Tag: t113

ka papaʻa [kiʻa] 1) archive: As in: The papaʻa doesn’t get as many visitors as it once did. 2) backup, as in a computer program: You’re slow to throw away your father’s things: you keep a landline—his voice on the answering machine—though only scammers call; before Māmā cancels the number, you make a papaʻa of…

Once I sink my teeth in, I have to nurse myself into letting goI am always overly eager to hold something in my mouthTo own and decide the fateTo grasp and never releaseMissing you hasn’t even begun, yet it consumes meI’m bathing in sour fruits from your gardenSucking on prayer beads twice a dayCrying like…

Nothing. Nothing sears you with shame like longing, like desire—you are up on the world stage of desperation, you are a red-faced child reaching through a school fence for a toffee, you are a dog on a treadmill running itself to death for a bone. You are a greyhound in a dogfight whose last sight…

I lived that summer in an architect’s error, the cruel setting sun making ovens of the study upstairs on the right, and the poky mezzanine in my room.  My flatmates were a straight couple who approved loans for corporations and marketed disinfectant wipes,respectively.  The message arrived at ten at night, while I was sitting on the edge of my bed recovering from…

scrambled eggs i I get out of bed & don’t look in the mirror.there are birds on my tree in my headin the garden. ii i fist the glass door & flowers open.a blackbird looks at mesideways. iii her hair is like a nest of baby vipersdead before they could crawl. iv i peel with…