mooncakes

中午 At 12:00 pm you walk into the tea store that lies just above the edges of your consciousness, embalm your tongue with the scent of green tea and honey.

slide the depths of your voice from the dust-lungs of your body,

spirit fluttering iridescent ivory feathers into the ianthine arteries of your heart.

breathe and you etch a cross onto your subconscious, glowing like

wrap your laced-up fingers around my throat like you don’t want to breathe,

hold my pupils in your palms. do you want to smile?

amnesia. the brain doesn’t like the watercolour poem of my skeletal frame,

once i sat down on the curb and told you, love, these things aren't what we're used to.

we're stop signs like angels circulating (don't breathe, don't move)-

I hold my prefrontal cortex with the shame of

sinking, water lilies seeping from my lips into the grey-green

marsh I call (uselessly) 

home.

My mind hisses with the strain of too many canned-up voices

saying

solar-soft night because i stayed up whispering non-existent melodies to the dreaming clouds,

pierced the veil of daybreak with needle-sharp notes-