above, and to the right

ysa / photo by mikaela palmares

HAVE YOU READ THE NEWS... LATELY?

I'm beginning to see that people are drawn to me.
But only in the way that car accidents have a certain charisma.
until they don't.

Gone with the 5 a.m. obituary.

I have been homesick ever since I was old enough to know what the term meant. And then I wondered why my family and all the places we ever called "home" didn't cure this ailment. In contrast, it increasingly demanded hypervigilance until it became a part of my personality, and still deemed me too comfortable. However, it served to show me the opposite of what "home" is.

I have been asleep since birth. Bouts of half-slumber, a question you forget by the time the chance comes to ask it. But now, being je**ed wide awake so late, possibly too late, no, unacceptable, I refuse that notion... It is beautiful, and terrifying. It is fragile warmth and it is swollen eyes and fear and giddy laughter and thorned conversation and a shaking of the frame and a pulling out of teeth and up of floorboards and closer to love.

And I think I'm unearthing it, just as I'm finding out who I am truly, when I am not being punished for my existence. Or, punishing myself for existing, by proxy. But, big-eyed after such an endless night, I see so much possibility. Hope is in view at least once a day; I need only reach out to it when the dusk gets heavy.

I am finally home, and I am wide awake.

a fair share of the praise I receive is
strength.
How well I've endured.
I am tired of being admired for how well I can take a hit. How quickly I pick myself up, or smile through a bloodied mouth.

Yet I only spit out teeth when no one is watching.

I have been released from being the State's property.
And am, once again, bleeding ink from the corner of the ceiling.
By unpopular demand, no less.

O, comme tu m'as manqué, mon Ciel.

A few years from now, I hope you're someone else.

Someone else, in somewhere else. And by I, I always meant you.

I hope you knew that.

If not, this is awkward.

I never told you, because you're already sad when you leave, every weekend, but I turn around excitedly and talk like you're still here.

Until I remember.

Cheers, to remembrance. For as long as we have it.

"I need you to bite down."

"You just need someone to," you correct.

"It doesn't matter who does it," they hiss, like a faucet about to start. "I just know it requires teeth."

"Mine were pulled down memory lane and sanded to harmless nubs," you say mildly.

"Uh-huh." They sound unimpressed. "Start again."

"Again?"

"Not good enough." You can feel hot breath on your neck, and you crane it upwards to grant more access. They recoil at this.

"Just start again."

"There's no start if I've been doing it the whole time." You allow your eyes to swivel in their sockets.

"I just-" they cut themselves off, and rub at the space between their eyes. "I just need you to bite down."

It isn't good enough.

An unexpected life blooms before me. A vision dripping with beauty, is this the mirage that the desert is so well known for? I'd rather give chase to an illusion than blister in idleness. I scramble to gather remnants of dreams that I locked away, the rest long morphed into nightmares. And standing before you, wounds exposed, I present my dreams; tattered, archaic things, yet much too grand. Outlandish, but ravaged with conviction. All this, poorly stitched together with deep sorrow, and an even deeper hope. I present this, for it is all I have to offer.
No plans were made, nothing was sacred; incompatible, I deemed my existence impossible long ago.

And still, half-dreams draped over outstretched arms, I ask,
'Would you, whom I hold so sacred, create something beautifully impossible with me?'

the desert has lost all its deer

I miss you so much. I fear my chest will cave in, still eroding after all this time.
But your bones rest, unknown, unmarked, in the desert alone, and have for over a damn decade. You never came back to haunt me like you said you would.
I imagine that means you reside somewhere with a calmer tide.
Close those doe-eyes, rest easy. I am trying to be as strong as you thought I was.

If only to carry your memory aloft, as antlers of my own.

You'll be hanged by your halo. Your reclusive nature has led to isolation, a recipe for death in a world of mingling and invisible threats.

Get your feet wet, for once.
Coward.

All you could say in response was everything you knew they had heard before. It felt wrong saying such things. Like you had ripped open a wound that went clean through to the other side, and decided the best remedy was the same dirty bandaid you'd found on it to begin with.
You became scared that you were just following the same track as the predecessors. That the route you traveled was predestined, simply because of the words you chose. That your condolences and sympathies were an omen of days to repeat.
You don't know what will happen. You know you said the only things you could, and that the words were genuine. Sincerity, wrapped neatly around your tongue, blessed every syllable.
The words were born of love.
In the end, though, they all are.

"Disappointment is a hell of a drug," the horse croons intrusively. It's already well over the doorstep, let alone your quirky millennial welcome mat.

"There's not much people won't do to avoid it, and yet, we end up doing it to ourselves anyway." It snorts, snot flying everywhere.

"Please," you say. "You're in my house."

"And in your head," the horse asserts. It cannot perform finger guns, but tries anyway.

It ends up looking an awful lot like someone had turned the lower half of its hooves into tentacles. They writhe wetly, in their pathetic excuse for a humorous 90s gesture. And then the horse trips before catching itself.

There's a painful, awkward silence.

The horse sneezes.

"You know, I thought this would help," you say finally. It coughs, hardwood floor squeaking. "But honestly, it's just sort of making me feel worse."

