I carry the clothes on my body–
a plain t-shirt and sweater leggings–
attempting to stay warm and keep cool.
I carry my backpack,
my heavy, heavy backpack,
to carry the things I can’t carry in my arms…
my books, pencils, papers, and keys.
In my arms I sometimes carry more books,
sometimes a cup of chai, and sometimes, nothing. Sometimes
I wish I carried a little bit more time;
then I could carry the things I’ve left behind.

I carry all the parts of me simultaneously, and I am full now.
I carry my eyes, for without them, my path would be blurred,
and I would be ignorant.
I carry my ears to hear music and dissonance and
I carry a heart to feel the soundwaves and make sense of them.
I carry my nose to hold the sweetness of a flower in my lungs,
and skin to caress their soft petals,
without plucking them.
When I carry nothing, I sleep,
and in my dreams, I carry the clouds and the stars beyond them.
From there I may see the things I have yet to carry.

I carry my own weight across the populated Earth.
I carry my own gravity and the light of the sun.
I carry the stars from my dreams, and from them,
I create constellations in broad daylight.
I carry my heart.
I carry the soundwaves of voices like
space nymphs, singing songs I want to remember.
I carry the sight of people coming closer and drifting further from me,
escaping and re-entering my orbit,
an arm-length or a light-year away.
I carry their images and sometimes,
I reach for their silhouettes and I try to feel their thoughts.

I carry my heart and it is full.
My heart is filled with emotion,
and my emotions are the Earth’s turbulent winds
across a golden, sun-kissed field and
the sound of a waterfall crashing into
a pool of water at the bottom of the valley, and
equally the eye of the storm in which
the world is a spinning oblivion,
but here, it is quiet.
My heart is the recollection of times past
in a yellowed, well-worn tome awaiting a reader and
the diary of someone whose story begs to be forgotten.
My heart beats for someone to understand its journey,
but it longs to understand what it beats for.
I carry the silence and the music alike;
I carry the Earth and all its wonders.

I don't know why I went to the park that day, to be honest. But it was as though the idea was contained in the center of one of the anti-depressants that I swallowed that morning, as though it was released into my bloodstream along with the rest of the ingredients that usually bring me a sense of peace (on good days), as though it bloomed like a vine that weaved through my capillaries and consumed every part of me. Once it took hold of me, I couldn't rid myself of it, so I succumbed to it. As soon as the bottom of my sandals made contact with the soft dirt of the playground, goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin like every memory bursting through my subconscious. The last time I was here, my shoes never met the ground, because you carried me on your back like a child and set me down gently on the tire swing just inside the entrance. I walked slowly towards the swing, envisioning how we must have looked that day. My hands clinging to the chains supporting the tire like they held tightly to your heart strings, my legs kicking from beneath me as though I were splashing in the waves of every ounce of love that poured from us, and my hair flowing in the breeze with the same ease that we existed in each other's presence. Your hands pressed against my back and pushed me higher and higher, and although I was swaying several feet from the ground, I had never felt more safe. I could hear your laughter from behind me and the soundwaves wrapped around my chest like a parachute that I knew would carry me to safety. I felt drawn to the swing once again, so I lifted my legs over the tire and wrapped my hands around the chains once more, rocking back and forth slowly. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to feel the rythym of the swing throughout my entire body. But my meditation was interrupted by a familiar sound that seemed to be gliding upon the invisible fibers of the light breeze that was softly kissing my cheeks. The sound wrapped itself around my head and entered my ears, filling them. I opened my eyes to see several shadows walking in my direction in the distance. The trees overhead were offering them a cover that they slipped quietly beneath, but within seconds, they stepped into the sunlight and I caught my breath. You were among them, and your head was tilting back in laughter, and your hands were moving gracefully in front of you, and your feet were walking swiftly as though you weren't wading through a swamp littered with my memory. And that was when you saw me, and if I hadn't been looking right at you, I wouldn't have noticed the slight twitch in your smile when your eyes met mine. But you didn't miss a step, you never did. Not even when you wrapped your fingers tightly around my heart and then shattered it into a million pieces. I couldn't remove my gaze from you, from your graceful and unaffected presence. I couldn't even register who you were with because I was so focused on the way your tongue slipped effortlessly in and out of your mouth. And if I wasn't mistaken, you slightly lifted your head in my direction as a nod of recognition, but you kept on walking. And I kept staring, because I always seemed to be the one clinging to something that was already gone. But it was in that moment that the vines in my bloodstream dissolved and I suddenly felt free from it all, as though it was my purpose to revisit the place I have replayed in my mind a thousand times only to replace it with a new memory. And it was in that moment that I realized that all you would ever be from now on is a memory, an empty tire swing swaying in an invisible breeze.

Not so far away girl
still so impossibly far
why must we wait until sunrise
to fall asleep?

