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--from my latest substack post-- ordering coffee, again. i’ll grab this one. of course; it’s no problem. oat? soy? neither? okay, no milk, right. it’s a thursday, you don’t put milk in your coffee on thursdays, i remember. you told me that last autumn for the first time. at the shop on the corner of streets running north and south and east and west the location as ambiguous as you were to me. i held onto your words like candlelight, which is to mean, i felt myself grasping at the wick of your thoughts as they released. hold onto it slowly, i did, each tendril of smoke had meaning, for you have never said things that did not matter. i’ve always held the space to gather up all your meaning, to keep attempting to collect the strands of everything that encapsulates you. the long strings of yarn strung together in loose cadence; but i can keep the rhythm, and i can keep the pace, and i can hold the room for all of it, i’ll hold the threads in my palm and i’ll grasp it with certainty. because it is without effort, there is no weight, or burden, or distraught, to be the one to hold that which you carry; it is not beyond my strength to hold all of you. for to love was to bear it all, or at least that’s what i read, but isn’t that how it feels? to be seen, to be understood, is to recognize that any quirk fear inability lack thereof is not a withholding nor weakness nor failing it is the space between us the location in the strings where we meet in the middle the threaded spiderweb of life has bound us this way no, not doomed; no, not ill-fated. for you are the red string connected to my wrist the one that has lead me to you the universal pull to unravel the thread so that i may reach you even though you exist outside of my grasp as i see it now all i ever needed was your hand pressed against mine i want to feel myself expanding and compressing underneath the weight of your eyes soft winding and slow crackling do we fall deeper the string twisting and tying and threading and then loosening unraveling the yarn crocheted and knitted do we find ourself loose ends and damaged strands have we come together to make whole the both of us i’ll order the same coffee every thursday i’ll walk you home from the station i’ll make the pasta that way you like it and i’ll keep writing these letters so that one day you’ll read them i’ll press them with the flowers of your tomorrow scented with the bloom of longing sealed with the certainty of promise the promise that i’ll keep collecting and saving the things you’d like the letters the movies the albums the trinkets the odds the ends the things yet to be discovered and the things you’ll have to show me i’m just a scrapbook of all the things i’ve loved before a capsule of intricacy i’ll keep the light on outside i’ll wait on the porch i’ll keep the fire warm i’ll know when you’re here and you’ll know it’s me for the strings will connect, the yarn unraveled, the lines no longer crossing but joining. and if it’s a thursday, a plain coffee, no milk just so there isn’t any lack of a sign. #poetry #letters #substack
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Dec 5, 2024

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this is awesome thank you for sharing
Dec 25, 2024

