Somewhere, there is an ocean. Inside that ocean
is my father. Inside my father is another ocean.
And inside it, thousands of yellow butterflies waft,
dancing and swaying in new wind. All of them,
dead and alive like truths. There is no difference.
I have told the cat purring inside my head that
my brain ran out of cat food. Such disobedience,
these thoughts. These images
that are supposed to be mine, and yet my father
isn’t here to tell me to man up,
and talk to real people. My imaginary dad meant
men, who may have real cats. May be as real
as claw. As glint.
Youth is weird and doesn’t have the ocean,
nor butterflies. What youth has is a man who
turns yellow when I touch him, which makes him
outrageous, but oddly mine
and forever evidence. I met a girl at a party
who looked like a kiss and I pitied her. Some people
look like a blowjob and I pity them even more.
If I look closely, the truth is yellow and will
flutter towards the nearest open window overlooking
billboards and other liars. I try to follow it to know
the hardening theory in my body, saying,
you look like a kiss, too,
the kind people throw at birds.
And I am afraid of absence, and I am surrounded
by its lush perimeter. There is a lullaby that only appears
in yellow. I hum it in the dark of a stranger’s neck.
The morning is precise and full of fruit. There is no
ocean here. There has been no ocean for years. The cat
says she saw a yellow butterfly inside an apartment
I have loved so much I have forgotten it.
She says
she sees it everywhere: inside sleeves, inside palms
pretending to be something else, in the middle
of Sta. Mesa, where I met so many people and remembered
no one who wanted to forgive my hands. I love absence
not for what it is, but for what it used to be. How once
it whorled inside my lungs; an engine that thought
no matter what I was going to be loved.
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones