OVERTURE

Art from character brainstorm (Sep. 18 2024)

A drawing of my character, Santiago Navarro. He has shoulder-length dark hair and is resting his head on his hand, with his other hand holding a cigarette.

Here's some art of a guy I've named Santiago. He works at a thrift store. He has a toyhou.se here that I'll update soon with some writing on his character. It's harder for me to write men just because I don't care. #feminist. He works at a thrift store. My beautiful big brown-eyed bisexual boy. That's the main reason I created him sorry. I've been trying to brainstorm more stories but my mind is a big evil pit.

Untitled (Sep. 16 2024) The road is winding and it’s night forever. You’re behind the wheel and behind your eyes.
Hands at ten and two, your fingers still trembling, like you’re trying to hold onto her hand, or a hostage, ...
or someone biting and kicking at screaming at you to stop.
You roll the windows down and scream back,
but it’s useless. The air doesn’t care. The air moves on.
Now you’re speeding. Now the lights blur
and you can’t remember where you’re going. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Maybe you were never meant to get there. Maybe the crash is the point.
You were born in the rearview, something left behind,
Dark silhouettes of trees bare witness as the speedometer trembles and the road bends
like they’ve seen it all before -- the same tired disaster,
the same question no one ever asks,
You’ll die all the same.
They smell the alcohol on your breath as you step inside the house,
They see the blood on your knuckles as you walk out of the room.
You grip the wheel like it’s her wrist.
You pass a clearing and the sky opens up like a wound, or a mouth, with teeth, the moon a swollen tongue, as you look unblinking to the stars and pray they swallow you whole.
There’s no one to save you. Not even yourself. You passed that exit a long time ago.
The horizon isn’t coming any closer,
but you’re still chasing it, aren’t you?
Still burning through the dark like there’s a finish line,
Like if you run fast enough you can leave the world in the dust, begging you to come back.

to all the girls i loved but couldn't (Aug. 29 2024) You once asked me if I believed in forever,
and I answered, truthfully:
I believe we all want things we can’t have. ...
And I think it hurt your feelings.

I’m sorry. It was never about you.

So I left you and kept walking,
on streets where every road
has your name on the sign,
every little green-white square a reminder,
of what I ran from.

Turn right on Someone Who You Loved,
or could have, if I tried.

I’ve seen it in the way people touch,
the way they hold each other like they’re afraid of breaking.

I’ve heard it in the way they laugh,
like they’re sharing a secret they’ve known forever,

and I wonder if their hearts are different from mine,
if they feel the warmth of the sun
in the way I only see in photographs.

I have read poems, the ones where love is a fire, a blaze that consumes, a fever—
Are my hands too cold?
Too nervous, shaky, sweating.

I’m sorry, it’s my first time.

I’m sorry, I’m never doing this again.

There’s a map I’ve lost somewhere,
the one that says how to find the way to hold you in my arms without collapsing like a tower of dust,
how to kiss you without the taste of fear.

Keep your hands where I can see them.

I touch you like a question,
my fingertips skirting the edge
of things I’m not sure I know,
but I know I should by now.

I am trying to find the key
to a door I don’t remember closing,
to a feeling I can’t grasp.

Tell me, is it in the way
your voice cracks when you say my name?

I don’t know what I want
or why I keep leaving
when all I’m searching for
is a place to stay.

Overture!