We'll all be ancients

The future

In the future
We’ll all be ancients
setting on the horizon of tomorrow

Us
with our brown hands clenched on the wings of yesterday
sigh into the mud

 - Nia Rahman-Khan Arana

On nightmares

You rolled over me at 3:13,
I’m scared I’ll never wake up.
The strong and the weak.

I am the dirt under your fingernails.
always.
The way you smell after two weeks of walking
Your boy shrug
your castration
I am all of these things
and 
I am of these things. 

always. 

My mother warned me
about the constellations
and the dreams
and your dirt
I listened carefully
before I followed you
to the place where time is forever
and the hole that I am now known for.

I knelt and looked in.
You-forever-boy,
and I
swelling involuntarily into woman.
We. Never, eternally. 

Will I ever? 

Son RAdiant (in four tracks)

Don’t treat me gently.
Not with kisses

or open arms,

or whispers (unless you’re telling me to 

Grab me by the neck

your hand fits well there.

Pull me back

and away.

But whatever you do,
Don’t treat me gently.
it isn’t natural, it doesn’t suit you.

Don’t apologize.

It means nothing,

covered in stardust and honey.

It looks good,

tastes good.
But not here, it’s not the time.
We can make it up later.

But here?

Languidity should be absent. 

If you spare me now, I’ll never learn.
Rest is for the faint of heart and I can’t afford to bring mine into the room,
much less to your bed.

and you keep yours out of sight.
But, that’s just the way we feel.

Our paths have chosen us,
Right now.

So….
Blind barrage of provocation

deaf to affliction

death to approbation

Our final benediction 

is the silence 

of tension.

Sublime!

Friendship (#2)

How strange.
A piece of me that you didn’t know existed
has fallen out of my eye socket

and now casually rests at your feet

and

How strange

and funny it looks.

you step over it, careful though

and speak, staring through the hole: “Sorry, what were you saying?” 

How strange. 

In my head (#3)

I am on a bus

forever

it is always two stops from my final destination

it always has been and will be

I am chewing gum and taking up two seats

and fuck

if that ain’t that girl I knew from back when

two rows down the aisle.

I have a bag

what’s in it? I need lotion,

and its a little too chilly.

I straighten my slump to turn my head towards the window.
I was waiting to see something pass.
Did we pass it yet?  

However you want to see it.

No more 

pictures

or

confidantes

texts

calls

dinner

shit

denial

no more

reasoning

leaving

moving on

coming back

dancing

singing

denial

no more

fake

real?

it should have been

oh well.

where was I?

denial

no more

entitlement

passivity

stories

lies

truth?

denial

no more

movies

sickness

tea

visits

kicked out

brought in

denial

no more

knives

bottles

weed

sex

ripping

bruising

denial

no more

radio silence

dead phones

gripped neck

denial

no more 

rhymes

money

nakedness

TONY YEYO

or

denial

no more 

insomnia

upset stomachs

headaches

soreness 

denial

no more

running

begging

indifferent

cyclic

denial

no more

1 year

2 deaths

3 strikes

denial.
no more

no mores

closed doors

or

that girl I was,

denial.

We’re not NU School

Who still does it?
We do.
On playgrounds
still swinging
SLAP.
With rope. 

who who who?

YOU COULDN’T HELP IT
she was beautiful
long legged disaster
you were standing right next to me
but your lips had already hurled themselves
into her tiny pocket
Did you figure
she could tame the the big black beast inside?

I witnessed your flight
and did not hate you for it
my eyes were on the ATEN
worshipping the tangled nebulous
of vein 
in your left eye
.strain and focus.
I remembered when I was your right eye.

I am still the boogie man under your bed,
you would reach under and throw me out
if you weren’t afraid you wouldn’t have a hand afterwards.

remember me?
 


 

My stomach

is doing those things it does
when I watch a scary movie

It must be that time of the night
when I am faced by my own
buckled and bent tension
I am burned.
Already?
I am sure of it now.
Already. 

untitled 1

I remember myself cloaked in the dark of your brow

It was a tremble of thought

my quivering pulse 

taught at once how to speak a name 

I often sighed from deep in my lungs.

I remember myself in you

when the joy of knowing you was morning

and our hands touching was night.