Why is this beauty only conceivable
after the bottle dripdrips empty?
sinking deeper and deeper into saturn's orbit

youthful vibrant fluffed up peacocks
clucking on about research chemicals
and music festivals and last night and 6 days before
about banking and obamacare
and oh, my they're all talking
all at once
talktalktalking about this this this and that
not even asking for audience
soundwaves echo into nothingness
screaming lungs void of substance
fleeting purposes
failed courtships
unheard unimportant words
and oh, my, what a tedious thing
the night has become
but to stay at home alone
would be even more unspeakable.

Outside the party across the street
there is a tree
splayed out overhead and undergound
soaking up carbon growing tall still growing
slightly sad tree breathing in the silence of our sighs
dancing fallen leaves wrapping up the deadspace around us
deadworld space where we two sit under the edge
of revelry and absurdity
laughing, drunk, with the moon and the stars and
for just a second
feeling
slightly less impossible.

It is because of you that I am fully attentive
Soundwaves that wash over me from start to end
Music, my only friend

Now, we ride the waves of wifi to get what we need
But our gaze upon an artist is lost
Once our playlists consist of only a few of their songs
Handpicked amongst others, so our entertainment isn't lost

I understand the desire of variety
But I value the intimacy of a record I can hold
Knowing that for a while, it's just me and this music alone

seven years young, always sharing a still smile.
You find him decked out and drowning in choir robes, with
Golden curls placed gently on a hammered head.


This boy plays piano in a dead sanctuary
Following familial rule,
until he let it all go.

the boy began playing music unwritten,
off hymnal sheets
Harmonious melodies stream from dancing fingertips,
Intrinsically clearing the once-cloudy air with vivacious voodoo.

The boy’s fingers groove up and down the piano,
His touch graces ivory keys and
His foot performs a rhythmic pedal-pressing tango.
He calls the audience: everywhere, eyes ignite like flame:
A communal headturn towards the piano.

They need more.
They crave it.

All the sanctuary people rise from the seats,
Abandon their pews, they enclose this boy.
No means to scare him, they want to experience.
The audience turns their ears towards the piano’s emissions,  

Emanating from within

Inhaling soundwaves—
Intoxicatingly sweet.
They absorb his notes into every pore of their skin,
Fueling their bodies with musical nutrients.
Electric jolts flow right into the room’s extremities.
They let down their hair and begin to dance.

Until a brief noise, distinctive throat-clearing, came through the speakers;
Heads shifted to the podium, only to see their ticked-off pastor,
Smirking and waving sarcastically.

Discipline.

The congregation stumbled back to their seats.
The boy stopped playing.
Ending the enchantment, killing the sanctuary.

Air again filled with ‘God’s voice’
through the mouth of the speaker.

A speaker who just wanted attention.
The boy slipped out of the piano seat, out the church’s doors.

You want to chase after him, give him a ride
Where could the boy be going in the middle of the storm?



The pastor’s prodigal son.

here's to the glam rock messiah of outsiders and misfits,
the androgynous man of the stars with the music.

born in brixton,
he traveled the universe by spaceships and soundwaves
with wild hair and one eye dilated.
book-loving and queer,
in love with the thought of turning 50.
the world had never seen a man
living different lives at once,
but here the starman came reinventing himself:
ziggy stardust, thin white duke, aladdin sane, major tom—
all different selves tied together by his heart.

he lived his earthly mission, rightfully so
that even the gravity of the world could not keep him put.
so on and on he strummed his guitar and crawled on stage,
in spaceboots and dresses, in porcelain doll makeup,
reaching out to all the nobody and somebody people

but one day his cosmic vessel
was taken down by a secret sickness
and halted his mission here on earth,
and so the streets and little bars smelling of cigars
were flooded by the ones who mourned,
who looked up to the stars,
wondering where their starman went.
the world had never seen such an electric creature,
but here the star man came in music and dance,
saying it was alright to be weird—
to embrace strangeness
in a world where every earthling wanted to be the same.

and perhaps, he isn't really long gone:
his time here may have ended
but now he is out there, somewhere,
on some distant star,
watching over the Earth as he always has.

Husky eyes
They stared at me
Like a terror in the night
I'm being terrified

Soundwaves get so low
To where creatures howl
The thread inkling looks to thin
Cells explode to their looks within

Bluff, puff, ****** eyes
Don't stare at me
I can get no sleep
Please let go of me

Collaborate on a spotify playlist that will play on shuffle in my casket after I go.
I want you to add songs you want me to feel the radio signals of.
We know we feel music with a fifth sense,
A full body ASMR tingle
Whispers of russian woman fixing our robot parts.
Well I can't hear you, speak, move or eat
But bones vibrate to soundwaves just the same.
Give my casket the best **** bass you can find.
Bass that will wake the dead.
Rattle me like an instrument the way you plucked strigs while we were alive
You have control over what i hear after I go
So you may play me music beautiful as we played in the space between our fingertips

Play spotify in my casket
Only you and those i trust have access to adding songs.

But don't add garbage music.
Because I swear, I will haunt you.

a single note slips out of the chord
as the others cling to safe harmony
she turns the soundwaves to crackling lightning
she becomes the tension of a catastrophic earthquake
she pushes the limits of the dam and threatens to flood
she is dissonance
and she will hold out before her resolution