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you know, all i like to write about is love.Ā  writing is easier when it’s about your own personal experiences of grief, of pain but love is the beautiful dove of the twoĀ  released at a funeral, released at a wedding. , because the definition is different for everybody. — the trees rustle again tonight, and the wind gently taps on the windowpane, begging again to be let in and my thoughts race farther and faster in the night than a pure-bred, hot-blooded racehorse, bucking wild for the first time my mind buzzes, stricken like a gong, reverberating in the quietness of tonight as i drag myself closer to you, you reach out for me, an unspoken, gentle and devout prayer, asking for me in the unspeakable words conveyed in a whisper through actions – i promised you a fantastical world of your own, where you are safe, through my own creation. i have created for you in the heart of my own somewhere for me to love you,Ā  fully and infinitely with all of myself. if this is not where you are safe, then there is nothing else. –  word by word and sentence by sentence i create dreams i would never tell anybody not even under the skies of a cloudless night. when i sleep, i tuck my hopes and sadness under my pillow and hope a fairy will kidnap it and place in that spot something i should need more. but night after night, my dreams just macerate in the container of my heart. soon, i will drink them like an elixir of truth and what i am afraid of will come
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šŸ½
The sharp scent of rain tumbles clumsily in as you tease window-hinges wider with the pads of your fingers. A siren trails close behind, uninvited, sears your eardrums, dies off down the block. Your neighbors are arguing again. Laundry, loans, lack of commitment… like yesterday, like the day before. You think it would be suffocating to wrap yourself up in someone else’s sheets.Ā  It’s five o’clock. Leaning against the sill and flicking the radio dial with one recently manicured nail, you tune into the local news. Roaring wall of static, then calm conversation between two anchors bubbling up through an old set of Panasonic loudspeakers. You are feeling incomplete today, like yesterday, like the day before. Rigatoni boils in the kitchen. You check the leftmost cabinet and find strawberry jam, unopened. You check the cupboard and look over a tub of tahini, a collection of canned soup, and a stack of pie tins. You check the counter, behind the cutlery. Finally, you check the fridge, ducking down to see only your own brown-eyed reflection in one last — now empty — jar of Prego. Your shoulders dip. You slip on white sneakers, not-so-white-as-they-once-were. Why did you try to paint the front door? It is peeling now, ugly like a fledgling losing young feathers. Flecks of buttery yellow dapple paisley carpeting. The great outdoors wait for you at the bottom of a cramped stairwell with twin light fixtures, both broken. A sky like an old sweater is draped above Brooklyn, ready to wring itself out again at any moment. Once around the block, rubber soles brushing damp cement, you walk briskly. At first you fling yourself against the humidity, then become self-conscious and adopt a slower pace as you near the corner store. Two dollars, sixty cents. Like last week, like the week before.Ā  You and I, we are looking down at our phones and stumble into each other, halfway home. It is no one’s fault. You recognize me from somewhere, you say, and feel like a bad person for lying. You have never seen me before in your life. I ask for your number. That night you eat too quickly, knowing you’ll wish you’d saved some leftovers. I come over once, then again. We go out for dinner at tacky restaurants, where art deco posters from the nineteen-thirties have pinned themselves up in scattered flocks across worn-out drywall and the menu is printed with strange font on laminated placemats. The appetizer sample photos are unnerving; the bruschetta cowers like a scared animal awash in excessive camera flash. I make a joke about it, and you laugh. We order dishes to share. The food is always better than I expected, but not quite as good as you wanted it to be. You don’t mind. We talk for hours. We agree, ballpoint pens are better. I hold you, and the ten p.m. bus pulls you out of my arms and through the dusky streets, past crowds and utility poles. I hold you, and we rhyme our steps. Burgundy is around us in the leaves and in the dirt. You wear a coat I gave you. I hold you, and we swat flies out on your porch. The days are getting shorter. I hold you, and we watch blu-ray CDs you found on sale. Soft light from the flatscreen plays across your face as you fall asleep. I keep the movie on a little longer. I hold you. In December, we bring a blanket to Long Island and listen to the sound of snow falling on the dunes. You call in sick for work too often. I hold you, and you know my callouses well. We share the same sheets; we are wrapped up in each other. I hold you, and kiss your hair. You smell like candied oranges. The afternoons eat away at one another. Dishes pile like uneven layer-cakes in your kitchen sink, crested with suds. You say you feel uninspired. Now we argue about laundry, and the sounds of your unhappy apartment are heard through half-open windows.Ā  You shout, eyebrows furrowed like the pages of a book. A white plate soars from the grip of a trembling hand, misses an upturned chin, and interrupts us with its shattering. This time, it’s different. Sleep escapes us ā€˜til the sun is already planted on the easternmost rooftop. I hurt you the way I learned to, and stay awhile, but don’t know why I stay. We sink into sweet, heavy things: the saxophone in ā€œCharcoal Babyā€, shared creamsicles on hot Saturday evenings. I see you less and less, and remember less and less of you. Will I see you next week? Yes, if you text me. You forget, just like we’d both hoped.
Sep 17, 2024
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we’re careening— well, that sounds dramatic. not careening— but sliding, holding you and myself in place— because my disposition leads (and has always led) to believing abandon reckless will kill if I let it as close as myself and yourself held only by bicycle rope or kayak rope or moving box rope side beside inside truckbed backseat forgone throats slicked with City of Roses forest gin and Artemis Moons I’m sober and you’re not I’m anxious and you’re not you’re carefree spit-balling about side parts and saying love and love as we pass long-haul truckers— eyesclosed Lyft drivers— that pinkie-promise coworker to fast friend elbow to elbow barefoot to clogs off in the cab shallow river dipping mask off cheek pinch I-tell-everyone-you’re-my-cousin kind of love that no mother could ever that no father could ever that kind of love that door we kicked down and threw into that mustard bonfire of before that old worthless hinge don’t work so won’t bother not ever not now not in this truckbed— I toss my thoughts to traffic fine me $900 for littering lock me up for language you say what a beautiful city my glasses are in my pocket those empty offices stacked apartments and windowbeam glitterblurs fall into the nightvoid I’ve seen beautiful and more unmatched in those words you weave so keep weaving them— I’ll be here listening long after we pull into the driveway. (& if u like it, I linked my poetry newsletter :)
May 14, 2024

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what the hell did they put in this movie? I need it desperately. I need it like an everything bagel with veggie cream cheese on a Sunday morning. I need it like water in my lungs. I need it like I need Age of Consent to play directly following Love Will Tear Us Apart on the dance floor. I need it like two beers to overcome my social anxiety. I need it like the woman I met at that house party last week to text back so we can go out and dance and talk about books again because I long to hear her opinion on literally anything. Safe to say, I need this movie bad. A day on this earth doesn’t pass where I don’t think about this piece of film. The longing. The tension. The colors. The music. The sea. It has it all. I need to be at the sea. You know how they used to send women to the sea for treatment for ā€œhysteriaā€, like in The Bell Jar or Ammonite or this film. I need that but less in the patriarchal and misogynistic way, but more in like a ā€œI really need to just be close to a body of water for a prolonged period of time and ponder thingsā€. Every time I see the number 28 I think of this film. Every time I look at a classical painting. Every time I hear a French word spoken I am convinced I need to acquire the language so I can grasp this in its true essence. My therapist told me that I am centered around longing, this has always been true, this movie has only amplified that. The lovers path or the poets path which shall I take? I don’t fucking know as long as I can experience a connection half as deep as this. Go watch this movie.
Aug 2, 2024
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what I’d give to experience listening to this song for the first time again, especially watching the music video. How does one escape modernity and live in the world of the harvest moon music video? Just at a bar, dancing with someone you’re fond of, while a live bands plays
Aug 2, 2024
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been on my uncle iroh shit lately, london fog every morning, inquire below for my sage wisdom
Feb 12, 2025