any way you slice it i was born for a good time

some of my primary interests include pomp
circumstance
occasion
and carousing

love a kickback and a kiki
very much love a tea

weddings
graduations
meg’s monday night birthday function i stayed at waaaay too late for a monday night

i’m mariah carey on qvc repeatedly describing herself
and everything she loves as “festive”

i’m andré leon talley specifying he wear a caftan
for his cremation

my dearest ellery said he can’t remember a boring day in his life
i’m free will agnostic
but with each conscious choice toward that ethos

the need for sleep
the need to labor
two little devils strapped to my back who synergize
to ruin quality time

just rude
needy
and greedy

depending on who you ask
i’m going to hell and all my girls are too
i’m afterlife agnostic but if some kind of something comes next
what else to call it besides the afters, the very last afters

and if my girls are there with me
i’m good

we’ll know who to haunt and do it well
dressed to the nines in maggot-drenched couture

^{translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley}

A long time ago
I went on a journey,
Right to the corner
Of the Eastern Ocean.
The road there
Was long and winding,
And stormy waves
Barred my path.
What made me
Go this way?
Hunger drove me
Into the World.
I tried hard
To fill my belly:
And even a little
Seemed a lot.
But this was clearly
A bad bargain,
So I went home
And lived in idleness.

III. Now rose in purple pomp the breezy dawn,
And crimson dew-drops trembled on the lawn;
Blaz’d high in air the temple’s golden vanes,
And dancing shadows veer’d upon the plains.—
Long trains of virgins from the sacred grove,
Pair after pair, in bright procession move,
With flower-fill’d baskets round the altar throng,
Or swing their censers, as they wind along.
The fair Urania leads the blushing bands,
Presents their offerings with unsullied hands;
Pleas’d to their dazzled eyes in part unshrouds
The goddess-form;—the rest is hid in clouds.

     “Priestess of Nature! while with pious awe
Thy votary bends, the mystic veil withdraw;
Charm after charm, succession bright, display,
And give the Goddess to adoring day!
So kneeling realms shall own the Power divine,
And heaven and earth pour incense on her shrine.

    “Oh grant the Muse with pausing step to press
Each sun-bright avenue, and green recess;
Led by thy hand survey the trophied walls,
The statued galleries, and the pictur’d halls;
Scan the proud pyramid, and arch sublime,
Earth-canker’d urn, medallion green with time,
Stern busts of Gods, with helmed heroes mix’d,
And Beauty’s radiant forms, that smile betwixt.

    “Waked by thy voice, transmuted by thy wand,
Their lips shall open, and their arms expand;
The love-lost lady, and the warrior slain,
Leap from their tombs, and sigh or fight again.
—So when ill-fated Orpheus tuned to woe
His potent lyre, and sought the realms below;
Charm’d into life unreal forms respir’d,
And list’ning shades the dulcet notes admir’d.—

“Love led the Sage through Death’s tremendous porch,
Cheer’d with his smile, and lighted with his torch;—
Hell’s triple Dog his playful jaws expands,
Fawns round the God, and licks his baby hands;
In wondering groups the shadowy nations throng,
And sigh or simper, as he steps along;
Sad swains, and nymphs forlorn, on Lethe’s brink,
Hug their past sorrows, and refuse to drink;
Night’s dazzled Empress feels the golden flame
Play round her breast, and melt her frozen frame;
Charms with soft words, and sooths with amorous wiles,
Her iron-hearted Lord,—and Pluto smiles.—
His trembling Bride the Bard triumphant led
From the pale mansions of the astonish’d dead;
Gave the fair phantom to admiring light,—
Ah, soon again to tread irremeable night!”

years from now they’ll ask us if it was still—the Quiet?
and yes we’ll say, we were stirred but it was still.
stirred?
we were stirred, we learned the shape of our own ears
the soft animism of mortality
we looked at each other’s skin, from a distance,
and felt we could break at anything at all
a piercing thought even
we thought we’d lose everything, we thought we already had

so we were stirred.
but it was quiet?
but it was distillery-quiet

and there was fear in our hearts but the love
it was decanted and poured freely
we still chatter about it like it was honey
and we learned how to be kinder to bees

we called our grandmothers and asked them for videos
and they sent us anything at all
grass
ovaltine
and we told our friends we loved them
and we looked at our uncles from across the street
screens
hands on our hearts, and they melted.

from?
stillness, fullness, sweetness, whatever we had.
we learned how big we were and how small
like those girls who broke your whole heart?
nodding
so you could see where all the pieces were
how capacious it was, anything can belong in there
anything at all
like those girls. but a whole earth.

He closed the door.
January bit through the walls.

The bed kept the warmth
seventeen minutes, then none.
No witness but the sheets.

I thought I stayed.

I inventoried the fridge.
The cream had turned.
I was late to the news of myself.

I didn’t starve.
I just never came back to the table.

Even hunger
has standards.

I left later,
quiet enough that air forgot me.
I went the way women go
who survive too long.

Afterward
I moved through rooms without arriving.
I lived like a light you forget to turn off.

The cream soured.
And I was elsewhere
long before I knew it