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mikey preston Sep 30
maybe it's just that I watched whiplash last weekend,
but i'm prepared to work for all the **** I want
but i want to be abused
but i want to come out the other side
but i want to take orders with the best
but i want never to be laughed at again
but i want to be wanted
but i want to be revered
but i want to be validated
but i wanna annihilate
but i wanna earn it
but i want and i want and i want
but i want the stage and the name
but i want the glory and the fame
but i want the sweat and the blood
but i want the heat and the breath
but i want to be remembered
but i want to be great
but i need to be great
and maybe it's just that i watched whiplash last weekend,
but i'm wiling to do anythinganythinganything for this to work out
no rhyme this time, friends, just yearning.
mikey preston Sep 26
before we grew apart
i dreamt of you dying
of your mother
clutching your voice, crying
in the chlorinated stands
where we met for the first time
she holds out the phone,
says “say goodbye”
and i’m running
railing flying by
reaching through thick air
to the mother who buries her boy
and i don’t know
if i made it in time
and i mustn’t have
cause we haven’t talked in a while
and i woke up smelling chlorine
and i never got a goodbye
true story (and i woke up smelling chlorine/and i never got a goodbye)
mikey preston Sep 19
that's just the way the body goes i guess
wanna mould my hands around his shoulders
through t-shirt and pyjama pants
wonder what the mirror shows him

that perfect mouth is smiling
do i wanna be him or ingest him
i wish that i could memorise it
wanna put my mouth around the reflection

kiss him everywhere until he sees red
hold his perfect imperfect face and
taste myself on his breath
take his arms or be held in them
i wanna feel and i wanna know
i guess that's just the way the body goes
everyone knows the waist / is just the way the body goes - mccaferty
mikey preston Sep 15
it's highschool recess and my best friend and i watch the seventh-graders
from our perch as 'older boys' with minimum-wage jobs and harder homework. one is handing around a gleaming can of monster energy like the blood of christ himself and everyone wants some. they treat the factory-issue can with such tender care, flushed fingertips on cold metal.

"why are they so excited about a monster?" i ask.

("what does it taste like?" a wide-eyed friend's younger brother asks.)

"because it's novel. it's their first taste of freedom." my friend says, and
then suddenly i remember all the times we've done the same with our friends.  

first, in an airport because me and my shaking hands couldn't finish it ourselves. outside school, warm from the flesh of someone's school bag all day. under the table and the teacher's nose because i stayed up too late, comuning with other friends in the blue dark. no matter who buys it's always for all of us.  

("have a sip"-"i don't like this one"-"the juice one is my favourite")

like maybe the 58g of sugar and 600mL of caffeine is okay if it's split between us. like the sharing of spit is holy. i look out at the small crowd of seventh graders and realise they are just beginning to learn:

what is communion if not half backwash?
what is holier than ingesting your friends?
what is holier than killing your hearts together?
what is communion if not half backwash?
what is holier than ingesting your friends?
what is holier than killing your hearts together?
mikey preston Sep 15
some nights i think i am cain without an abel
i hate my brother for never having been
i carry him, keep him, like he happened
he is heavy and i have never met him
i would hate him if he was flesh and i wish he were me
i killed him before he was alive, ruined eve's body by living
i am the first poisoned crop that made the field untillable
i killed him as he slept and i hadn't met him yet
some nights i hear him around the house
he lives in the gaps in my mother and father's conversation
some nights i think i am cain
missing an abel more for never having held him
i am the first poisoned crop that made the field untillable
some nights i think i am cain
missing an abel more for never having held him
mikey preston Sep 12
i'm not sure what it is, but tonight i'm thinking about people i used to know.
my childhood best friend, i hear she's awful now but i still love her no matter what, even though i haven't seen her in years. the boy who told me he was in love with me and gave me a crescent-moon thumbnail scar that i still carry today, having not seen him in four years. I look at my left hand and think of our friendship. My grandmother, long past ashes now, with her secret candy drawer, teaching me how to knit and giving me incorrect interpretations of country music. the boy that moved briefly into my drama class, downloaded one of my favourite albums to my phone and took my heart with him when he left. i think of him when i hear those songs, still some of my favourites. ny third grade teacher who told me about idioms and made me write my ks a specific way. my handwriting still looks like your name, sir. the boy who would fix my hair when it got messy, who moved on to cooler friends, and acts like he never touched my face for the sake of it. i still have his number. the girl who i loved books with for years, until we began to read different things and ran out of things to talk about. The boy i dated that sat on the floor of the mall with me and talked to me about all his favourite tv shows and held my head in his lap and never read the book i got him for chirstmas and now only calls me by my last name. the boy who i bought hotwheels in an airport with. i haven't peeled the complementary sticker off my headphones yet, so i haven't stopped thinking of him. on nights like these i miss them. i remember them tenderly. i still feel their phantom arms around me, and it is emptier than a lack of sensation. my heart is a bus stop, more empty for having been full.
my heart is a bus stop, more empty for having been full.
mikey preston Sep 12
can we change the ending?
please please please i want to
place a halo over her ears
tell her she's been such a good girl
take her face in my hands because
she never bit the hand that fed her
even when it was fattening her
up an offering to the gods
her trust open to the world like a flower
even as her cages got smaller and smaller
first metal, then made of stars
i bet it's cold up there
please, i want to tell her we did her wrong
please, sainthood for Laika,
i want her to know we're sorry
her story never fails to make me sad
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