what-else-is-new-420

[what-else-is-new-420]

the worst curse that came with this body is an overwhelming desire to be an extension of another.

I want to fuck everything. that is to say

I want to be inside every room.

pretty girls to the front.

I finger my pack of cigarettes,

pull my top down,

let me cut in line.

I always wanna tear off clothes with my teeth these nights

got a light? wanna dance? could it be awful

that under these strobe lights I can only see

certain frames of movement between the dark blue -

oh, so much slips away from me when I feel most human.

this humanity starts at the soles of my feet and makes its way up. I was once ablaze and now it's all I can think about. personhood,

breathing, pressed up and bare,

coursing,

a hand like a river, a hand making its way down - mine or hers, I forget, does it matter? all four hands were ours,

all four hands were running.

I climb him to find the source of the river. I have always been the mouth.

I do not find it. the worst curse that came with this blood is the way that it runs. he reaches in to reverberate through my body in some sort of satisfaction, but he can't do it. I leave his house and still I hum, but this time with an endless and terrifying shame -

my hands run away from me once again.

-be ing wa nte d j uly 202 5

[what-else-is-new-420]

christ almighty i have so much to say about this show but until then, here u go have utena lovingly looking at anthy as she pulls the sword out of her. good night

[what-else-is-new-420]

i have absolutely nothing to say anymore

[what-else-is-new-420]

three years ago today I was entirely and completely enveloped in the chains around your hands

the gravel in your voice

this effortless charm and tall authority

its contrast to the skin on your hands

making each point of contact a prize.

I'd come to you in the daylight

until you met me at a park around sundown

to put a hand up my leg

then down upon the pink indentations on my knees

from blades of grass the color of your eyes

I guess my knees were made to work,

but when you pressed a finger into the soft pulp of my lung

did you know that spot held the shape?

back then it only made sense that it would

I was glad to have it, this reminder of you

like one of those short poems that kinda sum it all up,

but I've been trying to breathe in since

to hopefully reinflate.

[what-else-is-new-420]

she's late

but I guess it was never about to get any earlier.

the many good things within us,

I tried really hard not to forget their names.

I, at least held on,

but my voice reflects back a whine,

thinned out from within the cave of her mouth.

I turn around and peel back my duvet

to land in the predictable pocket of warmth -

it's nighttime again already.

[what-else-is-new-420]

(automatic/stream of consciousness poem!! i kinda just wrote shit down with almost no clue where it was heading exactly, although i guess i did have some thoughts and themes in my head that remained consistent throughout)

codex

i am making a codex for the losers to help myself figure out what exactly it is i have been apologising for my entire life i am torpedoing through the wind to ask god what the fuck it is i did wrong but all he does is tell me how to fix it//

it is easy he says it is as easy as taking the wind in stride as easy as wanting wind to blow the windows wide open as easy as welcoming sunlight//

and i finally understand maybe i philosophise my own life sometimes i turn my machinations into mantras and sometimes they are as easy as i love you like i love you so much and now you are everywhere i see but nowhere i touch it is as easy as understanding that as the simple unmovable truth - the only fact, that it is better this way//

and yet when i go on stage they will see you in the way i move my hands when i talk or in the jokes i stole from you and now i hold a lighter the way those hands did, such a small detail but maybe this is my method of preservation although if i could pick another thing to keep it mightve been something more substantial like your voice at night//

nonetheless it is all as simple as i miss you, as simple as come on over after work, as simple as i saved you some pizza im so sorry its a bit cold im so sorry im so much im sorry ive been apologising for fucking forever//

hey man do you ever feel guilty? i fear so much of me is so much of you and you and you although i never want to see you again, i just want to hold on to the best parts with red and white knuckles and then let the flesh and bone of you go, for it is as simple as this is the way things oughta be and so this is the way they are.//

[what-else-is-new-420]

I think, fortunately, that love is meant to linger in the doorway a little longer. it's meant to take a bit more time than it needs to tie its shoes. maybe as it walks away from your house with its hands in its pockets, it will turn around to give it a quick last glance. maybe when you go back into the living room, you will find its knit red scarf, particles of its scent suspended in the air. it's still warm to the touch. you will then wrap it around yourself and fall asleep in it, silent, watching the car headlights slide through your window and on your ceiling.

tonight, I am curled up in bed watching someone on my phone talk about their struggles, which were also your struggles. I listen to their words, which were exactly your words, which is also all I've got left of you after all the anger burned away. my chest feels warm at the sudden coming of memories, but starts to burn up as I watch more of the video. I believe you would describe it as a ghost limb, this feeling, wishing so much that I could reach out and show you what this person has to say, not to talk to you, not to touch you, but simply because I know for a fact it would make you feel less alone. that was the only goal I ever had. I want to say, "you see? it was not all for nothing, it was never just you all alone in this!" but I won't. I fear love is both picking up an extra toothbrush at the grocery store and the emptiness heard as it hits the bottom of your trashcan when it is no longer going to be used. I will take it as it comes. I don't love you anymore and I am okay with this silence, but like I said, it tends to linger.

in the air, in the doorway. I will not tell it to leave. please do not ask me - I need to hold on to my humanity.

