I want my leg to break.

It’s almost like a one night stand. No wait, a planned romance. Or recurring dreams of a planned romance. Except you’re reciting someone else’s words with all your heart to a tune of a million eyes. Yet you know the plot, you know how it will end. Sometimes, you can get away with anything. Everyone here has done this before. So I act before I even act, I move forward like I know exactly what I am doing, right into the light. It makes me want to curl up. But I shout. I shout every night. And I pray that when I’m done, they will clap.

You’re new here.

Yes sir, I am.

Took a good look around yet?

No sir, they haven’t allowed me to take a good look around.

And why haven’t —

They love me.

They do?

I believe that’s why I’m here.

Fair enough.

Besides… or…

Yes?

They love me. That’s what they said. But I haven’t been here long enough sir, long enough to dare raise the possibility that they love themselves more. And want me, to prove it. Does… does that make sense?

Well, I’m in no position to say.

Maybe they do though, that would explain why they haven’t allowed me to open my eyes. To really see where they’ve put me. Maybe they don’t care, or never thought about it to begin with.

I imagine you cry enough without having seen anything.

I believe one day, I’ll stop.

You will. We all did. You’ll see that crying changes nothing.

No. I’ll still be here anyway.

Why, you’re getting the hang of things already.

Today is not a day for exams or elevators. Today feels like a day for dresses. No matter how much of a boy I am, I would like to wear a good dress. Things don’t seem to hurt as much in a dress, not your ego, nor your beauty, your movements, or your words. It is not math. I do not have the figure. But maybe one day, I will, and maybe I will have the ego, and the beauty, the movement, and above all, the words.

I haven’t written poetry in what seems like ages. Not even in my paper journal. I’ve just been swimming in physics, organic chemistry, calculus, biometrics, swimming too deep to feel anything, let alone inspired.

He singles you out, and while he’s struggling to think of something to say, you fidget and carry on small conversations with anyone else in the room. This way, there’ll be more time for the two of you, and a chance for the director to notice any potential chemistry.

Besides, everyone else here scares you, and you think this serves you right for wanting to try out something new, where you aren’t the loudest voice in the room. Just a plain girl. You finish off yet another introduction, thinking that if this room had the last oxygen supply in the world, it would be finished in fifteen minutes without any amazing things said. Most of the oxygen might be used on sobbing alone, since it is a theatre crowd.

“Is this your first audition?”
He’s finally decided to say something.

“Yeah. You found the audition virgin.” Lame.

“I could tell… I go to auditions all the time and I’ve never seen you before.”

“Do you actually get any roles?”

“Sure.” He continues at length about his most recent character, inspiring you to kick yourself & check if your gaydar has malfunctioned. “But I’m so tired of playing gay men.”

“Oh. Because… you’re not?”

“No. They’re a hit with the crowd though aren’t they. Always gets their attention. But it would be nice to play alongside a girl for a change. But I know the director, he mentioned he’d put me into callbacks to test me out with other guys he has in mind. I guess he’s auditioning me for a gay couple.”

“He called me too. At the first audition he already told me he’s bent on making me play a lesbian.”

“How many couples are there supposed to be in this play anyway?”

“Quite a lot. But the rest are straight ones, I think.”

“Oh.”

You’re both on the table, and you dangle your legs to cut through the silence. He dangles his legs. He doesn’t need to look to know that you’re scoping the rest of the room as well.

“I wonder who I’ll get paired up with.”

“Me too.”

You both give up cutting through the silence. It’s comfortable. He closes his eyes, still hanging onto your last syllable. You don’t want to scope anyone else. You turn the spotlight off.

The director is in the next room.

It has glass walls, but he doesn’t notice the table at all.

for rocket

.

That man I saw at the bus stop doesn’t bother me anymore. I only saw him once and I never saw him again. I didn’t tell anyone about him, but I called my mother, because he scared me that much. We never talked, he didn’t even look my way for more than a few seconds. But he terrified me. Not in a horrorshow way, but more like something out of a Hollywood romantic drama.

In fact, I felt reduced to a prototype of a character surrounded in orchestral strings, in a movie that flunked at box office opening.

He was blushing, looking cute. Posture at the ready, he was dressed right for my character. I (characteristically) looked like a walking corpse with haggard updo, right after the menial errand the script demanded I do in order to bump into him like this, a man with a bag, coming and heading for nowhere. But he (characteristically) didn’t seem to care, also caught offguard. A small smile, a handful of frames per second, that perfect slow motion where the sun made him look like a hero. We’re moving in time with the script, but its unscripted, so I get scared.

His shy eyes met mine for a few seconds, then away, as if to say “Oh man, are we in this scene?” Then mine interrupted “No, I can’t be in this movie right now,” and I walked right off set, into my car and drove home. I’m glad I never saw him again, glad I never talked about it after that day.

But of course, as I drove away, I turned around one last time. He was hailing a cab.
He waved. I waved back.

We were always fine without each other.

He never speaks to me in English. But one night, when I was crying all night in his arms over another man, he added to our silence with this. “So you think you don’t deserve love. Maybe my type is those who don’t deserve love. Maybe that’s why you said yes to me. Because I still can’t believe you said yes to me.”

The silence after that only got better.

pot of gold, poisoned apple, beanstalk.
an unread message.

how this kiss
feels like the first.

the birth of a stickman.
how we begin.

the line of an axis, where you and I
intersect at the point of origin.

a candle in a cupcake.
a signature signal to leave some party

and discover the favourite number
of our clumsy limbs.

your island on my speed dial.
365, 24, 60,

the crocodile has time in its belly
but it’s aching to bite.

your name is ticking in my throat
to a phone call I wait for every night.

you find a costume
for your sticky
skin, for
the club and last light to travel in
your eyes, red like
lasers for the camera
love in those
explosions, of people
colour laughter hot white
flashes and rainbow lights, love in
tangles of sweat and hair
you’re laughing all over, sometimes
you forget to smile in a picture
you’re drunk on everything, or just not sober
maybe you don’t
remember how you get
home.
someone is next to you, sleep
twitching. and you wonder about
love like that in everyone, tired
but still dancing.

I don’t blame you. That girl was made for hope.

A cruel gift unleashed on the impatient. She turns her head to you with the velocity one only gets from being romanticized by a million fools a minute. She doesn’t run. No one can catch her. So you decide to try. You give her your number. Wish your phone lit up and sang as easily as a cigarette. But she won’t call. That girl is a catalyst. And you are the impatient. If you didn’t know how to wait, you will. If you didn’t know what it’s like to be tough, someone’s got to break you so you can try again, right?

Suit yourself. But don’t call me for help anymore. You think you have trouble waiting? People I fall in love with, they walk up to me. Start conversations. Call me every day, my phone lights up and sings. My heart lights up and sings. But I learned patience, because they are only looking for a shortcut to her. Her, her, and always her.