late luminescence

As I sit on this stump and read
from these pages of your cousin's pulped flesh,
I burst with the excitement of next year seeing you draped in color,

You. master of graceful loss.

You, vessels of wasted breaths,
remind me of aching regret
and how we live despite it all.

The adults wonder while I write,
"would you rather learn to love
from a tree, or a goldfish?",

and I ask the question all week long.

Perhaps too many people say tree,
not for what you are, but for what you give.

Is it love if it is also exploitation,
the story of the taker and the fool?

My father says a child's love can never rival
that of a mother's on days when she yells
and I slam my bedroom door shut.

He is probably right.

Some others choose you for your age,
and I wonder what my grandma would say
if I loved her for simply her wrinkled soft skin, sunspotted and all.

I know she would not say much.

But she might give me dog food for dinner, which would be a shame.
Or she might cry, which would be much, much worse.

And yet the irony is that you will likely die a premature death,
your promises to the coming years cut short by a swift axe to the side.

But perhaps the most ubiquitous answer is that they love you
for what you represent-- the Earth, the shady days, your poetry,
roots clinging to the Earth as your limbs that are constantly

There is something cathartic about talking into nothingness. Into something that always gives you an answer, unsatisfactory as it may be.

Don’t mind me too much--

I don’t know if I believe in angels anymore.

I poured Cupid into paper wings and when the origami butterfly didn’t fly, I gathered rainwater from my eyes and tucked heaven’s silence into my ribs. But ire metastasizes, and my blood now cries pearls for the fallen angel, risen cynic, an odd metalloid of child and higher being.

I metamorphose subconsciously, and the half of me that is my mother’s hair and cheekbones tuck away my soft parts in fear that I will metabolize them and self-destruct, utterly alone. She needn’t have worried. Fly away hairs are cherubs that hold their bowed promises to baby skin, powdered sugar that tastes like superfluous nothing.

So I will still have my brownie, if only in teenage defiance.

I imagine my ancestors’ blood trembling beneath my skin, graveyards roiling as they look down in disappointment clutching their paper money and incense tangerines. I run dizzy going outside myself while trying to be present, because I am afraid of only knowing life from afar. Of painting waltzes I will never dance, of becoming an eager sacrifice for people who don’t care to know my face. Reflect in my stream of consciousness, a ribboned mirror in which I split reality into ripples that will never lead to anything but dead flowers and a shriveled aisle of petals long gone.

There’s an old riddle with legs of 4 and 2 and 3, and though obsessions with “underground music” are futile, I excuse myself because some boxes aren’t worth losing myself in. It is all I can do to put warmth in their crinkled eyes, a small lift in the edges of their lips. Lies, lyres, lying still. I look over my shoulder and there is no one.

I used to want to write a memoir, because it would mean I had a life worth reading. Would a teenage girl look up to smile at a wall, eyes shining with lamplight, screaming in all the silent ways one does when they see themselves articulated perfectly in poetic prose? But now that I finally have stories to tell I gather them haphazardly to my chest, and feel a vague sense of loss as they silently waterfall from my overflowing arms to the abyss, making each leaflet more precious by the second. I will forget, and I do not know yet how to forget gracefully.

I tell myself I like the way my brain is, cluttered and disorganized, like my bedroom and my desk and my life. I am complacent in my sheets, but it is a rainy day and nonograms (which the Notes app apparently cannot fathom at this moment) make more sense than God.

People spend lifetimes folding experiences into paper, into abstract sculptures of origami and nonsense.

I don’t know if I believe in angels anymore. But when I become drunk on the night, hiding from starlight, I really wish I did.

Because I don’t know if I like being a skeptic anymore, either.



Posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/38857

Another old piece I wrote in January for the 30th episode (I believe?) of Line Break with Iris. I used three kernels of her ideas (and she used one of mine for a different poem) to make this. They were the first line (I don't know if I believe in angels anymore), the idea of ancestors disapproval, and something along the lines of "I wanted to write a memoir, but now that I can I don't wanna anymore". Still ridiculously proud of this, although honestly magic 2 am deserves the credit :)

I wish for apple skin sunsets for you,
and may the fairies bless you with blueberry stars,
a bruised hue of battered pride and midnight.

Lined with lace, the conjurings of our taste buds
and cool sink water on fingertips as I write.

I've never been good at stitching, but I take the tiny
hotel kits and sew red buttons onto my desk,
the two extras that came with the new coat Grandma
bought me last Chinese New Year's.

My hair is tangled into forget me knots.
Was I supposed to remember, or were they?
The flowers are just pretty now, if we both forgot anyway.

