what is beautiful?
we think we know that we are all ugly
somehow
we walk museums, the paintings screaming their importance
given postpartum
unknownst to themselves neither
If I could read beauty
How cruel is it, that I am only allowed to remember by memory? In the very booth, that takes memories and bundles them up into a package of 4. The captured ones I distinctly forget.
Everything was in my mind – I was holding up a magnifying glass to the smoke. We had always existed as separate entities despite our constant togetherness. There was no interdependence. Only (my) dependence. Not even photography could capture my wishful truth. Because it missed! We missed!
I was there! I was shocked by this (posed) display of affection! It happened, I swear it did! How could you not know? How? Why would you do that to me? Knowing you, it probably wasn’t even for me. It was just an excuse, wasn’t it? Because I’m right and you’re right and we’re all pussies. The whole fucking world is one big pussy.
Most photos are misleading, anyway. We think they tell a story but they are only an ink blot in a Rorschach test.
Each page in your book had eraser sheddings. As I touched the black contorted dots, they crumpled beneath my fingertips into black devils that pointed their fingers at the faint underlines remaining. Just like my hair, that I fail to pluck over and over again just to watch my nails cut my skin.
You love (by) hiding.
Even the book was warped! Wrinkled! By spilled water. By my own spilled water. It’s my fault. That I couldn’t let you go. Didn’t let you go sooner. You were a poison that slowly ate me away, a sickening hole developing in my viscera as you gnawed at my heart. Maybe I couldn’t see you clearly because I’d been stomping in the puddle that I used to see your beautiful reflection in the sky. Making you seem so close to me. But when I reached out that’s when I lost you.
I hadn’t opened the book before it was flooded. I don’t know if this was your original or a copycat. Maybe you gave a part of yourself but still I cannot see it. I cannot trust you, I cannot believe you because whatever you give me will never be more than the doubt. Yet
I would fuck that book because you feel more comfortable around objects than people. It would bring me closer to you than you yourself.
What does anyone know about words? Can you believe it? We can study poetry. We can have the ability to study other people’s spaces, commas, curves, shapes. That’s why a skinny body is prettier than a fat one because a body is not a body. A body is prose or poetry. High art or a piece of cold, limp, shit. Mister Z claimed that poetry was the one true high art. Maybe people would see him and his husband and call him queer.
Every line that you erased was
your love to me.
Holding that book, that book holds a pure moment where you were only thinking about me.
Or
Every line that you erased was
another bridge you
burned.
You didn’t know that you were burning them because
when you looked
in the mirror all you saw was another
girl
holding a match up before a kerosene soaked mummy of person
thrashing
and when you dropped it, and finally looked
up
it was your own face
but you couldn’t even recognize yourself because you don’t know what you look like
~~
she was the most
beauti
(-ful)
i had ever witnessed
in a while
she doesn’t know, i think
it’s because
she was never close enough for me to take her
for granted
Magic Mirror
After years of looking
in the mirror,
mirror on the wall
the answer always was
if I was leaner here,
if I was stronger there,
her, him, you, them–
even me five years ago
A couple
of weeks ago,
(if I was never going to be it)
I decided
my only option was
to believe
I was hot–
that kind of spice
a (kind) few say I already possess
Fake it
Fake it
Fake it
Not an Instagram
fitness influencer
Not a TikTok
hey mamas
not white, not masc
enough
Just a scrawny little asian boi
Then
A couple
of days ago,
I looked at the mirror,
mirror on the wall,
I thought–
who (decides what) is hot?
Me!
Fake it
Fake it
Fake it
