"While he regaled me with stories I’d soon forget,

Half slurred and half drenched by the stench

Of the many liquors there mixed on his tongue,

Only the word YOUTH slipping in from between."

I can never tell the difference.

God or Girl,

all I am is alien and all you are is beautiful.

There are no waves at this time of day; there is only him.

The sun shines on Diderot’s ruin, but it is not enough to warm

the air.

I can still recall the taste of all

those defeats, as bitter as unripe plums.

“no season is perennial”

“if we were to sleep in Liberty again

I will offer you an unripe plum from our decomposing tree of childhood...”

“bad argument?”

“no, the only dream I’ve ever remembered”

watch us grow a little harder. ache a little longer. in defiance.

“your lungs fighting to get air

but this peace makes air seem insignificant”

“let them, just once, bite the hand that fed them”

“you asked for it, didn’t you? and now you’ve run out of time”

“I remember bumping into you everywhere”

“the two of them are watching / as the burning incense tumbles in the air / catching alight the waifu pillow / that the Hill Folk use”

“It’s time to retrograde”

“Do you embrace nature or

Does nature embrace you?”

“was my brother ever soft?”

“The musty trees of your old letters,

alphabet hanging from twigs.”

“I WALK AWAY AND LEAVE MY MIND UNDER HER CUSTODY

WHILE I LIVE THE DAY I HAVE LIVED FIVE HUNDRED TIMES BEFORE.”

“And I will die paralyzed, until there is somewhere important I have to be.

Probably.”