proseriot

[proseriot]

The beginning

Remember, remember the fifth of May when we celebrated our freedom in confinement and tried to escape our house made of windows, just to end up trapped in the garden of Eden. Where we first met, all exposed, praying to some false God. Offering Them the bloodstain on your shirt and my dress woven from sunrays.

Weeks passed and that bloodstain grew, as did our companionship. My dress now more luminous than ever; your world rotating in my orbit. I was your sun in the mids of winter. But when autumn arrived your eyes like spring set my garden abloom.

And we buzzed like bumblebees in our little hive. Drunk on gooey sticky honey and hypnotised by the collective humms and drums of our beating wings. Unknowingly we capitulate to each others serpentine stings.

[proseriot]

The hands of the clock move with a deliberate slowness now. Each tick a hammer blow. I spend my days in a quiet vigil, waiting for nothing in particular; just the subtle shift of shadows. (undated)

[proseriot]

Composite Sketch of Daffodils

I’m no longer any good at writing love letters. The ash and ink of past thoughts and tongies no long intermingle. This is a shard of bone stuck in a throat that has only known blood and other smooth things. 

I’m no longer any good at writing love letters. The dirt and dim-lighting of a fall picnic bury as many secrets as a cemetery. This is a mis-quote repeated ad nauseum. Words thrown down and up.

I’m no longer any good at writing love letters. This is a garden that blooms on type of flower to the detriment of the community. This is a promise kept under wraps. Re-gifted and tossed in the closet for years.

I’m longer any good at writing love letters. This is a request poorly spent. This is a task poorly asked. This is an acquaintance, barely a friend, more likely a stranger, poorly pouring emotions.

@drearydaffodil

[proseriot]

little engine

on a mission to find something hidden in an old house abandoned got inside there were three cats in a room with so much junk. I got my buggy turned around and pushed the boxes out climbed over and went into another quest, this time I had to meet a bear, in another shack in Texas. I drove my K10 to the place with my camping gear inside, the boxes of food were leaking my stove was hissing, couldn't get comfortable and left. Some men in a room told me a story then my wife called to tell me about her friend's revelation. All the jealousy we create. I stopped again and got in a Bronco for a video ride in the snow. The new tech showed the microclimates, handy for extreme weather there's the treeline see the stream, I rode down the steep grade low gear brakes on, around curves and flipped over in a yard with another old house. The men sat inside. I took a shortcut through the grass and got back on the highway to meet someone

[proseriot]

[proseriot]

———

C. A. Singh • Heat Drunk Love

7-24-25

[proseriot]

[proseriot]

‘oh how my body still remembers’

—- the other day is a mile away, tomorrow a must-have. today another yesterday. like a gentle swallowing down of the poison. a finger imprint in the skin. a steady cup of it each morning.

a self-aware numbness. a how to hold manual crumpled up in the laundry basket. a carefully curated depression in the mattress. just fading in and out of existence. somewhat like breathing.

with cosmos still circulating in the blood.

becoming something soft and light to sleep through, something strong and warm to hold.

[proseriot]

THE END OF VISIONS

Like a tin foil voice straight out of nightmare; a huge, old, cut-out aluminum can of beans, empty except for a few splotches of ancient starch; almost no smell, a tunnel; there's a pinball-machine-light of heaven across slimy, shiny distance of metal and tubing; that voice, all, cutting in and out, and in.

[proseriot]

I think of it often. The journey. It is never as pretty as people think, so I decorate. Embellish, one could say.

I fill the path with trees - of all shapes, colours, sizes. From tiny lemon-tree saplings, to the large, ancient oaks and gnarled olive trees, I paint every leaf, every vein, into existence. Oh, and fig trees! There must be fig trees, to provide ample shade with their leaves, when a weary traveller seeks rest. And, of course, there are rushes, and flowers and weeds, growing wild out of the fecund earth. No gardener to intervene.

And plentiful rains come to wash away the dust and ash. Let the rains come!

The journey may be long, but let it not be dreary.

[proseriot]

[proseriot]

CICADA DROWNING IN A SHALLOW BOWL

how many mornings have i dismembered myself for you, [hands sticky with sugar, with shame], orchestrating the choreography of a pulse / let's pretend nothing ruins me, especially not the bright blue syrup i ladled into my own veins as a girl / i mean as a specimen / [see: one unremarkable animal, all cartilage and yearning with an ugly red ribbon at the throat] // you never arrive but your shadow runs laps across the cheap tiles, bringing the metallic smell of summer rain [or was it cyanide?] // all this: sensation, paralysis, sensation, paralysis, sensation (repeat: till the body dissolves into two voices, singing with their tongues pressed to the roof of my mouth) // did i say i wanted rescue? you misunderstand me / i wanted only for someone to leave the door open, to let the wind do its amateur surgery / a colony of ants is organising an insurrection beneath my skin, each one certain she is the only one suffering [they are all correct] / let us have our harrowing: pink-tipped nails digging divots in the fruit, cold porcelain, red string of spit on the linoleum / if you ask, i will tell you: i am perfectly able to suffer in silence [or, if you wish, in aria] // no audience required // every creature becomes a riddle when you split it down the back—what emerges is never the right answer, just the wet and frantic struggle of not being dead yet // i once tried to map my despair but lost the legend halfway through and started inventing new provinces: blame, fatigue, hysteria, a province for girls who cry in supermarkets and eat the stickers off the apples / i promise, nothing is wasted except everything // this is not confession, only inventory // the cicada drowns in a shallow bowl, and nobody is watching, but the kitchen is full of song

[proseriot]

i dont want to die in castle rock, colorado

I wake up with an ache in my chest that I can never seem to remedy-

My heart hurts from beating so hard, my head hurts from sleeping so little.