"You got any vodka?" the horse asks.

off brand but true as f**k

What goes through the mind of someone committing the sin of absence? To neglect is to withhold love after it was received. To that end you aren't sure if you've received it; the scarcity of the resource made it so much more valuable and sought after that any time it showed it was swallowed whole by the hands without faces. You've been starved; going without for such a long time you aren't sure what is and isn't poison anymore. It doesn't matter; so long as it fills your screaming stomach.
Maybe one day you'll be fulfilled; prioritized by one that you'll view just as important and integral as they view you. Maybe you'll find the future so sought after, waiting for you with no one to fight- no competitions or challenges- just an easy peace with your name carved into its chest.
You wonder if this is just another day dream- if this reality you've fetishized will ever really come into fruition.

But until then, we keep moving and searching for the new hole in the dirt to forge into the new home made of bones.

You like to think back on fresher days. The sparks would fly like fireflies in a field; a visual concerto of peace blossoming forth from concrete, asphalt, humid days and darkness. You remember the smell but can't place exactly which floral blessing its been derived from. Laughter- the soft, exalting sound escaping a perfect blend of warmth and smiles. You think about the comfort they brought; the bright, blinking eyes of nature twinkling in the setting sun. They danced around her. They begged you to join.
But you're timid, and shy. So instead, you drink the moment. You watch them twirl. You watch the sun bounce off their skin as they laugh in amazement. You watch, and burn this memory deep into your brain; an intense photo copied impression of one of the happiest and most peaceful moments of your life.
You like to replay this day in your mind often.
The peace you find in it is almost electrifying.

absolutely visceral.

"Su***de", you whisper to yourself, "isn't enough." You aren't sure where the craving comes from. It slips itself around your throat and rips back, sawing at your trachea when pressure gets high. The sting of a ci******es cherry against your skin is warm; it feels as if you're embracing a once lost love.
The knives in the drawer show you your face through a dusted and elongated reflection. You hesitate before shutting it, the phantom smell and taste of blood dancing in the back of your throat. Your wrists and fingertips tingle with 10,000 needle pricks in a ring around your arm; the body yearning to remove what is poisonous to avoid further contamination.
You sit and try to drown out your intrusive thoughts of burned flesh with a shower. The water only makes you drown more.
You think back on the times you'd indulge yourself.
You regret reminiscing.

The strange thing about losing an eye as a pr***en is, you don't realize what is effected later. I don't see faces too clearly unless I spend time observing them from a distance that makes most people uncomfortable for an amount of time that really drives in that "this is f**king weird" nail in the coffin of uncomfortability. Usually this time only happens when someone is sleeping next to me; just before they wake. I always wake up first, and in the precious little time I get before they wake, I study them. I watch the creases in their face and memorize each of them as if they were lines in a script. Even then, until it's habitual, the recall of the face is tainted with an iridescent tint veiling any detail you're not making direct eye contact with.
I haven't seen my son's face clearly- never awake, anyway. Every partner I've had gets shy, or blushes when I try to study their features; some going as far as to start hiding from view. I wonder what the world looks like to those with two eyes to make the image come together. I wonder why I chose the sky as the last thing to look at as the world faded to blood red, then black. Even my dreams come with an ominously unnatural fogginess. My memories are washed and sunbleached by it. It taints my thoughts. Haunts my heart, pulling puppet strings from my cracked windows.

visceral writing.
definitely check this page/writer out.

The scariest thing about su***de is probably not knowing what will happen later in the day.
What if your demise isn't even the worst thing that happens that day?
What if a famous person dies the same day and nobody remembers that you died; just the bobble head on TV?
What if your friends drop their w**d on a shaggy carpet?
Or worse,
What if it's the best thing to happen to someone?

Maybe my love wasn't clear enough.
You know that's not true; every declaration has began with you, then was it returned, but only to be polite.
Maybe my traits have all faded.
The desire to know you or even feign appearances is nonexistent, exasperated. And though it stings like the winter wind against raw, unsleeping eyes, you are painfully aware that there is nothing they truly miss about you. And the reassurances are all just so you don't keep f**king bothering them. Annoyance is an understatement. You wonder if they're silently pleading for you to assume that form that fits you best. You could have become something better. But when you sow disdain in an angel where love once grew...
Well, you always were good at disappearing.. And until your incorporeal, emaciated frame fades completely, you can try to paint a Paradise for your divine love, the endless Paradise you witnessed the first time his soft lips met yours, and you hope that a wraith isn't the last form you retain.
You hope.

I’ve been alone for the holidays. Really puts things in perspective. Especially when it is all your own doing.
It is lonely and the days stretch on, and the punishment is just a heavier existence than you thought was previously manageable.

And yet each day passes.

Why are you staying in single file? The end is the same regardless, and you might be able to see some of the mountains if you run fast enough. Just takes a little initiative.

There is a draft in your aoertic attic.
A series of melodies drift through the rafters, and string up your heart
akin to a marionette, a well worn guitar. Both play the part.
Every scent you haven’t caught in a decade decorates the space you’ve made for anything that allows you to feel.
You aren’t supposed to be real.
So anything beyond zero is worth a devote kneel.
Your shaking frame, stitched with such sorrow and mended with joy,
is reaching for a phantom phased into the floorboards.
The tears are hot as they carve such burrows, and you can only mouth, hands outstretched,
“the future is nigh”

your memory disappears with a sigh.

I’m awash with memory today.
Nostalgia is always stronger in the winter, at least that’s been my experience. “Never knows best.” A prevalent, echoing scene in a certain 6 episode anime from my childhood. But it feels like a promise. And it makes me feel that everything will turn out okay. Maybe I’ll reach some enlightenment when I reach the lucky I flipped and inhale dried Sharpie. I’ll let you know.
Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, and mine are stained with ink and ash.

I smoke way too much.