[what-else-is-new-420]

one day, early February / you asked what "God" meant to me / I thought of the baby monkey curled up to the fake mother made of fur / I'm not sure I believe in a God, at least / not in the same sense as / the big man in the sky.

it is so easy to be half a person nowadays / 24/7 war feed / a chained chest in a hole I made in my head as a kid / to stuff everything bad in / and now, you in it / you, saying maybe I should regret this / but I don't think you understand the way it glows / still / you will never know the way it drives me / love / love / love / even in its newfound absence.

the smell of you / hanging off my top / hanging off the handle of my bedroom door / you've been right here too / it hits me / I remember now and I didn't expect it but / I somehow knew it was you / and I stopped, before I even knew why.

my God lies in that / that brief moment of pause / that unrecognised recognition / this firing up of my senses / as the highlight reel of you in me played / this God is good to me / this God reminds me I was loved / this God reminds me I have loved.

so no / I don't believe in your God / but I have memories of people I never want to see again / that still make me smile involuntarily when I am reminded / by a word / by a scent / and I think, confidently / that's gotta be pretty close.

- I could never worship what hates me

[what-else-is-new-420]

it's awful, the ordeal of having flesh that hums.

I took myself out to the riverbank and I cut a part of it out

to give to someone I loved

so we could swap. I fit your skin like a puzzle piece in between the gaps of mine, so you will never leave me even after you leave me. I believe

I am slowly becoming more you and less me

and that is not something I will ever mind, but

I still hear the hum, you know

I feel my own absence

when someone up and runs off with my affection.

it's yours now, you can keep it. I don't want it back, I am not the type to regret such things.

but at the very least tell me

what am I meant to do with this chunk of you still left in me

except for gently run my fingertips on it?

what do I do with the songs, the poems

the images of you I created

as an offering

as proof I loved you so much?

tell me, you coward

what was I meant to do differently?

[what-else-is-new-420]

[TW: heavy implications of SA]

"crabs"

if you must take me in this taxi, fine. I don't need to go home. I realised long ago I am nothing but meat for consumption. my mother will not be worried, for she knows that, too. lead your thick, calloused hand away from the gear shift and towards where my body should be, would be, if I could feel it. what's it matter what I feel? please, is it okay if I keep my legs closed? no, it's okay, pry them open anyway - who am I to ask you anything? we twist the legs of crabs and suck out every drop of flesh. I am ready to be that for you, I was born ready, I have been ready my entire life. for you and you and you and you and you. you're saying something, your voice clad in alcohol and sewing the words together. praise- my reward for sitting so still. it matters so very much. (endurance, God told the Women, will take you to Heaven. turn the other cheek, let His hand guide you. let his hand guide you. let it rotate your head swiftly and abruptly to the side. go somewhere else when it starts to push down.) your hand is fast and rough, and although I am not delicate anymore, it hurts. it makes me small. it makes your eyes flicker. I am not pure, by your standards, but I can lie- do you need me to lie? I can be anything and everything, I learned to shapeshift when I developed a woman's body. I can be your wife, mistress, bitch, hooker, whatever if I'm scared enough. I bet your actual wife can't do it like this. I bet she is and was me. is she over it? I bet she's over it. is she not so willing to snap like a twig between your fingers? what a bitch. me, however, I can suck my stomach in, for I fear I am not small enough. if you need to suck the extra space out of me for good, then do it. who am I to stop you? do it, make me smaller, to your liking. if you must take me in this taxi, fine. I just fear the backseat does not have enough space for me and my fear and you. it is so thick, this fear, but no - don't ever think I am blaming you. how could I? boil me. cut the meat from my thighs and boil me. do you want to do that? where exactly does this consumption stop? not that I'm complaining, I couldn't, no- snip the fat from my stomach. make this body yours, it's sure as hell not mine anymore. it's okay, I will be here, staring at the ceiling. twist my legs and get it over with, snap my knees, put a tap in my spine and suck every bit of dignity out of my body. I will be here. I've long learned I am no one if I object. I have long learned I am no one.

