Author: elsyiee

I have counseling in the morning, school in

the afternoon, and a rooftop diner shift at six. 

The rain simmers the coming rain. I wonder if 

a fettered wolf would follow its collective into

the sea. I will not die for two reasons: oak leaves

and pocket money. The mirror prefers that you

tell it the truth, so I mutter “maybe eggs on their

own are not breakfast.” You nitwit! it yells. The

big presentation is today! All the lions in the 

English department will be there with fountain 

pens! How about gray on gray? Or maybe we

could badger the laundry for an agreeable 

towelcloth as a shirt? Dean’s List honoree Dafne

comes down for breakfast just as the eggs have

fossilized. “That’s okay,” she says. “I’ll have bread 

instead.” So now I’m known in my house as the

egg lady. Then they send me to the garden to 

rake up green garlic for garlic butter. It’s already

nine. I tell myself I can miss counseling. Nature,

I suppose, would do it. 

it burrowed into an applesauce jar, hooked

a copper bowl to every tree in the alpine grove, screwed 

shut our nostrils and fed us horseradish stench, collected 

our drippings, left us zero-eyed, left our cities lush, left

us wandering in nine o’ clock light

it brought a stagecoach to a chained door, broke the earth

into sixteenths like rocks inside cake, tilted the water 

to rush down our moss walls, threw its sinewy fingers on 

a coarse bloodied wood, combed her hair charcoal-white, left 

a single snow pile, left the grass to spoil

it plastered a centuries-old cardinal against a gasoline-black 

sky, collapsed the final few widows, scattered handfuls 

of burnt barley where they lay, embalmed a snake with visions 

of a red winter, 

rained coals all October, cut a glass curtain from the flaps

of our throats, watched

as we broke through and staggered into a cold taiga, sent 

a hooded girl after us with a tall ax

if one party light erupts the whole line goes out / the world hasn’t moved since eleven at night ran away from right now and filled the world with wolves / deadening yourself is easy to do, you just need a match, thirty years, and a porcelain shard in your foot / here we find the average man resisting the water, who gifts his girlfriend a murex shell as they proclaim the other their anchor / i think all of earth’s trees defeat their own purpose / they all could topple and none of us would get hit / as a kid i watched the women in aisle #4 sew blankets with spirals and tell humanity “walk into yourself if you get lost” / if every line of living goes out there will be one party light left

“Push,” goes the lamp, the black lambs

Of light aligning as chain lightning, a blue mist

Digesting the gold flaking off our thousand arrows

Is this dread? Or has falling always worked this way?

These fruits by the sidewalk are singing, all the

sonic & sonar & sight guiding me north 

to a heavenly wrath

Sort the jars of moons and wishes, shards misting

These halls to spell a cathedral of lost paint. Are the 

walls stone? Or can arrows pierce beyond 

Our numbers? Hold me lightly, my brittle bionic

blessings are going nowhere but north

scrappy hacky-sack peas 

that bumble down the road

the driver crunching amethyst

rings by his tires, breaching the channel

of humanity, crossing his heart, and 

choosing the blackest attire

wrappers discarded from edible 

stars on nights we believe in escape,

coded into flowers, roots emulating 

infinity snaking into the grounds 

of the next life

an almost-free ghost, held by a 

collar and thirty-nine cents

rooms of rivers, genetically flowing

and anecdotally bending, layering

hand over foot rising against

earth’s many hooks to paint it 

a face

a strip of lengthwise matter 

churning clockwise against morning,

against hope

In September, I was already running out of things to write about. In October, I took my internal arguments and forced you to read them. In November, I speedran writing an article. How much do I care? Clearly not enough to make you care.

Now it’s February. The writer I was is dead. The writer I am is here. He’s better, he’s gotten better. He’s not someone whose work you glance at in a newspaper. You shrug. You toss the newspaper onto the floor and move on with your day. He’s grown from that. He’s better than that. 

Give him a chance. Let him make his case. Please. 

Nighttime. You’re sitting on a ledge, where sky, stars, and forest meet. All blurred, all dark.

I walk up to you. I ask you what’s wrong. 

You don’t answer. You’re looking down. Your tears touch the trees. I do what you don’t. I look up. And I tell you, it’s okay. This is temporary. It gets better. 

You stand up. You glance up. You take me by the hand and you say, walk with me. 

We walk through the woods; we walk under the night. People brush past us. I notice something. A glance. A moment when your eyes meet theirs. A smile. Warm, hopeful. Almost too hopeful. 

Voices. Soft, almost a whisper. 

I hear the word temporary. 

I hear the word okay. 

I hear the word better. 

I look back at you. You’ve covered your ears. I think back to a minute ago. 

I remember the word temporary.

I remember the word okay. 

I remember the word better. 

I wonder, did I talk to you, or did I brush past you?

I’m shocked I even made it this far. It’s hard to find the motivation to write nowadays. But I’m going to anyways. 

