Baby moths were growing
up around my monitor taKing
heat away from the dark areas
still glowing arUund our boxes—
and ghost boxes
ThE first month I met youu,
reading you completely wrong
was right before frayed July
collapsEd the year on us where,
while I looped solens mekanik—
loved at what litttle of me existed
and sleeped aT the sun,
LatEr we set boundaries,
and learned a ٭small٭ amount
more about each other
Being trans is ٭really٭
alll we haVe in common
One confining nigHt I panicked
over the pictures of you in my
mind coMmitting into drapery
about a mantis—⠀⠀⠀all the hearts
⠀⠀⠀⠀ are pink or blue—
so that after you said ٭suicide٭ I
hallucinated calling you, but with-
out the simple yes / no / please I
need to push through even more
inteNse knots,
I don’t
Another night, in palous September,
I had told you her name after she laughed
that moths can’t breathe inside air
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ (which shocked me because
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀the only moths I’ve ever liked
lived inside)
I grieved for both of us
After sEveral days of specIfic secrecy,
about hours before and after I
aagain was going to call you—
this time outsiDe of dreaming
the roboTic ways we would hug
A half day laTer you catch me
waking up. By chance, it’s the year
my immovable nightmares move,
but you’re saying
you cut yourself and ran away
My feelingS no longer relevant,
there’s felt pauses between
stares of saying nothing,
but you want to know anyway
Baby moths are testing
quick dances upon my face
Very suddenly I wanted to say
I love you
I don’t know youu and that may be
neither realistic, nor prudent(???)
But, June, I had already tried
٭here’s a suicide hotline٭
for my owN peace of mindd
and forgoing sleep to fever dRead
And I love you
wouldn’t mean anything
For some reason, I’m sure
from october 9, 2022
poem from the past a day #51
Baby moths... is a very very special poem for me. it represents how quickly my state of mind shifted from the midyear, only a couple poems before this. i'm experimenting with a sort of frayed, anxious writing voice which bled out from my personal diaries, and emotional text conversations.
the arrival of the central image of this poem, moths, comes from almost nowhere at all, but i connect with their fragility, their tenderness- my favorite insect, in fact. perhaps i'm just always thinking about moths a little bit, all the time.
i also remember feeling a distinct separation from the way i wrote poems before i wrote this poem and the way i wrote poems after. and i really liked that, because it made me feel *new* and *strange*.
also of note: the line "while I looped solens mekanik" refers to the song "Omdrejningsmusik solens mekanik" by Frisk Frugt which i really have listened to many times along with his other music.
Baby moths has a direct sequel, up next.