[what-else-is-new-420]

you don't get to know, you don't. I walked past this kiosk today and remembered the night we sat at a park with your childood friend and a dog ran to greet us. we talked about grief that night, but before that, we stopped at this kiosk to get a drink. I tried your friend's. it was really sweet, I didn't like it. I remember how you checked in on me periodically if you felt I seemed off. I felt loved in that moment. I thought about that today. you don't get to know.

you don't get to know, but I have a deep red ribbon tied to my bedside lamp. a month or so ago, you showed up at my door before work, your face lit but nervous, with a rose in your hand, tied in this little ribbon. you looked so relieved. I asked what gives. you kissed me and said you just felt like it, wanted to tell me thanks. I'm still not sure what for, but I took the rose and when you left, I put it in a vase with some water. it held up really well, only died recently. every night I'd talk to you on the phone and idly throw my eyes at it, listening to you. the last time we spoke only the stem was left, naked and dark and brooding. I didn't see the point in keeping it, but couldn't get myself to throw the ribbon away, so I tied it to the lamp. but you don't deserve to know that.

sometimes, when the lamp is angled a certain way, the light will reflect off the wall in a ray of memories of you on my sheets, your hand grabbing my arm so bad it bruised. other times, looking out of my window at night will make me think of this one time, how your silver cross necklace was gently perched on your bare collarbone, reflecting moonlight. sometimes, when I'm walking the road near my house under a sky sufficiently gray and damp, boots sloshing around in puddles, I'll feel like I'm walking you home again. sometimes, I'll wake up expecting a message to let me know you're on the bus to work. sometimes, I'll see a coat similar to yours on a woman on the street. the other day, I walked in my room and saw a beanie of yours that you'd apparetly forgotten there. I stood so stiff, felt so ambushed, like you had somehow broken into my house. you don't get to know this, but I picked it up and gently folded it inside a drawer with a certain care that did not betray the anger burning at my fingertips, but instead, this newfound empty space between my hands.

this will never go away, that much I know. all the anger has already burned off, but my days are still riddled with this remaining ash and ember, these fleeting features of people I've loved. they glow so soft, as if to say that every cloud in the sky and every blade of grass, every fractal leaf formation on the trees will remind me that I have lived. that I've shared my life. I don't have a problem with that, I know it gets easier, your face will fade back in with theirs. the issue is this, simply put; I wish you didn't have to fade back. I wish you'd been more gentle and less awful. I really thought you could be. even now I don't want your goddamn memories, your goddamn ash, I still just want you. I wish I could tell you that. I look at the clouds and I wish, I wish. I wish.

[what-else-is-new-420]

so you're a writer

okay then

write

write me a story

of all the things you can only say

when you're half asleep

and write me a better time

where all those things can happen

(maybe this one but I don't dare think that)

write me, then

the things you can't say out loud

about that night and every other

write me a better outcome

a present where you stay

or a future where you leave

do it

write me a reason to leave you

a good one this time

I dare you

write me something

that isn't dripping in self preservation

if you're not visible through the scope

then no one can know where to aim

right? tell me I'm right

I mean who would hit you

right in your words, your body

because your pen is only an extension of your hand

and not your hand, not quite

the same way your words are also a part of your body

but not the whole thing

no, actually

I think your pen is the scope

but enough about that

write me something good

write me something

write me

write me

write me,

you fucking coward.

-even though im angry

[what-else-is-new-420]

google how to reach salvation no god no religion in 5 minutes

[what-else-is-new-420]

I go to church. I make a list of the things I learned from you, reading about Mary's seven dolores. behind every word I eat and make my own, like "church" or "God" or "pain", is your name, your face (or my version of it, at least). I take in the iconography, see the devotion, it makes sense. I go back to what you wrote about me. I look at my dad's old paintings. I hold a vinyl in my hand and feel it hot to the touch. it looks like flesh, I swear I can feel it pulsating, hear blood pumping within the valleys and ridges of the plate. this is what a person is, I think. this is God. and I think of the seven dolores again, and I realise that is God, too. I imagine those long swords sticking out of my own heart like a great poem or good love, and I wonder what Mary would've been able to make of herself without them. maybe she was satisfied, maybe they drove her. maybe she wouldn't have wanted to save herself instead of the world. maybe loving Christ was her own cross to bear, but then again, I hold this belief within a grip so childish and desperate, that maybe the temporary privilege of loving is worth seven eternally bleeding wounds.

