One time, you were beautiful. Never again.
Lacey white panties and a sheer bralette
Under the neon club lights on graduation you imagine
That everyone can see your freshly shaved
Crotch through the shimmering red gown your mother
Picked off Shein. You live a life of mediocrity and this
Is the last exciting hour you’ll ever get. Between
Three and four, pressed against hot bodies on the dance floor.
You decide there is nothing better than this.
Then, a boy from school whose face you know
And name is on the tip of your tongue is dancing
Just a bit too close, and you let him because
You don’t know the harm of giving yet, don’t know
That when you give a man an inch he’ll take
Your face between his palms and press his tongue between
Your teeth without asking, wrap his arms around
Your waist and you’ll wrap your arms around his shoulders
Because you don’t know the harm of giving yet.
You can’t wear makeup for months afterwards.
Not because of the breaking out, not because of the
Endless tears and not because you’ve lost your
Fucking mind since high school but because you fear
Being pretty more than you fear the hideous sight
Of your natural face. You learn to take it.
And you never, ever shave down there again. You can barely stand
To look at it. To tend the garden would make it that
Much clearer how you’re deformed and misshapen.
With hair, it’s like you’re still seventeen. Nothing has happened yet.
Sitting in my bedroom I long for the rain
So the world can reflect the water streaming down my cheeks
There, it’s rain now, there, dilute the salt and let it sink
Into the trees. My sadness, cycling, providing
Something useful, rather, than a mistake or admission I fight to hide.
Sadness, on display, tragedy taken to the riverbeds and sunk or
Carried away as the sky wails loud enough to drown out every sound of grief
Swimming around my head. Tragedy, it’s almost funny how the skin
Around my eyes aches with the effort to hold all
My sorrow in one place. Only it’s not. It’s like I lie
Alive dead. Neither on or off just sort of- like- and it’s like
When you were ten and tried to flip the light switch
Such that it might balance and the bulb would
Flicker desperately, trying to figure out where it fits in between
On or off. It’s two innate functions.
I crave rain for months, rain so strong it can pelt my body to bits make a
Canvas of the asphalt with my blood and gore and flesh.
There, it’s dead now, decomposing flesh. Something, someone bigger than myself
To decide for me. To say there, it’s rain now, there it’s grimy
Matter sinking into the soil or better yet fuel, my body
Cycling, providing something useful, rather, than a mistake or admission
I fight to hide. Exposed now. My bones, now. There, it’s fresh.
This month has been a series of forcings
Forcing myself to behave ordinarily
To mimic the comings and goings of normal men.
This month has passed at a cadence
Torturously, unyielding to my chronic exhaustion
To the way my blinking slows for a moment
Craving a second more to rest.
I pretend to be alive, and I pretend to be satisfied
With the life I’m leading, will lead, have led
It’s hard work but with a little practise
All the ants in my body fall through the cut
Bleed and give way to a new form of silence.
No one understands the depths of this torture.
“You are dying” they say, like it’s something worth
The risk of joking about. “There are bugs
In your skin” like they cannot fathom it,
Like it hasn’t even occurred to them that
I might live that reality.
I am restless. Cold. I don’t want to speak
For fear the words will somehow be used against me
Kill the vulnerability that makes empty threats
Like “it’s incurable,” over text root their
Way around my chest, lodging themselves in
My bloodstream. Ants. Words like ants. Little black
Things everywhere, inside me.
I hit myself to force them out. Their dead bodies mock, mimic me.
Alcohol. Wine. Injected into my name
And my veins, father did you think a slap on the ass
Would be good enough to ward me off it or are you just
As wishful as I was before I drew blades
Across fresh skin. The marks turn white in the Summer
While the rest of my body tans. Like Hong Kong sucked the Greek
Out of those parts of me. Like I’m never going to be full again.
I hate the sun for it’s nature, loathe the reminder of my selfish
Preening. Cutting down trees my mother gave to me.
I feel the same way at the waxing parlour
Where a woman neither of us know sees the most intimate parts of me
And burns them.
My sadness and I are friends
We’re close, when I was born we did a lot of
Skin-to-skin in the hour I was kept
In an incubator she crept in
To sleep beside me, lull me away from the coldness
I was suddenly born into.
