhale that hurts because it’s so cold and the lungs are empty. In sincerity, this is a poem without the breaks and without the pauses, just as this is a lengthy sentence woven to explain in a womanly manner that I want to write a public note telling you to come back and make this city alive again. But I never submit those words because they are not for you, they are for the idea of you that can be translated from one person to another, and they will be transferred when you are out of sight, out of hope. Without reality, these feelings are safeguarded.
Unless physical conversation occurs, the act of meeting face to face or wanting to meet like so from the digital conversation amounts to nothing.
life interlude; dearskye
Never lose the people you like. You can lose the people you love, that much is a given. Heartaches and heartbreaks are good for creativity - love and reversed passion are the most driving motivators to do wrong, or right. People you love come unbalanced, and the ripping, abstract loss is expected. The people you love have given so much in return that even when they’re gone, something about them still lingers behind. When they go, they tear off an arm and for that instance, for once in our lives, we are like starfish. The limb will grow back if we want it to, or we can delay until we bleed dry. At least it’s still a struggle between life and death. So you can lose the people you love, but never lose the people you like because when that happens, you lose faith in everything simple and mundane. Nothing will, in this world, stay afloat.
toast - astronautica
these days i find speech unnecessary. the tangible touch is a bit pointless too. why would i search for something when entertainment can elicit an incomparable reaction? my only passion is across the pond and probably existing without a thought for me - and if truth be truth, i discovered that i cannot write at home. there’s too much tranquility, a soothing submersion of morphine waves. i wake up in comfort, in sweats and oversize tshirts and stay this way for days. the only thing that excites me on a physical level of desire is what i’m going to eat next, like condensed milk on toast.
People should flee the country when it comes to a celebratory holiday, and spend their time in place where that so called holiday is nonexistent. Then it’ll become clear how the holiday can truly be a selfish taking and a nonsensical giving, or even in this case - the celebration of colonization. And it does matter how far removed and different the meaning Thanksgiving has become. It’s not just a holiday of good food and family, because why do you need a holiday as an excuse to appreciate family? No matter how hard you argue about the “now” goodness of certain holidays, the fact that something so cruel can be so easily forgotten and re-appropriated shows how frightening the adaptability and forgetfulness humanity can be with history. And how easily we accept commercialism as the definitions to our freedom.
You think sleep makes things go away. Heals. Makes things better, but it really doesn’t. It just makes waking up to reality so much worse. Maybe that’s why I force my body to choose: stay awake until being alive is a seamless dream. Don’t sleep. Don’t sleep or you’ll wake up.
