dated: july 2020

 how powerful is a picture?

green and blue pixels, bright against the screen

leaves unmoving and yet softly they sway with the breeze

july 2020 is balmy and dry

as always, summers in the bay are comfortable

afternoon sun rays flash through the branches

through the window of my tiny phone screen

through my fingers outstretched, reaching for wisps of hair

laughter floats over the crunch of shoes running over gravel

a myriad of memories captured in an empty park

three friends, three puffy clouds in a cerulean sea

summer after high school is a blink in time

oak leaves fall like glitter in a snow globe

the camera flashes once

snap

the moment replays indefinitely

quotes i like [11]

"I was burning, while you came blaming me for the smell of ashes."

~

Dostoevsky

in another universe

my photo is sitting in your wallet

you are grabbing a shopping cart

and i am running inside to tap the watermelons

flower arrangement

Orchid in a vase

Delicate petals fanned in gradient

Elegant stem curved against the glass

Buds around me at carefully staggered heights

Shades of violet, magenta, soft lilac

Centerpiece of your kitchen

Roots trimmed off in a pretty tapered point

Leaves snipped for uniformity

I'm living the best of my bloom

Gratefully drinking the sink water you give me

In three days my petals will be in cracked pieces

Under your shoe

❀

rice cooker

Rice in the pot is warm and fragrant

In my bowl it's nourishing and filling

I smell the rice cooker before my mom calls for dinner

Sometimes she adds brown ice, purple rice, grains, sweet potato

Rice in the pot is always cooking by the time school ends

It's ready for me when I finish my homework

I miss its little songs and my mom's footsteps on our kitchen's linoleum floor

𓎩

i and you, you and i

i don't know how to ask (for love)

i cling to your shirt sleeve when you leave in the morning

i don't know how to force the words past my tongue (thank you)

you tuck my hair behind my ears and quietly wash the dishes

you read the words that live in my head (i love you)

your palms are warm when you hand me cups of tea

kernels

Push me down, pry me apart

– Open wider, baby –

Tear me at the seams

Drink the nectar like water

– So wet –

Wider, wider, split down the middle

Crunch on my pieces and chew on my pride

– I love you –

Suck the kernels dry

Is a pomegranate a person? 

traces

tickles from your fingertips

mint from your chapstick tingling my lips

i like when your world crashes into mine

infancy

there is a little girl in my head

she scratches at the walls and throws food on the floor

she screams and wails and complains

she wants a hug and doesn't know how to ask

i braid her hair and hold her hand and tell her that i love her

quotes i like [10]

"I know pretty much what I like and dislike;

but please, don't ask me who I am."

~

Sylvia Plath

happy chaos

 like girls crowded in a bathroom

lips

i hate when my lips are chapped

(i'd let you kiss them dry though)

❦

quotes i like [9]

"How quietly we endure all that falls upon us"

~

Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

moving forward

years pass like faces in a crowded street,

blurry eyes and shoulders streaming past in threads

numbers slip through desperate fingers,

troubled water running over tangled moss and riverbed stones

tired feet trudging on and on,

they only know the one direction

quotes i like [8]

"Menstruation is the only blood that is not born from violence,

yet it's the one that disgusts you the most."

~

Maia Schwartz

pnw

There are orange needles under my feet

And towering sequoia branches

Like deep green ladders to a foggy sky

There is solitude and there is companionship

In coastal mist

It holds my hand and hugs the mammoth trunks

There are redwoods that form a metropolis

Spindly like Gaea's fingers reaching out of damp soil

She wears fairy rings like plated gold

There is a melancholy in these woods

It runs in the little forest creeks

And crashes in cliffside falls into the deep blue of the Pacific

love, loss, and madness

trigger warning: mild body horror, blood/gore

When you left you reached down my throat,

Wrenched my heart through my pleading teeth.

Pieces catch like rubbery fish on ivory hooks.

I'm still chewing on cardiac muscle,

Suckling old blood congealed like blackberry jelly.

My blood streams down your fingers,

Fresh like crushed pomegranate.

Dark as death.

Dark as I descend.

Rib cage stage swallowing my final act.

The ring master waves gnarled arms.

Curtains like quivering gills, draw closed.

I sit cross-legged in a supple red cage,

Licking viscera off my palms. 

Still pining for the sting of your fist stretching my lips,

For the bitter taste of your departing fingers on my tongue.

quotes i like [7]

"There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart."

~

Albert Camus

gaze

eyes eyes over mine

rake across my body lines

pocket full of pearly masks

paint it wear it when they ask

silky gauze clinging in threads

follow me to bed

𓁹

quotes i like [6]

"I would rather spend one lifetime with you

than face all the ages of this world alone."

~

Arwen, The Lord of the Rings

pour

i write best when i can barely see the screen

when everything pours through ocean eyes in torrents on the page

when tsunamis tear against my skull

push against my nerves

and calm to run in rivulets down lines of luminant text