#napowrimo

This house we built, yes.
It has ramshackle walls, yet
it is legacy.

This house alone sits.
All that is left from summer,
all that there never was.

This house, built solid
from two fluid bodies, rests,
waiting to be claimed.

Its new lover calls.
A high fast whistle gale storm,
a slow steady rush.

It begs for solace.
No corner left standing tall,
no impasse to learn.

This is not how I should feel.

If nothing else,

nights like these serve as a reminder that alone is the only way to stay unscathed.

Those who sing and laugh beside you soon choose another,

leave with no regard.

Sweet nothings you know none of,

whispered in ways foreign to your trust.

Then is when I wait for the resolve,

the moment when I click back into not caring for those who knew nothing of me before sunrise,

cared nothing for me come sunset.

Ah, but the waiting,

that’s when I realize,

more than ever,

how much I want to be done;

caring more for this bed

than the company of any man.

You are a pyre I do not wish to visit.

This metal in me does not want to be refashioned.

I, unlike others, do not dream of days spent in your hands.

This is not a metaphor.

There is an unspoken name for this disdain,

the idea of being held, thrust into flame,

intentions placed in betterment.

“Do you not seek refinement?

To be lean, smoothed?

A sense of purpose can make any stronger, valued.”

What if I want my own weight?

What if this strength,

raw, gnarled,

is praise?

There is something to be said for our ignorance on steel’s raw form.

That we often think of it only in the means man has manufactured, deemed useful, appealing.

That it is not even named steel.

It’s resolve, ironically, foreign to our tongues.

I often find myself in the midst of this nameless,

noting its absence in your thoughts,

biding time before capture.

I let you leave,

called it strength

called it two tin cans with no string,

just air,

the low steady whistle of wind,

no words,

no hands cupped to mouth

palms pressed to chin.

Just this back and its worn lines,

etched legacy of women standing alone,

enduring.

I let you leave,

because it is what I know,

how I’ve inherited these arms,

hands,

palms.

We don’t wave,

just watch.

This is my knee.
It doesn’t claim to be extraordinary on its own,
yet when felt in the context of my whole, it is the roughest and most vital lover.
It bends for you,
whenever you ask,
always.
Unafraid to be scraped,
dashed upon hollowed ground,
left numb from the pressure of my love for you.
I have love for you
And this, lover, is the only way my parts know you whole,
when bent,
scrapped, darkened.
I will love you into the dark, it says.
Until even I forget to acknowledge myself,
and simply live for reverence.

We keep at it,

unsaid somethings moving in our mouths, forcing smiles.

I use to be good at this,

pushing forward without regard for tomorrow,

never thinking of years, just now.

It takes 21 days to make a habit,

but only minutes before a body breaks it.

Enough forethought and you can talk yourself out of anything.

I’ve grown good at this.

It’s not caution,

just your chest feels like constant,

and mine unlearned that weight long ago.

the mirror used to call me a name-thief, so i 
like to think death accuses you of stealing time.
it’s only fair. there was a picture-perfect ending
someone wanted for you, something satisfying, 
the grand finale to a performance of a lifetime 
long gone past its lease—but it won’t be yours.
i’ve got the stickiest fingers in this lightless city 
and this story-end is going to be mine, whether
that’s luck or its dark-shaded reflection. and 
you’ll have your turn, soon enough, fate’s dice 
singing over the roar of flame. maybe someone
is telling this story. maybe someone’s making it
mean something. i don’t think you’ll apologize 
if you have the chance. i don’t know if i’d forgive 
you, even now. i only know i was never good 
at picking out constellations, but when i drew 
stars into jagged lines of lightning, hands cold 
on rooftop tile, i always thought of you. 

