Ocean, don’t be afraid.Ā  The end of the road is so far aheadĀ  it is already behind us.Ā  Don’t worry. Your father is only your fatherĀ  until one of you forgets. Like how the spineĀ  won’t remember its wingsĀ  no matter how many times our kneesĀ  kiss the pavement. Ocean,Ā  are you listening? The most beautiful partĀ  of your body is whereverĀ  your mother’s shadow falls.Ā  Here’s the house with childhoodĀ  whittled down to a single red tripwire.Ā  Don’t worry. Just call itĀ horizon & you’ll never reach it.Ā  Here’s today. Jump. I promise it’s notĀ  a lifeboat. Here’s the manĀ  whose arms are wide enough to gatherĀ  your leaving. & here the moment,Ā  just after the lights go out, when you can still seeĀ  the faint torch between his legs.Ā  How you use it again & againĀ  to find your own hands.Ā  You asked for a second chanceĀ  & are given a mouth to empty into.Ā  Don’t be afraid, the gunfireĀ  is only the sound of peopleĀ  trying to live a little longer. Ocean. Ocean,Ā  get up. The most beautiful part of your bodyĀ  is where it’s headed. & remember,Ā  loneliness is still time spentĀ  with the world. Here’sĀ  the room with everyone in it.Ā  Your dead friends passingĀ  through you like windĀ  through a wind chime. Here’s a deskĀ  with the gimp leg & a brickĀ  to make it last. Yes, here’s a roomĀ  so warm & blood-close,Ā  I swear, you will wake—  & mistake these wallsĀ  for skin.
Jul 1, 2024

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After Frank O’Hara / After Roger Reeves Ocean, don’t be afraid.Ā  The end of the road is so far aheadĀ  it is already behind us.Ā  Don’t worry. Your father is only your fatherĀ  until one of you forgets. Like how the spineĀ  won’t remember its wingsĀ  no matter how many times our kneesĀ  kiss the pavement. Ocean,Ā  are you listening? The most beautiful partĀ  of your body is whereverĀ  your mother’s shadow falls.Ā  Here’s the house with childhoodĀ  whittled down to a single red tripwire.Ā  Don’t worry. Just call itĀ horizon & you’ll never reach it.Ā  Here’s today. Jump. I promise it’s notĀ  a lifeboat. Here’s the manĀ  whose arms are wide enough to gatherĀ  your leaving. & here the moment,Ā  just after the lights go out, when you can still seeĀ  the faint torch between his legs.Ā  How you use it again & againĀ  to find your own hands.Ā  You asked for a second chanceĀ  & are given a mouth to empty into.Ā  Don’t be afraid, the gunfireĀ  is only the sound of peopleĀ  trying to live a little longer. Ocean. Ocean,Ā  get up. The most beautiful part of your bodyĀ  is where it’s headed. & remember,Ā  loneliness is still time spentĀ  with the world. Here’sĀ  the room with everyone in it.Ā  Your dead friends passingĀ  through you like windĀ  through a wind chime. Here’s a deskĀ  with the gimp leg & a brickĀ  to make it last. Yes, here’s a roomĀ  so warm & blood-close,Ā  I swear, you will wake—  & mistake these wallsĀ  for skin.
May 7, 2024
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ā€œI guess what I mean is that I ate the apple not because the man lied when he said I was born of his rib but that I wanted to fill myself with its hunger for the ground, where the bones of my people still dream of me.ā€ the most beautifully haunting sentence i’ve eve read
Apr 8, 2025
āœļø
just something i wrote for an assignment in 9th grade English. also if you recognize the mitski quote hidden in the poem don't tell my school I plagiarized pretty please i. I am to be born anew in ten days.Ā  I can feel it In my skin. It pulses under the flesh Like a river, rushing through my veins. A change is fast approaching and I am not strong enough to withstand it. ii. I am too vulnerable, too fragile to change. I am one to be crushed under a boot, I cannot endure this change that will come in 9 days' time.Ā  I am afraid. Afraid. iii. My mother changed only weeks ago. She is as young as I soon will be. Her children, my siblings, are many. I am one in one thousand and I will be lost in a haze of orange when we change. It will be brilliant, it will be, Fleeting. Our beauty will last only seconds in the eyes of those who look upon us. Mother, I am to be young again.Ā  Mother, were you scared? Were you scared mother? I am scared of the change to come. iv. My hunger grows with each passing day, as does my fear. Some of my siblings have already started to settle. They seek out the places closer to the sky, as if, even in this life before the next, they long to be weightless, held only by the cold wind that I feel on my back.Ā  They do not seem afraid, as I am. They turn their heads to the sky, facing down the wide expanse of blue like the ant faces a hurricane. They do not cower, only waiting for the change they know is coming. They are resilient in ways I am not. I am not, I am not, I am not. Please, I am not them, please, I cannot withstand this. I am afraid, do you hear?Ā  I, who make no sound, am screaming I am afraid of the change to come. v. Today, I reflect. My life, as short as it is, is coming to an end. In five days, I will become someone else. In five days, I am to live a new life in a new body.Ā  Mother, you are dying soon. Soon, my new body will replace yours in the kaleidoscope. Soon, mother, soon. I do not want to leave the ground, I do not want to take flight like I am intended to. Mother, soon, too soon.Ā  vi. I have begun the change.Ā  Soon, mother. Soon. ix. This barrier between me and my new world has begun to crack. I push at the walls of my chrysalis with new arms, new legs. This new body has not seen the outside world but it is unafraid. How? How did something so sensitive become a rock in a river? I had thought, before my new mind settled in my head, that my fear would remain.Ā  Even if my body had changed, my mind would remain. But it has not, and I am just like my siblings. Their resilience which I had only witnessed when I had looked into their dark eyes, and seen the look on their faces, has become mine.Ā  Oh mother, is this how you felt? Was I wrong to ask if you were afraid? You were, weren’t you? Just like me, my mother, like me. And like me you weathered your storm, you were born anew and unafraid. i. I am different. I feel it, in a way unlike any other. My body has changed but my mind as well. Before, I was guided by the will to survive. Before, I was not looking to the skies because there was nothing in them for me to look at, but now, now my weary head turns to the sky as almost second nature. It calls to me, to my newborn wings and my young resolve to conquer it.Ā  I am finally living. Mother, is this what you felt like? Did you live as well? This change, this change, I am alive, for the first time, I live. Ā  Oh, mother, I am not afraid. I will face the skies,Ā  Ā Ā  Ā  Ā  Unafraid. Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā And the wind will push my frail body Ā  but I will not fall, no, Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā  These new wings,Ā  they will take flight and I will rise, Do you hear? Mother? I will rise, just like you.Ā  I am born anew.
May 13, 2024

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