acid

feeling. feeling too much. not enough. haven’t been sober

since saturday. these dark pattern shoes. sewed

with rainbow threads. follow a thread with your 

finger. follow it up the stairwell to grandmother.

follow it into the dorm room. on the red a tab dying

your tongue blue. orange a couple bumps of k

falling back, back into yourself slowly. yellow.

yellow is the color hailey said looked like me.

yellow follow the thread down a long line

of coke put on the sunglasses. green on

a second tab until the faces in the posters

on the walls turn to look at me. blue as my

lips go numb it all starts to hit flipping

through this rolling stones song anthology.

purple. lighting up their black and white 

faces in gothic black and white photograph.

red. i follow myself outside. listening to music.

listening to myself play music. listening

to the music play to itself. walking out into

the light and putting dark sunglasses on.

seeing so much color. walking to rodin

sculpture garden half out of my mind. all 

the trees bending toward me. all the sky

bending toward me. all the particles in all

the dirt in all the ground bending toward

me. feeling afraid. afraid of the life and

the people and the money. feeling seen only.

by the trees. and the things i can never

talk to. stealing chocolate from the bookstore

with skya. talking. watching her make soup

as i get higher and higher until butternut

squash swatches on the bowl are their own

art form. whole conversations i won’t 

remember under this california suns part

ways again sunglasses again watching the

eyes in memorial church watch themselves

watch me sort of stumbling through. climb 

up into the branches of some tree. numbered

and placed here just right. look up into 

these imperfectly sprouted branches. watch

them watch themselves crystalize into

something unexpected and green watching

me with many vaguely interested faces.

a bike ride. no. a walk home on the same jane

stanford street every so often a roundabout.

feel my feet feel the ground. feel the ground feel me.

right back. desire some human contact. feel all

alone on the street as the bike wheels beat

slowly and lightedly by. all the whispers of

conversations lost in the earbuds. time not

passing as i hear their texts going to all

their dinners. as i walk still down this one

street counting my breathings in breaths out.

all to get back in my sunglasses back darkness like

a blanket on the drugs and the eye contact and

the existing. stepping through the loops of steps.

listening to whispering words of conversations

turn their heads and look at me as i fall sort of

senseless into the hammock. listen to song after 

song as the tree’s red berry clusters drip down

geometric leaves break their knuckles over

my ears. the clouds. in front of muting 

sunglasses. gentle gyrations. honeycomb.

trees square me in. my own home here on 

the ground. two planes of ground and

sky dancing slowly and turning their many

heads. to the gentle christmas blues. warmth

of fresh hot chocolate. the intense love of

those planes. not love so much as existing.

getting lost between the A and B. not even the

two. just lost in the B. lost in being. in

existing and breathing as a living human being.

today. tomorrow. not quite there, always

worrying. i find a baby rose in my hair

i picked and put there some hour. i don’t 

remember. i spin it between two fingers.

watch its pink bloom spread and breathe.

like μπουμπούκη. my nickname dad says.

means little bud. rose bud still small and

pink and not quite bloomed. you come and

lie on the hammock next to me and all the while

the world turns to dark and all the while

the music doesn’t stop but it just feels nice

to feel close to someone you know?

and we go inside and they do work and i

write poetry and i hear them speaking

and i feel connected to you right next to me

and eye contact with you and you and you

and i realize my painted socks are mismatched.

van gogh and klimt. and i look past

your face into the trees and i see all their

faces. lean in for a kiss over your 

shoulder. and i kiss them and then i 

return to our conversation. something about

music. i hear still the songs playing behind

every act on every movement every desire.

we bike across campus in the dark. i

trust you. you hang onto my sunglasses.

it’s too dark. we get to the party and

everyone is dressed in black corsets for

a goth theme. we are wearing red. we

bike back down the hill and eat fries 

and drink peace tea. we talk about

music and you show me this song. still

rainin’. and it is. every time i look out the 

windows behind my eyes. it’s still rainin’.

fogged up eyes. i open them and the sunglasses

are on without being there. violent wings

between vibrancy and shadowfogged. i follow

your bike light home. almost crash into

bushes of faces half a hundred times.

feel the speed and air and turn my chin up

to the dark fogged cool night clouds. wind

whips the thin velvet shirt. until almost

all my skin is bare against the lamplit

clouds. inky fingers and inky brain.

makeup and glitter and old sweat

and tears pooling together under

my eyes. some feeling maybe hunger 

boiling up in my guts. throwing my

clothes on the floor and touching you

touching me. trains of dusty old hookups

and large hands on my ribcage get furled

on the bookshelf. drink cold coffee

from this morning. sense of time

disheveled. lumps of hardened chocolate

in the bottom. looking in the mirror.

looking at something there looking back. 

—October 2021, Stanford, CA