z'Atelier

promised land,
promise me you’ll remain
full of the love i left you in
full of the tears left unshed

6. the broken grid of
your winding streets, the
outcroppings of old quarries
we miss in wintertime

14. in grey winter snow,
yellow brick calls me home

15. the first tendrils of
spring sneak through open
windows; frosty rainbows
decorate walls

29. the end of days:
porchlit sunsets paint the
sky millennial pink

30. we return to our rocky throne, 
the lightening-dead
tree our scepter

33. the shelter of your
alleys with soft lights
dripping from apartments above

36. window re-opened: squeak
of the T, beer-rackling rat
boiz the oh waits of trash girls

37. the din of weekend
nights safer than suburban
silence

44. u wear mcdonalds
wrappers + cigarette butts
like lipstick + mascara

47. porches swell under the
weight of boozy youth

56. the journey of mandarin,
with the slam of a door,

57. the rumbling majesty of
heavy arab tongues,

58. the brilliant cacophony
of english-mixed punjabi —

59. crashes of glass bottles
the mingling scents of wine + weed  —

60. reverse colonies: refuge
fear + glory struggling to
stay awake during the vigil
of the cosmic crawl

61. the clack of heels, the
last calls, the din + the
drunk exploding from slam-
opened doors

68. open window: dawntime
traffic like crashing waves +
i yearn for elsewheres

89. i feel a longing for a
home more ancient than u

90. allston moon, how many
high-heeled sorrows have
come to pass —

91. in these cigarette-
drownded streets, where rat
boiz are just boys + trash
gurlz merely girls

92. we arrived, youths
served on silver platters,
expecting freedom + majesty

141. in fabricated
once-upon-horse-trampled
deserts: the crunch of
gravel, the brush of a
flower, the history of time —

156. the unpassing of the
passing of time: the strut
of queens, the making of
kings, the unraveling of i

164. sense of
placelessness: every
highway in my world looks
the same + only the colors
change

176. the gentle slope of day
to night, the ever-after
soon approaching

182. pre-autumnal days on
porches we found glory in
sunsettings; the stern of
the ship was always pointing
north — jump into the
asphalt sea

183. cosmic voyage from
hedonist exclamations of
“it’s summer, it’s paris”
— indulge in wine + the
lust of cig clouds — to the
puritanical murmurings of
new england casting herself
in warm autumn chill

185. allston, never boston,
trash queen, fever dream
raised + cradled me

186. granted daze: unseen
green unheard love
unrequited glory days — no
rollover absent days

190. than ends themselves
hurt more the beginnings of
the ends