We Are Proud Of You Honey
We were held in classrooms and given instructions for what to say if we encounter a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jew, an atheist.
Don’t you want to ask Jesus Christ into your heart?
My friend just told me that her brother raped her when she was nine. Her family hoped that she would forget and never mentioned it again. They all sat together at church.
I felt a heaviness in the room. It pressed on my chest. This was not a battle for our souls. No demons, no spirits, no one was listening. Just our guilt hung in the air.
Urban Explorations Of Youth, Part Two
When I was fifteen, I started sneaking out while my parents slept. I climbed out the basement window, onto the swing set, and over the fence.
Where did I go?
I walked to the park with the benches, the slide, the wading pool. I took the last bus downtown. I walked through the empty streets, the quiet, the glowing lights. I walked down to the train tracks and sat on the sand. Sleepy dawn brought me home, wrapped and packed in cold cloth.
A decade later, I still wander under layers of yellow stars, but I am not home yet.
33/50
Photo: William Pham
Sex Or Tattered Hearts Not Finite
Paying for college was difficult. In an hour she could make what she normally would in ten. She didn’t plan on doing it forever.
When she was a little girl, her pastor took two paper hearts and glued them together. This was supposed to represent sex. Naturally, when he tore them apart they left remnants of themselves behind. Such were the evils of sex. Such was the idealism and zeal of religion.
Now as she took her mouth off of his dick, her saliva mixed with his cum. As it dried it sort of resembled Elmer’s glue, but, not really.
19/50
Photo: William Pham
Maybe You Should Turn It Off
Some people believe that if you sleep with your feet pointing at an open closet, your soul will come right out of your toes. I don’t know what I believe—superstitions are slippery things and my closet doesn’t have a door.
The television staked out territory at the foot of your bed. My eyes crawled to it; both our faces reflected static. It staccatoed between your words and my ears and flashed lightning onto the walls and ceiling.
I imagined you being lulled to sleep by flickers of blue and fragmented voices. It has known you long before we met.
09/50
Photo: William Pham
We Lost This War of Cherries
During a childhood summer, my sisters and I climbed trees in clothes that my grandmother made. We gorged ourselves on ripe cherries that left our fingers and mouths sweet and sticky. When our tongues had enough, we scattered and flung the fruit at each other. We tossed our grenades by stem and belly as our eyes squinted behind black bangs and sun.
Cherry flesh pelted blood red against our arms and legs. Shiny fruit-skin and hard pits fell forgotten between blades of grass.
Twilight came.
My mother saw her three daughters come home stained with wounds from this new country.
Per Internet Directions, Elevate Above Waist
Next to this keyboard is my swollen ankle and a block of ice.
Six years ago, I spent six hours snowboarding on a torn ligament. Within minutes of being on the mountain, I had fallen hard; a boy tumbled in front of me and I avoided him. My board flew up and my ankle twisted with my boot.
I tightened my laces.
Each run was more painful than the last, but I wanted the wind to rush against me one more time.
Now my ankle is swollen and your knee is bloodied. Which, really isn’t the same thing at all.
22/50
Photo: William Pham
Quantification Occurs After The Sheen Of Youth
Everyone has a price. It was 4 AM in my studio when I decided that mine is $75,000. For $75,000, I could leave college with no debt and have a bit left over for travels or the down payment on a small house.
For $75,000, I could separate the act of sex from the heart. Peel it off and take a hot shower.
It certainly has been done for much less. We have all wandered down these paths before in shades of gray.
We have bounced our bodies off each other, onto each other, through each other—no cash exchanged.
23/50
Photo: William Pham
Sometimes It Is Difficult To Move
If you are facing north and I am facing south, and your back is against mine—we will never see each other. I might feel your ribs rise and expand. The back of our arms could touch and maybe you’d be warm or cold or whatever.
If you speak to me - maybe your words could travel up and over to my ears or go through your belly into mine.
I will miss you if you walk away.
But if you are facing north and I am facing south and your back is against mine—we will never see each other.
18/50
Photo: William Pham
Beauty In Betrayal = Only Pretty Words
The dirty windows of my church, your steeple. Come one and all. Please sit in our pews of burnt wood and dirt.
Today I woke up from a nap and all of my limbs were asleep. I wanted to stand, to put weight on my feet, to let myself tumble. I don’t know why I wanted to hit the ground.
I know I am not trying as hard as I should. I don’t know anyone that does. These lights, these lights, always these nights. I can almost imagine the warmth of my father’s house.
It gets dark so early now.
07/50
Photo: William Pham
Please Pardon Me, My Shallow Vein
“It doesn’t have much depth,” said the nurse as her fingers rotated a thick needle. My skin pulled white and taut around its silver edges. She twisted it again and lowered my arm, “to make the blood come out quicker.”
Exhale, inhale. Small waves of panic tickled my chest. My pulse traveled away from me as my fist opened and clenched. Explosion, implosion.
Taped and strapped, a plastic tube teased dark red curves around my arm. Blood ran hot along the outside of my skin. I felt like I was turned inside-out.
Given the right conditions, even vodka can freeze.
December Games Are Cold As Ice
The charcoal dust of mascara travels across my weary knuckles.Does it matter how long I’ve been sitting here or where I was before?
Your eyes slide over my face and off, just once, but your wrist bones press against my hips, insistent. My lips catch on the edge of the glass, then bump red against your throat.
We are too bored even to pretend to pretend that we’re in love. Does it matter?
When;
This winter morning:
We have the warmth of curves into curves, and snow and silence that fall heavy like the flesh of a white elephant.
05/50
Photo: William Pham
Here I Am, Am I Here
We fill our sight, our minds, our days.
Fingertips stroke plastic, tease pages, turn dials. Our eyes stare at points of ink and light.
When I was a child, I cut myself with a knife. The thin wound carved a line up my cheek and stopped by the corner of my left eye. I feared disturbing my father as he sat in a room filled floor-to-ceiling with cassette tapes and books. I stood at the edge of his vision and waited for him to look up.
Upon seeing the blood, he cried, Why didn’t you call for me right away?