Ergo, we fancy ourselves philosophers as the bathtub drains
and consider how we know we're sentient, if knowing is enough.

I can feel the tears on my cheeks, see God
pinching a pipette to drop it hastily on my cheek
while my eyelashes flicked closed for a century, a second.

So don't laugh at the cows, they're the best of us –
sleeping, blinking beauties, by the rice paddies.

Milk and apple skin, strong bones and sewing pins
that prevent age from wrinkling at the corners,
from dragging its lips to the tired spots of our skin,
hiding berry breath in every soft fold.

Blueberry crepes, unpeeled apples, sink water droplets –
this is a mother's recipe for beauty,

and for breakfast.



posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/39825 & Daily Read

Hello! It's been 4 months since I last posted, but it's kind of refreshing to be back. I've been keeping up a resource site called Sprouting Ink of the late and haven't really devoted any time to Late Luminescence, unfortunately. I do, however, hope to make up for lost time! As opposed to posting every single thing I write though, I'll just be posting my favorites. I also have two pieces being prepped for publication, so I'll make posts for those whenever they are released. This place is pretty much deserted now, but it feels almost like starting from scratch. Clean, taintable. *sigh*

If someone is somehow reading this though, take care & stay safe! Have a great day :)

~Amaryllis

三生，三世，十里桃花

Her mouth is on my cheek
and I smile hello at her cherubic face, roaming eyes
completely unaware of what kisses mean

but she does it anyway,
maybe because it reduces me to a grinning fool.

He hugs my legs, and says “hi” without looking up,
A world of giants and toy trucks and eyes that light up
with childish glee and chocolate.

Perhaps I am not so old after all,
in my sweatshirt sixteen years.

Honesty, honestly, I marvel at how emotions
flicker on their faces without hesitation or second thought.

Goodbyes are more or less the same, but bittersweet;
I can’t tell if I feel older or younger, now.

An endless repeat-after-me of bye and I love you’s
Well trained to be cute and loving, I’ve always thought

But as her face lights up when we laugh, and he screams
I LOVE YOU’s by the door, into the chill night

It occurs to me that maybe their little hearts are simply open enough
to carry us all.