Time passes; priorities change. Before, I was trying to be better. Now? I’m just trying to feel a bit better. 

Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Just read on like you’re supposed to. 

An open field. We wander through grass. Stars like twinkling beacons dot the sky. They repel darkness.

You tell me a story. But you only tell me the beginning. Of how you wanted to see the sun rise. You’d do anything to see the sun rise.

One day you dreamt the stars. A substitute. Your own type of light. 

Then, you take a deep breath. 

You close your eyes, you open them. 

The sky gasps. The stars drop. They pitter-patter on the ground, like little glowing grains of salt. 

And the whole world goes dark.

I don’t see you. I don’t see myself. 

Goodbye to dreams. Dreams shine and sparkle. Dreams make you want. Dreams make you hope. 

Hello to reality, which hangs over you like a plain night sky. 

A minute is a mystery. A battle to see. So many minutes lie between night and day. And I wonder, how can you hope to see the sun, when you can’t even see yourself?

Here’s a question. What happens when I’m done? I type out the last word. I whisk the article off to the editors. What follows?

Problems don’t get solved. Minutes don’t tick by faster. States of mind don’t lift. It won’t make things better. 

And yet I’m here. Still trying to write. 

I’ve changed my mind. I’ve lowered my aspirations a second time. Let’s forget about better and focus on fine. I’m writing this article to try and feel fine. 

Is that worthwhile? Time will tell. 

A clock is valuable. It keeps you on track. Gives you eyes. A stride in your step. You know where to walk, you know where you’re headed, you know why you put one foot in front of another, because you know time will end the night. 

Clocks hang on trees, cradled by the breeze. Hands spin, feet move. Lives continue like normal. 

We walk to your clock. It doesn’t move with the breeze. The glass face is cracked. The minute hand, frozen at twelve. The hour hand, frozen at twelve. 

And I wonder, without two feet, how can you put one foot in front of another?

You won’t look at the other clocks. I ask why. You say it’s painful. Reminders are painful. People on the move. Hands spinning, a stride into the night. 

Because they think it’s okay.

They’re convinced it’s temporary.

They believe somehow, they’ll get better.

I suggest to you, fix the clock. Get the hands turning. You shake your head.

Confused. Don’t you want a guide? Some way to tell time? You shake your head.

Come with me, you say. Let me show you what will happen if the hands turn. If the feet move. If I have to function normally again.

Is it worth it to write? Worth it to try to write? Worth it to aspire, no matter how low the aspiration? How much do I really care about the writer I am? The person I am? Or am I still just searching for a moment feeling fine?

Away from the forest. Back to the field. The night ever-present. We speak nothing. We watch as another version of you emerges from the darkness. Navigates the fallen stars. Glances up. There’s nothing else that could drop.

You pick up a star and suddenly the sky seems so big. You realize from how high up it came. You wanted to put it back.

You throw it up, it comes down. You jump and hand it off to the sky. The darkness gives it back. You place the star on the ground. You kick it away, so far away it seems eaten by the abyss. Until you realize, it’s still not where it’s supposed to be. You’re just farther away from it. 

And there’s still so many left.

You fall to your knees, try to summon some thoughts. Try to let yourself make your case.

It’s okay. The star you kicked away. You’ll never find it again.

This is temporary. A life is temporary. You could spend your whole life trying to re-ignite the night.

Things will get better….

You crumple. Your tears touch nothing. I turn to the real you, I can barely speak. I whisper, how do you know this will happen? 

Two, four, six watery eyelids. And you whisper back, I thought you’d have figured it out. I am you. 

In September, I was fine. In October, I was getting better. In November, I was back to being fine.

Now it’s February and now I don’t know. But to anyone staring twelve o’ clock, nighttime, a starless sky in the face, to anyone wobbling as they’re trying to put one foot after another, I can’t promise much. All I can promise is that you’re not someone to be looked at in a newspaper for a moment, before the reader throws the paper away. The writer you are went through so many nights. If you’d like, here’s to another.

Friend’s DM: “dinner at 5 if we’re both alive?” 

Meet me by the marina and promise not to miss this

Would they realize they’re acting as my light?

What is that doll you put by the peach slices?

They smirked then told me his name: Platypus 

Friend’s DM: “dinner at 5 if we’re both alive?”

Over queso, we played “I Spy” with Pacific sight lines

My ghost bobbing about, “no air or love since” 

Would they realize they’re acting as my light?

We picked our roles after attempt 209

A wanderer roof-hopping (you), finding (me), your skin

Friend’s DM: “dinner at 5 if we’re both alive?”

Twirling three-fingered through tapas, we collide

Is this a framework, or a foundation of mere bits?

Would they realize they’re acting as my light?

A crackling blade engulfs us as we recall what we felt like

Raggedly, I turn one-eighty, interpreting waves as blips

Friend’s DM: “dinner at 5 if we’re both alive?”

Would they realize they’re acting as my light?