Miscellanea

i.
to the gliding, nervous hands at the boston commons, gut twisted, stench of humiliation,
the petrichor, twisted cords, swift goodbyes,
the ‘yes, but i can’t help it,’
the guilt that lingers like an unfinished story, the drunken almost-confession that i did not make,
of which i would later feel the sickly alloy of guilt and relief,
of which would later sit in the cold night and the deadlined basement,
the ruined friendships, the little liturgy of ‘they are all out to get us,’
the meticulous, purposeless destruction, the repercussions

ii.
i find you in the vibrations of the erhu’s strings at the public garden, the cambridge cafe, my yellow pages, my dear palimpsest,
i find you in the steps i tried to retrace when you scribbled your eyes black and ventured out at five in the morning,
i find you on the same train as me,
in our blistered knuckles,
in the fleeting scent,
i find you in my antique infatuation, in my counterfeit actualities, my then, my now, my forever,
i find you in the constellations that i have sought but have never reached,
in the rhapsodies i wanted a wound for, i know, nothing wrong with my bed,
i find you in the air

iii.
in two years' time, everything can be right
but to pass time means to also decay; examine my verdigris
stay with me through it

i loved the crows