I kiss you goodbye as if you care, as if you think about my existence. I kiss you goodbye so gently and wish it was goodbye forever.

There is always weather. There is always fog, or rain, or snow- dreadful, horrible snow. Even when the sun is shining she feels so far away, she feels intangible.

Every day feels the same, monotony interrupted only by mundane tasks that feel monumental

And I have never felt smaller in my life.

The world is so big and I am trapped in these hills, in this house, in this hell.

My heart hurts from a loneliness I cannot cure, my head hurts from mulling over every choice I make.

When I leave I feel alive, when I leave I feel so guilty. When I leave I think about never coming back, when I leave I think about the grave that waits for me.

A headstone unmarked- it’s better that way. It hides in the grove behind the park, where we watched the deer graze so many times. I can see my body, in the earth, dusted by snow. Decaying slowly in my box, my heart worn out from how fast it had to be, my head worn out from how much it had to think.

Are you there, crying over the pile of bones that now remains? Are you there, placing flowers given far too late?

Do you know that I watched you dig my grave? Do you know that I handed you the shovel, trusting that it wasn’t for me, but resigned to my fate anyway?

Do you know how tired my heart is?

Do you know how tired my head is?

[proseriot]

I CANT ASK YOU SO I ASK THE LIGHT.

[proseriot]

before i knew it, these words i write to you stopped sounding like swirling soliloquies of love, and started to sound like a dull blade to an exposed artery.

july 20th, 2:49 pm.

[proseriot]

LAPIDARY

(i count the bones of dead parakeets in my palms—somewhere between twelve and always, their feathers left a soft verdict / the room spins & my knuckles grow pale, i am so careful i could burst / if you would have known me then, under the eaves, red-ankled, afraid to open the post, you’d have mistaken me for something minor, a caution written in blue ink on a note pinned to the inside of a larder door / & nobody came, nobody comes—i learned to love the sound of my own eyelids blinking / i wrote letters to the past, obscene little things, and chewed the stamps off in the dark / mother’s hands were always somewhere else, as if her skin had a schedule it never shared with her / the milk turned, the bed turned, the clocks made no promises / i pressed my cheek against the window, waiting for a city to appear, for some man to get off the train & split the air with my name—no man, no air, only the hiss of the radiator & a feral sadness sharpening like a whetstone / (i am not pretty when i weep, i was told) /

outside, children practicing violin in fractured scales, i envy their discipline, their bright-hearted belief in ascending / i became a collector of tragic efficiencies: how to scrub blood from cotton, how to answer the phone as if everything was fine, how to look in a mirror without panic / i waited for a headline to explain me, for a disaster that fit my shape exactly / at night, the trees performed minor operas—i mistook their gestures for forgiveness / if i close my fists tight enough, the world narrows to a soundless ache / i tried to construct a new history out of other people’s disasters / i once saw a man hold a dove by its wings—he laughed and let it go, leaving white powder on his jacket /

i memorised this: you can survive almost anything by standing very still, you can outlast almost every sorrow by never mentioning it twice / the curtains shuddered at dawn, i counted the stitches, i took notes, i practiced becoming invisible with an elegance only suffering could teach / i am writing to you from the place after courage, where the air tastes of pennies & salt, where i inventory my wounds / i do not expect you to understand the extent of the violence, only the way i catalogue it: precisely, with trembling hands, in letters nobody will ever send.)

[proseriot]

I'm not a religious person but

by Chen Chen

God sent an angel. One of his least qualified, though. Fluent only in Lemme get back to you. The angel sounded like me, early twenties, unpaid interning. Proficient in fetching coffee, sending super vague emails. It got so bad God personally had to speak to me. This was annoying because I’m not a religious person. I thought I’d made this clear to God by reading Harry Potter & not attending church except for gay weddings. God did not listen to me. God is not a good listener. I said Stop it please, I’ll give you wedding cake, money, candy, marijuana. Go talk to married people, politicians, children, reality TV stars. I’ll even set up a booth for you, then everyone who wants to talk to you can do so without the stuffy house of worship, the stuffier middlemen, & the football blimps that accidentally intercept prayers on their way to heaven. I’ll keep the booth decorations simple but attractive: stickers of angels & cats, because I’m not religious but didn’t people worship cats? Thing is, God couldn’t take a hint. My doctor said to eat an apple every day. My best friend said to stop sleeping with guys with messiah complexes. My mother said she is pretty sure she had sex with my father so I can’t be some new Asian Jesus. I tried to enrage God by saying things like When I asked my mother about you, she was in the middle of making dinner so she just said Too busy. I tried to confuse God by saying I am a made-up dinosaur & a real dinosaur & who knows maybe I love you, but then God ended up relating to me. God said I am a good dinosaur but also sort of evil & sometimes loving no one. It rained & we stayed inside. Played a few rounds of backgammon. We used our indoor voices. It got so quiet I asked God about the afterlife. Its existence, human continued existence. He said Oh. That. Then sent his angel again. Who said Ummmmmmm. I never heard from God or his rookie angel after that. I miss them. Like creatures I made up or found in a book, then got to know a bit.