[what-else-is-new-420]

at night, we turned up the heating and showered together in the hotel. it was the first time you saw me naked and you faced away from me the whole time. I was relieved, my body closed like a tulip. the bathroom tiles were pale green and rectangular, as I'm sure you'll recall. I saw you soap your chest in the one slow half-second my eyes flickered on you, on their way from the shower head to the tap. your hands were always so particular, kind of angular and small, brittle-looking. your hands were all and always history. one was broken and gave you so much grief. you had a scar on your right thumb and a few small ones on your knuckles. then, another glimpse and you were anxious. the scars on your hand, I thought, were kissed by the same person who broke it. what's making more scars to kiss? love? I wonder if you see her in me. moreover, I wonder if you're scared I see you like she did. maybe if I notice the same texture on your skin that she saw, I'll know you like her. that must be terrifying, right? being known? is that why I'm fixated on a tile on the wall right now? is that why you're facing away from me, shoulders angled in like crumpled up paper? I get it, I do. I wish you didn't see me either. but that means I now get to know your hands glide on your body like they're wire rags, your skin a pan. I'm so sorry I know you, darling, I know it's awful, but what's a clean pan anyway? isn't food sharing, isn't sharing living? take my freezing hand and put it on your back, under your shirt. now shiver. that. that is what it's like to know.

[what-else-is-new-420]

God, I need you

like my grandma does, gently

sitting at the Christmas service

or I need you

all consuming

the same way as the girl I love

who needs you so much

she will slowly kill herself with guilt

for you

last time I was in church

I saw the sunlight refract through the stained glass and land on the painted face

of Saint Peter

and for a second it was beautiful

and I could see millennia of love and worship

that I could understand

why it was holy, how they adored you in the details and brush strokes and engravements.

but then he was staring at me

and your Mary was staring at me

and my Mary was sitting somewhere in the pews

probably feeling the weight of her name

and suddenly I felt it again,

I didn't get it anymore

why my mother spoke for you

why your mother is burning holes in me

holding a newborn child so light

for he will never be weighed by his own sin

like I am by mine

someone I will never amount to, by design

Your design

because You made me to be insufficient.

I am one of your children, just like him

but I am one of the lesser ones-

black sheep, bad sheep

bad believer, non believer

dyke

but hey

don't punish me, you don't get to

my only crime is being made by cruel hands.

turn your gaze behind the pulpit

you built through our arms and backs

just to hear your own praises

why are you so quiet? look at it

see what I see for once, sit in the pews.

notice those painted patron saints?

there's no love, no

there's no love in their gaze. it is enough punishment. it is enough.

but I need you, you know? I do

I've spent so long denying that

which is not to say I believe in you now

or that I love you

maybe I did somewhere along the lines

when I was five

but you never listened to me.

I am not a believer

and that is your fault

I will not listen to the slithering serpent priests

I don't care what they have to say about that

because it is also your fault that they have a voice or a tongue like a knife

and sometimes I cannot tell where theirs ends

and yours begins.

when I say I need you

it is to say

I need to know things aren't so random

so awful

that all I need to do is believe

and let the river run its course

and it will have been worth it

like the wife turning the other cheek to her husband

knowing it will take her to Heaven one day

because that is what You told her.

God, I wish. I wish I could know like that.

doubt is exhausting.

I need the version of you my Mary believes in

one that I do not have the privilege

of hoping for.

-my mary / painted patron saints

[what-else-is-new-420]

Christmas this year found me high and talking to random wasted girls at the bathroom of a rave. Nothing like ecstasy to get me talking, and maybe it's the drugs, but I feel cautiously optimistic about this new year. The drunk girl intelligibly screaming in my ear is sweet. She guarded my bag with her life and took nice pictures of me. She tells me she loves me so much and that I'm so pretty, although I don't know her name and I doubt she remembers mine. Everyone around me is so high and so nice, and the music pounds in the centre of my head. I think I fell a little bit in love this year, and I'm happy to do it again and again and again with new people. The tall girl next to me with the red hair wants to kiss me. Her friend asks her to tell me he likes my outfit and then runs off. When he does, I don't kiss her. I don't need to. I don't feel like I do.

My friend motions me over and wordlessly hands me a lollipop. I unwrap it, and in that moment, I am in love with him, and it is the best goddamn thing I've ever tasted. We dance together and the chains on his shirt glisten under the strobe lights. I almost burn a girl with my cigarette and apologise profusely, but she just shows me the line of grey ash I left on her arm, and we laugh. I'm a little bit in love with her, too. And the girl with the red hair, she's been holding my puffer jacket all night with no complaint. She could be nice if we got the chance to talk in a quiet place. Maybe then I'd want to kiss her if the moment was right.

I think about the people I will meet at the right time. I fell a little bit in love, I think, and the time wasn't right, but I don't regret it. I will never regret love. No matter what happens this year, I will get to love. I will get to love. That will be enough. There is so much of me to go around.