How can you ever disappoint me
For a home, we had a tent made out of blankets. It was as raw as the way you grab my wrist in the middle of the crowd. Do not get lost. There was a bowl of prawns for lunch which made it easy to forget etiquette.
Eventually the story of your skin played out along my fingertips like a ballad. Inside the tent you were immortal, leaving no room for pillow-talk. I touch your cold feet, you smile. Our little home was occupied. You occupied the air. You even occupied the sunlight.
Manila traffic is the culprit
I rolled down the window to expose myself. The racing wind crept through my hair
like how your fingers used to.
Blinding headlights rushing towards me give me a migraine. I reach out
for a pill that isn’t there. By instinct, I reach out
only to touch the empty seat beside me.
your skin was always so tender
If I stay away from the reflex to touch, maybe
it would seem that the option was still there,
If my hands wouldn’t tremble (like old men with arthritis), eager
to find the familiar warmth of your thighs, maybe
the memory wouldn’t be so unfamiliar.
there was a blank billboard outside the window.
stacked in a field of uncut grass. blow
the wind blows like how I exhale
a long traffic of smoke. the wind blows
through my hair, through the long afternoon
made up of little words and a thousand gestures.
on the bed, he was sleeping.
I take off my clothes
as it was a clouded atmosphere.
I look out the window.
I tap the cigarette with my finger,
ashes fall like snow that isn’t snow.
I keep steady. there was nothing left
to reason. the wind blows
Lamp posts across the skyway formed a diamond necklace in the sky, spewed along a black canvas, dragging you home, singing a soft tune: I am here. The windshield became a portal into a painting.
The pavement became one with the borders of the glass, taking you in. The air outside was vivid to the eye. Inside the vehicle, the subtle caramel smell of the Sleepwalk Circus plays like water on the skin, it is a finger pressed against the lip.
In another road, in another timeframe, there is a girl crossing a busy street. Weary of cars, looking left and right. Her hair dances with the wind like slow waves crashing into the sand bed. Sea foam, sea spray. She remembers a vague moment of a long drive home.
Our shoulders have forgotten the heaviness of metal armors. Disarmed
-the word closest to the taste of our cowardice. Disarmed as in, a soldier asleep,
disarmed as in, naked
Your collar bones have become fully exposed, leaving no room for fancy jewelry.
On a platter, for the taking. Forsaking
all things left to the private heart
or all things yet to commune. Disarmed as in a child alone,
disarmed as in, a love forsaken.
Inductive recollection
- He had nothing left but the ability to pretend he could tape over this memory.
- Goosebumps traveled all over his skin, tapping at last, upon his consciousness. This is it, your arms wrapped around her.
- The familiar smell of her hair: honeysuckle, coffee and midnights. A lost proximity now finding its way from the shadows of words that could no longer be unsaid.
- He deliberately breezed through the crowd upon the vague sight of her lightness. Her crimson cheeks. Tonight, the moon had lost its supposed purpose.
- Tickets were slowly collected by the gate, creating an impossible line. But this was music people came not only to hear, but to swim within. He catches the sense that she is here.
- The taxicab passed through a thousand ‘shortcuts’ to steepen the meter. Good thing the radio station played a variation of Radiohead.
of city folk
There were overweight dogs walking at night, crossing streets on their own. I thought: can we ever be as domesticated? The light shines red and it is not taken as a suggestion. Paws stay firmly on the ground.
The splattered dragon fruit makes a white stain on the asphalt, much like pale innards. The shoes of businessmen allow it to travel. When Mr. Yang gets home, he’ll wipe off a vomit-like consistency from the sole of his new leather shoes. Damn it, I should’ve passed by that dirty alley.
Green. Color-blind animals have never seen a lovelier shade of grey. They follow after the few people who weren’t in a hurry to break a rule or two.
He takes off his overpriced shoes, and wipes them vigorously. He heads to his bedroom that is just a curtain away. A closet is filled with bargained coats and ties. The teapot screams an aria. Tea time.
There were covers on the wheels of vehicles. As if I would act like a dog. Its tail wags and walks along.
Generic tea is served for one. Television is the birth of insomnia.
The night is busy, but it is time to rest. A small corner by the 24-hour ATM machine is a warm bed tonight. At least overweight dogs dream. Maybe a big juicy bone. Maybe, a home.
Mr. Yang stares blankly into this colorful tube, waiting for no sleep to come till he can put on his shiny leather shoes once more.
?
An economy of a hundred yeses against a thousand noes,
too much steps in our reason, backwards and sideways, our toes have gone cold.
An exchange of saliva and dry skin tug us further apart. Memorize the sound of your teeth as they meet. Like a child playing
again, and deliberately again. Think of the word colostrum. An infant
can never say no.
The windowsill frames a black picture, spilled with tungsten dots and tinkling beams.
the question is no longer relevant. The answer
remains to be either-or.
There was a quick flash of speed zooming from the left of the picture
piercing to the right. A biker,
rushing to a lover’s home.
The painting fades back to black. There is a yes
within the alternate taps of leaves that cover the tinkling beams. The wind
sweeps away all question marks.
1.
It was the most fun they’d each had in years, following the smell of each other down the rabbit hole and into the room where all the sexual positions were different, unlikely to please yet delightfully proving otherwise, where the water by the bed never wanted for slivers of ice, where the soup tasted like it had basil in it, picked from the pot by the window, the pot they bought from a stall along the highway that brought with it a lively discussion of saffron and anise and cumin and the extravagant vocabulary for spice, the window framing the heft of a mountain they said they would climb and did.
2.
It was fun, the years of each other down the rabbit hole and in the room where all the sexual positions pleased delightfully, where the bed never wanted for taste and the extravagant vocabulary for spice.
3.
The smell of the room, otherwise, had basil in it, pot from a stall along the highway, a lively discussion, saffron and anise and cumin, a mountain.
4.
The pot brought with it a lively vocabulary for the window framing the heft of a mountain they said they would climb and did.
5.
They wanted slivers of ice, soup from the pot, a stall of saffron and anise and cumin, a mountain they would climb.
6.
They had each other to please and prove want, slivers of ice tasted and picked from the pot by the window.
7.
Years down, the unlikely otherwise, the want stalled along the highway.
Twice I turn my back on you
I fell flat on my face but didn’t loose
Tell me where would I go
Tell me what led you on I’d love to know
Was it the blue night
Gone fragile
Was it both men
In wonder steady gone under
Was it the light ways
So frightening
Was it two wills
One mirror holding us dearer now
Thought I had an answer once
But your random ways swept me along
Colossal signs so I got lost
With so many lovers singing soft
Was it the blue night
Gone fragile
Was it both men
In wonder steady gone under
Was it the light ways
So frightening
Was it two wills
One mirror holding us dearer now
20|Dorynna Zyneensky