In Johannesburg it’s Winter in June. Born
To the soundtrack of dying jacarandas
Pelting the car roof as we drove through
Rows of houses messily stitched together
In defiance of the harsh gravel and harsher tall grass
The islands of weeds separating the slums
And penthouses. In a country where everyone
Is rich how can anyone be? Back to
Sadness. It was always her and I.
We never had to talk about it, we would sit in silence
Let it stretch and spasm in the cold.
Sometimes I think my seasonal depression
Stems from when I was a seed and felt the lonely
Press of no one, in an incubator
As Winter bared its teeth my heart rabbited
Rapidly. Blossomed into a frightened
Volatile thing. But in Hong Kong
It’s Summer in June. And it only makes me
Feel that much more pitiful.
Sadness and I by the sea. Sadness and I
Skipping stones and reading The Great Gatsby
Sadness and I crying over my dad.
Sadness and I on the edge of a cliff overlooking
The beach where my mother claims, once
There was a wedding. We don’t ever talk about it.
Sleeping ugly, hideous maw
Briar bitch, briar claw
She thinks, sometimes, she needs to sleep
Long enough they consider her dead
Only then will it be enough
She cuts her wrist with a knife.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Unlucky four, hideous claw
Chest bared to the defibrillator
1. 2. 3. They go on four.
She wonders, sometimes, if rest is not
The gateway to being more beautiful
Do not the flowers sleep in beds
Of soil while Winter moans?
The prettiest of things lie dead
For months, embrace the tomb.
The curvature of the spine against
A hospital bed. Angry, red sores.
A rose in a cave longs for the light
And grows skew with desire.
Mournful bitch, her dreams are filled with
Salty tears that drown a haughty bush
And kill the snails dripping from her hands
And mend the lines. And mend the lines.
Waking ugly. Still asleep. In time
She will forget the slumber. Forgive
A body for the crime of resisting arrest.
If I mean more than you,
I’m sure I don’t and I’m sure you do
Then maybe you’ll forgive me for the blood on the floor
Sorry, mom. Wish it was yours.
Box-cutter slick between my fingers,
Slack with the effort of staying awake
Until the ambulance gets here. No one’s
Called the paramedics yet, but
If I mean more than you,
I’m sure I don’t, you say I do
It’ll be a matter of minutes, seconds. Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock. I wonder when the clock will-
So I’m holding the knife and blood is pooling
From the scraggly cuts across my-
Not to get too graphic, mom, but it’s quite a lot, I’m paler
Than I am after a Summer spent
Out of the sun for fear of sunburn
In the house for fear of being seen
I shroud my eyes in gauze and
Pray it stems the leaking. That is to say
I’m white as a sheet, white like a ghost
In limbo, strung between life and death, waiting
Impatiently, the moment before you fall asleep
And you can still hear your parents shouting.
Loud enough that I can’t find the sirens,
Like they’re hiding somewhere just out of reach
And I’m running, running-
Mom. I didn’t even lock the door.
I used to write with such voracity
I used to have such an appetite
Now, I quiver at the mere mention of my body, the house I grew up in
It’s yellowing walls and hardwood floors no match for the dread
I feel when cream carpet sinks between the gaps in my toes
I shudder at the vague outline of feelings eclipsing my mind.
Being alive is petrifying but all I’ve ever known
Is this frantic consumption, licking, peeling
Meat until one reaches bone
I struggle to contend with the magnitude of fright
Try to ease my rabid thoughts, rabid heart
Bid the world a soft goodnight
But I am not for softness, the dog in my chest
Slobbers over pitter-patter feet on grass
Brutally, it bites. Peeling, peeling white then peeling orange
Stitching skin with tongues and a knife
All the heart wanted to do was write but it seems like the world isn’t ready for it.
At least, the dog.
Our school is lazy, so we don’t have graduation gowns or caps
Like the other girls we see on Instagram, I don’t even
Do my hair up. Just eyeliner and my mom’s red lipstick staining
My teeth and smudging a line across my chin when I pout for the camera.
We’re both eighteen and you don’t know you’re going to die yet.
