Passing Through

 by Sunyata Courie

“We lay side by side and his head was on my arm. I don’t suppose that I have ever been so happy. No; was it happiness? Something wider and darker, more like knowledge, more like the night: joy.”

- Ursula K Le Guin, “The New Atlantis”

i awake suddenly as though dropped into being

and wonder if last night really happened 

or if it was a dream

am i a good person?

is probably too serious a question for someone my age and constitution to ponder 

while brushing their teeth 

i don’t ever want to get old 

body superimposed on the city, licked with blue flame

i consider asking him to come sit with me while i do some breathing exercises

…………. an existentialists fantasy (to fuck the Other)

i need a reminder i didn’t die 30 minutes ago

sleeping is just so close to death 

i hope that after the revolution i can get a nose job

please please please won’t you love me?

sometimes my blue light blocker is so strong that red looks orange 

(sometimes red looks orange) 

i want to eat till my stomach bursts open

time to put on an unboxing mukbang asmr apology video 

is this elon musks wet dream?

maybe tomorrow i go to a museum

and see if i can hear buddhas voice

my room smells like thai tea

the illusion of a heating pad burning your back

no stains on my new white sweatshirt yet

naked women crowd the background of my zoom calls

i’ve gone through three lovers in this plague

and none of them have stuck around

i know all this stress is killing me 

the aluminum in my deodorant is making me infertile

(and the cytokines storm the castle)

see, i think the problem is that i’m addicted to the post-anxiety attack adrenaline rush

more than i’m addicted to being happy

if i had a time machine i’d go back and shoot steve jobs in the face

and whoever the fuck invented twitter 

sometimes i step over storm drains and hope they break

maroon dragons fly by my window every morning 

i’m sick of nursing my caffeine addiction 

and sometimes i miss being drunk in unfinished basements 

with people whose names i can’t for the life of me remember 

splitting the body/mind connection 

replaying old memories and distorting them

we feel so lonely and so sad all the time

and now we cry too much to explore space

if i told the school therapist a tiger visits me at night

sits on my dirty rug, bows to buddha with me

and promises me everything is going to be okay

they’d diagnose me with schizophrenia

lock me and my tiger up in a white padded room

give me an iv drip of sedatives 

and make me eat the daily recommended amount of calories

i have cried every day this week

they’re chopping trees down today

and i can feel the sap in my lungs

i fold origami lotuses until my fingers crack and bleed

lotuses lotuses 

1000 paper lotuses

maybe i need to eat half a 200 mg cbd twizzler

i love the way my face looks after i cry