A collaboration with Yellow Sweater (Zinnia!) and my brother :)
~~~

“LET THEM EAT CAKE!”

curse the sweet toothed aristocrats
with the ebb and flow of revolutions,

butterflies on one final sugar high.

.

but surfers don’t watch waves, they breathe them.

I wonder if frequency is measured in Hertz because
of the gongs that are smashed when the
universe collapses to the decimal point

we connect the dots,
undulating by a trigonometric pendulum:
steel, and steam, and stars.

in a sterile classroom brimming with
corpses, kids who are dead before they’ve known
how to live.

we dance in painful convection currents--
Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven

oh Abel,
the blood of martyrs is sickly sweet.
like roses, and rosaries, and roadside memorials.

I wonder how the heat burns out,
thick breaths, empty lungs,
the terrible sadness of meaningless passion.

all our matches, snuffed out.

our windows closed,
suffocating in domesticated darkness.
slip on the wheel that just keeps running,
a careless genesis with each new pot.

our world is thrumming under the restless fingers of a hobbyist;
scraps of clay made into something ugly.

.

I would like to wash my veins with kryptonite,
a naked goddess
who desires nothing but freedom.

the ivy on her brow pulses with seablood
and the damsel in distress wrings her hair
till she is nothing but lustrous.

the rain falls into the river.

Sunday morning--
doilies line my mouth and I choke
on rose petals in my vodka.

I have evolved to grab handfuls
of breath mints, not to eat
but to relive that first gluttonous moment of glee

I keep my orange peels,
and my wrapping paper,
and my little moments that smell like soap.

in the shower,
I will sing drunken hymns to Macy's gift registers.
I will wed my own fancy, and there will be cake.

I think I forgot how to speak.

I owe a call to the best friend in my phone,
and an ode to the summer walked on a bone.

An "I'm sorry!" to that boy I somewhat liked,
And a 加油！to that brother who's completely wiped.

The page called my name yesterday,
or was it a week ago? I dunno, Someday.

Standing next to inspiration's dusty tomb
from across the neighborhood of my room

a right on Dirty Laundry and another
on the Unclosed Shutters

oh dear, I forgot how wonderful Window is!
My word, haven't looked through her in ages!

How many similes, metaphors, and lives now
do I owe to her honor, anyhow?

And Sweater, old friend!
Did I truly fling you to this bend?

Ah well, another poem for you
And you, and you, and why not you too?

Just round the bed,
words scrambling in my head

And by the time I cross the aisle,
a few steps, but feels like miles

To the page, I must apologize
for by now the blaring voices have simply

died.

Leatherback tales, spin me a turtle
of stars tattooed on skin
moon washing sand
and people
who live without breath
keep
the tiny grain, boundless pages
keep
curator, the leatherbacked

The last page, cloying sugar of

maple syrup and ripened persimmons,

singing arias through the air in my
dimly lit corner of the universe

feet on an unmade bed and a splayed smile
as the languid mezzo is drawn across bowed lips

Reflected, refracted
in prisms of darkened chromebook screens,
long forgotten

a meager desk lamp lights the rosin dust afire
on rich oak floorboards, grounded by the bass

Hours meandered through
marked only by the worried flick of pages
punctuating still air

pulse panging unintelligibly in
reverberating ribs, irony strung in fragility

haphazard notes adorn staves
of neat stoic ink

the rise and folly of lives,
a melody, a reminicing theme
crescendos to a perfect pitch
you didn't know you needed

an exhale,

a thud,

revealing the lazy scrawl of
lined notebook sheets underneath

Yet still,
listless fingertips sweep
rounds on the closed cover
tacit circles of applause,

spotlights shine through curtains of red limned eyes
sated, brimming with unconcealed contentment

making each and every minor chord worth
the final major

There's a cardboard cookie on the table
that tastes like Middle School
it is warm in my stomach as
cold crumbs line clammy calluses
But it still yields to my teeth as I bite
too much stale worries and never enough chocolate
It is the little photobook that is bitter
on my tongue, but tastes of decadent
strands of summer caught on ivy
webs, we call cafeteria tables
A past & a prophesy
of lost melodies folded in lonely books
for the next sixth grader
who sucked on apple lollipops of drama
mouth puckeringly addictive
and of boys that whispered carelessly in halls
for all to hear of the insurmountable feat of
tricking overpriced vending machines for bags of

air

because part of us knew High School, the Beyond
would be hard of oxygen
So, there's a cardboard cookie on the table
no longer mine to eat
warm, bright, overpriced
it tastes just like middle school.

"California is on fire."

We are moths aflame.

Gold coins spill from our tongues
soaking all the sunshine until skies are gray.

A politician's dead eyes watch
orange skies in San Francisco, unfeeling.

The fires stole the mountains, the smoke the horizon
but you, fish eyes, you stole the security of my home.

We are Esaus, who will go down as fools
for selling a birthright for diamonds and doubloons,

villains the moment we renounced nature
to become Midas instead.

My home is a prison that reeks of smoke,
the AC on while we freeze underwater.

How long will we wait, will you wait,
until the ash taints your golden tongue?

I beg you, I warn you
that California is just the tip of a matchstick.

Yes, suffering brings a nation together
but if you cared, don't let us die so ...

there are babies just being born ...
Who are you if you allow them to pay for our mistakes?

Icarus, how much ash will you let us inhale,
homes will you allow to be reduced to char?

How much closer will your wings bring us to the flame?

 

Wet sand cakes my legs, a briny armor
earned from drowning in a sea

hopeful gold rimmed violets destroyed, weeks of stifled blues
meaningless plans shredded, tearstained shards drift to my feet

chained to the sheets, the gasps as I wail
but COVID is deaf to effervescent pleas

sleeping away the sun, why live this nightmare
when I can be a bold pixels pulsing on a screen?

the days blur weeks blur days, time as I know it dies
broken hourglass, steals my breath numb while flesh bleeds

and it's bled and scabbed and scarred
now knocked down by the upstart of the feed

watercolor drama etched in notebooks are paper mache
a poor replacement for scorching cement drenched in iced tea

bitter isolation, a decadent chocolate gorged upon
a glass of blank hall lining faces, please, I'm on my knees

the littered books all read, a closed library locks glass doors,
won't let me beg the shelves for a fresh reprieve

game nights and laughter never last under this saran wrap fear,
haunted by reminders that this temporary between is on lease

a summer stolen, a summer changed
the girl who was to the writer who can be

after all, drowning changes a person
only fate has the keys to end this silent freeze

pants lipstick black
screaming sirens afire

No choice, no way
betrayed your conscience
one too many times
caught red handed,
but you open your fist
lined palms conceal the fact,
that guilt has long departed

they were filled with empty jewels
promises you failed to keep
refracting the guilt on fate,
you blame the stars
you love your son

so you stab the family photo
of strangers, fighting for
survival, just like you
drown my mother to keep
his alive

no? am i wrong to blame
you
instead of balls of fire
somewhere beyond the sky?

here you stand free,
in blue jeans burning
diamond daggers against my throat
clenched hands,
the one that pushed us to the edge

don't tell me why
don't lie

I know it was you.

imagine