Sat on the back of the motorbike. Weaving, the fuck in and out of Saigon traffic. Tap my hand on my pants. External heartbeat from the music, burning my blood brighter. Making it round through me, my veins. Like my body round Nguyen Chi Thanh roundabout. City lights, shining on me. I rush.rush.rush anew. Lights, filling wide eyed stares again. Making them, warmer. I’m, warmer. Disassociation, over. Crossed the finish line. Motherfucking victory. And I didn’t even have to crawl over it, pushing my bloody fucking patella across the last metre. It was just the sight of your face. Breathed in your skin cells as you shed them. And thought,

OMG.

The sun is shining my heart is pounding
And let our bodies surrender
Let the light move your feet to the beat
Hold me close and never let go

Electricity in how our metacarpals caught each other, at random. The way I saw our metatarsals tangled up, in bed. In the sunlight, dusk till dawn. And I haven’t even kicked you out yet. Your smell slathered onto my sheets. Watch the Jane The Virgin finale with me. Don’t care that you’re fucking there. Use your arm hair to pull, hold onto–when I get excited. Fuck, you saw me flee from my mind with glee. The way art I love does to me. Giddy as a coked out fly. Forgot I could escape. That the bones of others weren’t shackles. That I could use them like a lock pick. That’d you’d break a finger, to break me free. Pointer finger pointed, twisted until it fits the keyhole. Your pinky, swearing to hold me up when I stand for the first time.

Crash.Motherfucking crash. Motorbike, me slam into the wall.
lies.lies.lies.lies.lies.lies.lies.lies.all fucking lies.

I’m not an over god, I never asked for this dove
What you see isn’t fire burning bright into the sky
What you see, could be
Strength that leads to victory
And I, all I am is an imposter

_______________________________________

Better this way. Broken. Broken, down on the side of the road. Ears on Dien Bien Phu street. No longer listening to that bullshit. Lucid moments, call out the tragedy. Of living in madness. Of succumbing to tempestuosness. To fiery crashes, tales of them over the ashes of my life. Alzheimers-esque, this trauma. Have a few days here where I know, a few there I can’t deny: heaven is a place I could find. Then I’m snatched back. Exploded little heart bits swimming in my blood. Once truth, clarity detonates. And I spend my days wasting my youth as I’ve wasted my time, muttering about

Heaven is a place I just can’t find

Severed your hand from mine. In the crash. Was kind enough to let your metacarprals make their way to freedom. Before the crash.boom.guillotine to the good things in my life. Your wrist, intact. Can attach itself to another. My brachial artery, bleeding all over Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa. Gonna let myself die, again. No, fuck. Don’t. Five years since you’ve felt that way. Can’t lose hope. Can’t lose sight. Even though I’m exasperated. With myself, for refusing to champion bruised, bloody heart tissue. To find its missing moxxy and

Run from the shadows and run to the light
From a past I left behind
Haunted by a memory that I just can’t set free
Searching for the man that I used to be

Bleed all over the bed. Stare out behind bedsheets. Use them to suffocate myself. Don a hijab. Hide, take pride in what the world can see of me. Let my broken bones bounce over breaks in the mattress. As I shake, stir some godly shit in the sound of silence. Practically a fiend. No normal person, I. Injected myself, not with a painkiller. To recover from losing the freedom of your fucking face. Of fucking your face. Shot myself up with a cocktail of chaos. Feel the rush. This trauma, like codependency. Like heroin. Chasing a dragon that will eat me. Leave me nodding, until I nod out on the street one day. Sit in my bed and stare at silence. Because I’m silent as still eyes, blown pupils. Fuck that lack of noise.

The room’s still now when I’m lying
Cause the well of the night has gone dry
When they ask to behave, I paid them no mind

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