2003

i recall a lot where there can be
no return – everyone’s an American
Idiot; where i am just young, bare in
accepting boyhood. i cling onto Mom
for the remainder of that life, fingers
tight, gripping with the lack of futures.

on page 5: my hands in my Father’s
back pocket, the gravity of a Nokia
and the engorged snake, inching.

am here in another hotter summer.
memory-like liquid crystals. I…

+1. is the roar of a television shutting down.
i recall a lot, wanting to see Green Day
live, and so did i, a mushroomed head.
i went to the barber’s exiting with a bowl tarnished by water.

i went to the barber with vertigo;
i never fell from my Mother’s bosom.
the nokia rings. i stop touching my Dad.

water is short like the snake like the being i stopped

Distancing

Day 1: Throw all these words out of a window.
Day 4: The Sky remains blue, and not to be hugged.
Day 9: Pouring heart out, into sink. Peeling redness.
Day 17: Began counting despite lack of fingers.
Day 25: Began counting all hugs that were missed.
Day 31: Thinking of us Lesbians; and everyone erased.
Day 59: We failed in realizing how nothing comes to pass.
Day 100: Zeroes gaping, curved and sharp, fitting.
Day 219: What if there was no alternative? No vaccine for touch?
Day 370: Began projecting futures off the tips of raised hairs.
Day 541: I’ve tasted wet lips once, long before my lips had hangnails.
Day 712: Numbers, Skies, Zeroes, Hair on my lips and touchy, touching.
Day 713: Nights becomes taut and I didn’t even get to touch them.

Day *11: There is no longer a pandemic that failed to touch everyone.

Day 2*6*: I lost you in writing: you too, were out of the window, out of touch.