Art Is Casual Lovemaking

I stopped dreaming again in late May, when the square root of two was closer to a whole number and breathing started to matter less. Everytime I blink an hour passes by, and suddenly, I’m staring at teabags littering the desk along with half-developed polaroids and hastily scribbled goodbye notes, stuck between morning eggs. You wear Sativa like it’s your favorite perfume and it reminds me of rainy days and warm, hazy evenings underneath the rumble of the El, the scent of coffee dregs caught in your collarbones. 

I keep thinking about the end of summer and when did you fall in love with me anyways?

Rich Bitch Porter

Slow Honey Lovers

The Warmest Shade Of Blue

Last night, I dreamt about your sleepy-soft open mouth kisses along the ridge of my collarbone; and woke up shaking so hard I thought my skin would split at the seams, all the unspoken words and secrets spilling out of my body like black tar and accusations (I never pretended to be an honest person). But it’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep. You always smell like aniseed & bad decisions & it makes me feel so damn alive sometimes. 

Kiss me harder. Devour my bones. Make me forget the feeling of your long piano fingers tapping Chopin into my skin. It’s not love, but it’s a lot closer to that than hate.

Never Let Me Go

Last Monday they told me that they scattered your ashes into the Ganga, the sacred river of your motherland. And in my head, I’m counting the number of steps to India and wondering if I’ll see you in the stars tonight

You can’t fall in love with every place you stay, the same way you can’t fall in love with every beautiful stranger on the street, even when they somehow become a part of you without you meaning for it to happen. I had this bad habit of breaking my heart, so I looked for Brahms to fill up the empty spaces, the same way I looked for you in the barren woods on all those restless winter evenings. Chasing, always chasing after that elusive feeling, the sound of your fingers at 4 AM catching on the edge of the guitar strings, leaving track marks and dissonance in my dreams. It must have been then, in that strange, unsettling sort of way, I began wondering what you were like in the early mornings – hair touseled, voice still rough and fucked-out raspy – or how you liked your coffee – watery with no sugar. I never minded any of it though. I’ve always thought that the warmest place in this city is where you sleep at night.

I Want You To Find Me Here

Hollow Your Bones

Last April I developed an unhealthy obsession with death due to a number of unforeseen circumstances. I spent days reading about Sylvia Plath and watching the Virgin Suicides and trying to calculate how long it takes for a hose connected to an exhaust pipe to kill a 54 kg human. It was all very hypothetical and very morbid. Despite the rite of spring, I was standing knee deep in imaginary skeletons and sleeping in the morgue every night, waiting for my name to appear on the obituary. The odds were 648 to 1, not necessarily in my favor, depending on how you look at it. I spent a lot of time doing math in the quiet evenings, calculating numbers that I still don’t even understand. Average number of funeral attendants in Alaska. The regression of coffin sizes in the last 50 years. Likelihood of breaking your heart with and without morning coffee. I rederive Maxwell’s equations on the window and remind myself to keep breathing. 

Spring stretches into summer. I’m on the road again and with each mile, something dark and tangled gradually unsticks inside me. I no longer cry every time I hear Brahms on the radio and I stopped sleeping again. I emerged, at the end of July not happy, but not so convinced the other side might be greener. I've created a prediction model based on extrapolations from past data to determine that, at the very least, there is one more day to enjoy in the future, and I suppose that will have to be enough.

Take Refuge In What You Know

It has been 14.6 days since I last left the apartment. And in the cold February sunlight, I felt the strings gradually being cut inside me. Small things, like, the murmur of voices outside the door or the telephone ringing in the afternoon, have become too much to bear. So I have closed the doors and windows, and cut the telephone cord, drawing the paper-white sheet above my head in a mockery of a shroud. It's like a disappearing act, as if the less matter I have, the easier it will be to breathe and maybe, maybe I can feel my fingertips again and stop this compulsion to grieve.

You asked me once if I enjoyed being sad. I remember laughing before dumping hot tea onto your lap in retaliation. I should have realized it then, but, you never did understand. Has it ever occurred to you that my melancholy is all I have left of these memories? That I keep your letters pressed against my heart like a talisman and collect postcards for you that will never be sent because I cannot stand the thought of you existing outside this plane of consciousness. I do not care for anything in this world the way I care for you. Deeply, and without regret.

Heartbreak Hotel

We left for the Midwest when I was 18 and you were 17. We drove 800 miles to St. Louis because we were looking for escape and St. Louis seemed to be that kind of sleepy city you dream about on the bus ride home. The kind of city where you could uninvent yourself and fade quietly into obscurity. So we wound up living that summer in cheap hotels off the highway, blowing kisses at the boys in red convertibles and soaking up sun on the rooftop. Mostly though, we slept. From sunrise to moonrise, living off of tea, toast, drive-in corn-dogs, and diner coffee. We laughed a lot, got into trouble, flirted shamelessly, and talked and talked and talked. And when we got tired of the green lawns and white picket fences, we drove somewhere else. There were car boot flea markets and fresh summer watermelon and the best BBQ on this side of the Mississippi.

 It wasn't a bad life. Running away from the past, running away from the future, running, until the only thing you can focus on is how to keep breathing. But then it was August, and then one day, I woke up alone. The sun was beginning to set and there was a sweet summer breeze sauntering through the open balcony. As expected, the car was gone, along with all your things, except for a white envelope perched on the edge of the bed. I never got a chance to read your letter because the next morning, I was bound for a train to Sacramento. And as the flat expanse of desert unfolded outside my window, I thought about the last words you said to me: This is a dream you know, just a dream, just a dream. But god, I hope I never have to wake up.

Dying Gracefully

Sometimes I wonder where I would be if it wasn’t for you. Probably still wandering across open highways, dreaming in the window-seat, getting lost everywhere, except in reality. Do you remember when we first met? Underneath the swing set in the warm summer evening, or maybe, at the bookstore that burned down a few months ago. I hope it was at the bookstore. Though, I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore. 

 I cut my hair before I left and kept the locks in your library drawer. It’s not a promise per se, but it’s not a not-promise either. Sentiment, at best. I imagine that when we meet again, it’ll have grown out once more. And perhaps, next time, we can meet on even ground as strangers instead of heart-broken fools. For it was you who reached for me first and I would like to think that one day, I could be the one to reach for you. For you have always been to me, a tempestuous, fleeting thing, like a cold spring rain; and like petals, I find myself caught up in the whirlwind, scattering in a most beautiful kind of death. 

Please take this cup, and let me fill it up with sake. 

Even a beautiful flower, loses its petals due to the storm. 

Life is only a "goodbye".