elektrikkslide

You leave Every time Cold wet tiles on the bathroom floor Laughing hands Turn the knob Altered reflections in the golden globe I stare up at you When you leave The wind outside picks up and carries my senses Out the window Through the muddy creek currents Back through your nostrils Musk of dawn musk of sadness Always leaving Doesn’t it hurt The pain of the lock switching Close the door When you leave

My classmates still regarded me as ‘the American’. I was an impermanent intrusion upon their grade; and at that, I wasn’t even fluent in their language. It wasn’t until a day in April, two months before I left Prague, that I realized that the cultural barrier that had kept me from being truly acclimated had faded away. The entire K-12 at my school in Prague was going on a trip in the Czech mountains, in a region known as Krkonose. The expedition was to last a week, I was told, and we were going to be hiking every day. To me, hiking meant a one to two-hour excursion. To the Czechs, it was a treacherous 20-mile trek over n

 My brother was always very no-nonsense. His usual stance was a smirk or an airy, distant and faraway gaze. Chao-Peng, his friends called him. I, Peng or Pen-Gu.  He was only one year my senior but was constantly speaking with more authority than Papa or Mama thought appropriate for a boy of fourteen. Pen-Gu smaller was taller and stronger than I was, and his uneven, squeaky voice had been changing to a deep bass more and more often. I was still trying to figure out what it was to be growing up. I had hardly any shape yet, though some girls in my class already had monthly visits. Teri Samson in my class even had an American boyfriend named

she is slipping through her proclaimed shrine sliding down the darkened slide heartbeats push the hands of time the light at the end of the tunnel near her eyes closed tight, fist to her ear a wing a whisper, six white doves a smile, the sorrow, for those she loves its hard to keep up fast green swingsets and beer in a cup so fast so fast the light is changing no time no time the end of the slide the heavy dirt she sat at the base and cried

the green plastic tent huddled over our sleeping bodies and i so unaware naiive let the moment pass because i was afraid because i thought that if you liked me there must be something wrong with you so i quietly moved my pillow and curled up in the corner and slept soundly while opportunities floated by and then later when it could have happened i knew that it was my fault and i pulled out the tent stakes and walked down the hill away from you