You stand out against the crowd, with your short hair and navy blue
Suit, untailored and otherwise a poor fit against the sea of red
And black dresses, updos and brushed teeth. It suits you like your yellowing fangs
Suit swollen gums and no tonsils. You’re the kind of girl who looks
More like a vampire than a human being. It’s a wonder you even made it
Out of the house this morning, warm bed and fear of failure beckoning
You away from a string-tied high school diploma and the song-and-dance
Of being an adult, suddenly. It doesn’t occur to me that you’re
A person, not when you’re up on stage, not when we pose for a
Group picture and not when you whisper, “let’s get out of here.”
Much later, when we’re laughing in the politics section of a Bookazine
Your eyes take on a sudden wistful quality. You look much older
Than I remember, dark circles and sagging shoulders. They’re about to
Close for the night. For a moment I think you’ll ask something stupid.
“Do you think we’ll be best friends forever?” Idiot. Of course.
Absent-mindedly, you thumb the pages of a book titled “DOOM”.
Your eyes are unseeing, staring at a poster written in Chinese,
Which I can’t read even though I’ve tried for years to learn the language
Of your heart. Irrationally, I consider offering my wrist. Here,
Here’s my blood. There’s no need to fight to live; Take a sip.
But the question never comes. We leave the bookstore as the metal gates
Clamp shut their jaws.
Later, you leave the country. I’m nineteen. You are eighteen. When you
Return for Christmas there’s something off about it. We hug goodbye
Outside my parents’ apartment and you hold me just a little
Too tightly to be entirely platonic. Breast to breast, breath on breath.
It’s sweet, how you pretend to need air the same way I do. The night crisps white
Between us and your canines beg to be marked with streaks
Of dull red. I wonder if the blood they’re looking for is mine. The next day
I watch planes take off from my bedroom window, wondering which one is yours.
You can see Discovery Bay from here, and the grey clouds rising
Above it haunt the harbour, a harbinger of the storm to come.
It’s a typhoon three. I Google whether that means your flight is grounded,
But the answer isn’t comforting. I whisper goodnight to the stars.
In some ways, I never catch you leaving.
One moment you were there.
I am twenty-one. You are still eighteen. You’ve been eighteen for a long time.
I love decay because it is honest. The apple cradled in the palm
Of my hand is not real until it is rotten. I thank the mold growing past the
Blue ceramic boundary of the fruit bowl because it tells me time
Is still passing even though I’ve stopped growing with it. Days arrive
At a melancholy pace, and I abhor the blazing Summer sun
For keeping you underground where light cannot kiss your cursed flesh. Down there,
My willing wrists mean nothing, aortic branches wilt and wither, dying from need,
Dying for skin-on-skin, teeth-to-flesh. This year I will graduate again. University.
Alone. I would rather lay down in the dirt with you. Nice and warm.
Together.
If you want, you can bite me. Teeth sink into the jugular like a wrench through a clock.
It doesn’t say no. It says, “Wait, wait. Be gentle.
Stop.” But the word no never crosses it’s mind.
At least, not after the first time. Eventually,
It just says nothing. It thinks of screaming
Hysterically, but it doesn’t want to scare him.
It is wearing a matching bra and pantie set
Because you planned to swap outfits in that small
Bathroom. Cramped and close and intimate
You trusted him because nothing happened before the movie.
It’s when you change back that the trouble starts.
There is an ache in your pelvis for miles. The rough
Callous of his hands grabbing, directing. He wanted
To make films. He complains after, that you tugged too hard.
It takes you months to wish you’d ripped it off.
Stiff and sixteen. It tells you it will be over when
You please him. It tells you he will let go if you can make him happy.
The worst part: It is right. You stay with him, after.
If it could go back, it would just scream and scream and scream.
It wants to kill him, honestly. Sometimes it imagines
Him entering that bathroom again, imagines pouncing,
Scratching and beating him to death. It wants him dead
And it wants it bloody. It wants it to hurt, bad. You don’t.
You wouldn’t be able to. Sort of for moral reasons, but
More than that, it’s because you know that if it saw him
It would be that bathroom in February all over again. Frozen.
You throw away the bra. It’s doesn’t fit, you reason.
You give away the shirt. It doesn’t suit you.
You outgrow the skirt. Taller, longer legs await you
After that bathroom in Kennedy Town where you changed.
It keeps the outfit.