Shanghai Sonnet
I cast beloveds. I kill them off, too, because the muse is mostly a bloodless tool. A plot device. Don’t take it personally. A device isn’t personal, but my blue wound plus yours? It could be exquisite in the right weather, in the right city. Under a moonless Pudong, we drag ourselves into twilight, fresh from a club where everyone, decked in neon, forgets how to read the sky. I love when you can’t tell if a storm has gone or will soon arrive. When the sky refuses dawn. Protests time. It rains, and on cue you skid and skin your knee. You bleed. I neglect it. Neglect to inspect it. I am young and nothing is sacred yet.
I cast mostly Don't take it blue It could be a drag twilight everyone forgets when a gone or sky rains and you neglect Neglect. and nothing
Brooklyn Sonnet
You are young and nothing is sacred yet. Ready to spar, circling the ring, you flirt with your feet. Gucci kicks. Your dumb face. You smile like a pink fluorescent sign. I throw left. I miss. We miss each other. We like Miami but prefer Manhattan. She’s more dramatic. We are separated by a river, some bridges. We make chicken. Mango chutney. We plunge into all that is restless. We’re too fast. Faster than time. I call you about Venus. Hottest planet, dense as fuck. And did you know, Da Vinci only made, like, fifteen paintings? I know how much you dig genius and exceptions. And someone who breaks a rule to love you.
nothing is sacred Ready your feet smile like a pink other more bridges chicken all that fast time did you know like I know who breaks.
Los Angeles Sonnet
In love, the rules are meant to be broken. In roleplay and foreplay, I break character and make things as unsexy as possible. I’m the coy babysitter. You’re the dad. I ask: How’s it going at the geophysical mining plant? You struggle to be convincing as a fake engineer, which has nothing to do with our script or this dumb city. I read Freud’s book on jokes and analyze my need to make a stage of every bit. On the 101, a cop pulls me over in a fit and my hands balloon on the wheel like a Sartre play. Like La Nausée. He thinks I’m a wise guy. Or worse, only sees the actress before him.
and character and things I'm coy ask to be convincing as this dumb book jokes my need pulls me like I'm wise Or worse
Lisbon Sonnet
What is worse than an actress no one believes? A priest who has to pretend he isn’t who he is. In the city of hills, yellow light dipping between begonias, I ask you how you hear God and once you are sure I’m not mocking you, you describe a vibration. Kneeling at the altar, I wonder if you’re in this for femme Jesus, Catholicism’s gaudy drama, its nudes and thorns. At night, I eye the Tagus. We talk about what we must disguise for our families to survive. Poet and priest. Our non-futures. Our lies. Sometimes we got so angry at our moms. They would just shrug and sigh. Say: My darling, Nobody told me how to raise a dark child.
who has to pretend In the city I ask God I'm not mocking at the altar Jesus gaudy nudes We talk about our families Our non-futures our moms My darling Nobody told me
Palermo Sonnet
Nobody tells you how to raise a dark child. Even Cronus sent his son underwater because all origins are first strung in myth and bottomless disappointment. In a street blackout, we light candles while teenage boys break into our house just so we know they can enter whenever they want. Nothing is stolen. You pour orange rossa and ask what I think of your hometown. It feels like a proposal. That night, sailing in a wild storm with Icarus to our left, you show no fear. You scare men and gods and joke all women pay for the sins of fathers, even if they aren’t our fathers or sins. You insist bad weather is a gift. Rain gathers in.
hot to raise a child first in disappointment a black light we know Nothing and ask home in a wild fear men pay our fathers insist
Paris Sonnet
Bad weather is a gift. Rain gathers in Buttes Chaumont where I sink stones into pools of mirrored water spotting the park sand. I used to beat women, you tell me. Your face, open, like a lion. It took me too long to realize that people who read Marx can also beat women. You are rough just once. Bruised wrist. We fought on the street. A child watched under a green awning. That was the era of violence. And it was over fast because you knew you were an experiment. I am your goddamn slum experiment, you laughed. Your criminal. No. Just the cruelest person I have loved.
a gift gathers into the park I used to you tell me a lion who read once on the street under a green era fast an experiment experiment No the person I loved
Philadelphia Sonnet
The cruelest person we love is the first. In triage, they ask what happened. My sister and I sit still, wait for a revelation. A third, unnamed party is slow to say: Three punches. Closed fist. Straight to the head. I lose fifteen pounds in a few months and everyone says how good I look except that boy in Paris. The terrible one. We sat at a bar. Don’t you ever eat? A poet does not have enough mercy for all the people who really need it. I love the word triage because of tri-. Triangles. Tridents. I fall hard in pairs. I cast beloveds. I kill them off, too.
first ask what happened wait a revelation is slow the. few months look terrible eat mercy need the word because I fall too
Wandering Sonnet
The cruelest person we love is the first. Bad weather is a gift. Rain gathers in. Nobody tells you how to raise a dark child. What is worse than an actress no one believes? In love, the rules are meant to be broken. You are young and nothing is sacred yet. I cast beloveds. I kill them off, too. I am a beloved. I keep mine, too. You are old and everything matters. In love, there are no rules to begin with. Everyone is an actress and is to be believed. There is no such thing as a dark child. It rarely rains. When it does, it flows. The first person we love is just that: first.
I cast I kill
we drag
I love you can't
you skid
You bleed I neglect I am
You are
you flirt
You smile I throw
I miss We miss We like
We are
We make We plunge
We're
I call
you know
I know you love
I break
I'm You are
I ask
You struggle
I read
I get
I tell
I am
I ask you are I'm
you describe I wonder you're
I eye
We talk we must
I got I tell
we light
we know
You pour I think
you show You scare
You insist
I sink
I used you tell
You are We fought
you knew I am you
laughed I have
we love I sit
I lose
I look We sat you
eat
I love I fall I cast
I kill
