by Arun Kapur
She, Starlight Spirit
There were fireworks over the field, mist-night,
I asked what’s it like to grow up.
Pause. Waiting for a smile, something —
you told me about polyphasic sleeping,
how the Ubermensch only takes naps,
how you’ve dreamt of moving to Windtown,
garage life, meet no one, exist in between.
You’d walk only night streets, blackened yet hallow,
moving through sleepers to tend to their dreams.
“It’s why no one’s happy, cuz nobody does it,
cuz if someone did they’d forget who they are.”
☆
Jay used to take me driving late at night —
forgotten roads, dark runways.
“Someday I’ll be among the stars.”
When he left town he told me he was
apprenticing under the first man on the moon.
In three months he returned,
tattered NASA cap crumpled on the floor.
I asked what was it like to be an astronaut.
IgaveuptoomuchmathI’mfineonEarth.
Now he sits in his basement breathing grass,
grieving Ziggy Stardust,
another stoned-dead simopath
waiting for the flies.
☾
We used to go down by the power plant and smoke.
You’d pass me the joint and say,
“I hope someday we’ll be here again.”
You always looked up at the moon.
One day I asked why — this town is a shithole —
“But I am the ocean and you are the waves.”
On Monday the eighth you didn’t say anything
and on Tuesday the ninth you drove your car
down the sand to the bottom of the sea.
I wish I had held your hand that day
when we sat by the broken converter
and stared at the frayed wire
crying electric-blue.
Meditation I
Cockpit lights flicked softly,
Forest glow upon your face.
You told me, “We are peaceful.”
I told you, “This is grace.”
The ceiling was on fire,
Dust choked the human race,
Yet still we kept on climbing,
Slipping up towards outer space.
arya burke is a trans poet & recovering addict in new york. their pronouns are your pronouns.
Arun Kapur is a mental health advocate that uses the medium of the arts to raise awareness of stigmas and well-being. Enigmatic. Charismatic. Passionate. Lover of life and all truth that binds us together. He believes that through art, life is created. Twitter: @arunkapur333