— 04.23.20 | q.l.

there are two ways to tell this story:

perhaps her grief is echoed by your anger 
or her anger now haunts your grief. either way
they come from worlds never made, the ones 
that extinguished under their own weight 
before ever understanding light. pin every loss

like a white flag around your still-breathing body
as if this will keep old language from spilling out, 
as if this will keep your voice from turning to
a resonance as blurred as your face in the mirror
these days. if recognition comes from creation 

you’ll always be a minute or a generation behind 
and it won’t make a difference. slip sideways into 
another body in the crowd, another ghost to wear 
like a memory that never happened and never will. 
if you call this mourning, it’s a kind that comes 

six feet to the left instead of underground. still 
found wanting against the weight of all that came
before, but now you can lie your way out of here,
truth turned frail as spidersilk in your throat. 
this light illuminates all the stories she told, 

forever looking on in silence.

—q.l. | for day #17 of @avolitorial’snapowrimo prompts

they’ll call you the wrong kind of romantic, 
the wrong shade of red printed on sale-flyers, 
mouth coming away darkened by cheap ink. 
some contracts taste better at the swallowing 
than the signing, your jaw snake-soft around

the paper cuts. if anyone asks, the price of life
is pocket change; you’ve traded souls for those
who only wanted something sweet, glutted 
by goldflow, mired in sunlight-syrup. fold paper 
dolls out of dollar bills and old checkbooks, 

their skirts painted null and void-black with 
clearance nail polish. go on and call it a waste 
but the sky still won’t change from that plastic
white. the convenience store down the street
carries both candy hearts and heartstoppers;

be careful not to mix them up.

—q.l. | for day #14 of @ragewrites’ napowrimo prompts

your hair is riverstone-smooth in my hands, 
every braid i put in slipping out as easy 
as my secrets do around you. do you remember 

telling me you wanted to hinge your ribcage 
open, just to check if the bones are hollow? wait 
another season, at least. i filled them with seeds
that’ll only grow when no one’s looking. i know 

patience won’t save us, but we were always good 
at being quiet, and that’s almost the same, 

our silence bright as the sun slipping underwater,
soft as the touch of moonlight on concrete,
promise-heavy as the storm-clouds gathering 
overhead. so it goes. so you keep tending 

the pearl-pale fire of the smile floating faceless 
in the night-forest dark over your left shoulder. 
there’s some strange desolation in knowing 

our child-selves won’t recognize us when we 
meet them again. but if you turn into flood 

i’ll be the moon and say i led you there, say  
i played puppetmaster with all your sightless 
tides, so you can blame me if that’ll leave you 
untouched by the weight of this world’s ending

and i’ll seal the sky closed with the last of the light.

—q.l. | for day #12 of @avolitorial’s napowrimo prompts 

all of winter’s children learned early on
to feel fondest of the icefields that raised them
when they’re halfway through the thaw,

slick surfaces already broken but still holding 
their shifting weight aloft, the capillary action 
of cold circling up soft limbs like icicles 

slackened into vines. this is to say: affection 
as water halfway turned to mist, never quite
sustainable, never without the glass-glaze 

of possession. the clouds are still frost-webbed 
with the breath-sharp scent of the season,
still uncertain whether it’s allowed to end,

but all the air trapped underneath the ice 
knows it was promised freedom long ago. 
it just never asked if that meant disappearing.

—q.l. | for day #11 of @avolitorial’snapowrimo prompts

in a city named after obedience, peace is growing 
at ground level. history pulls a white-petaled bloom
from the tired dirt, blows it clean and offers it to you
in wordless ritual. take it with both hands. ghosts 
will spill out like pale coins, faces worn featureless 
in the red light of sunrise. green loops of yarn 
twist into hairpin flowers without your touch, soft 
premonitions of burial. how many generations back 
can you spin this story before you run out of names 
to call? say it’s ancestral, and everyone will think
they understand, that all the tales have been shared,
that all the dead must be sleeping soundly. by late
evening, if your pulse stops threatening to outgrow 
this body, press it into the hollow wrist of one of 
the phantoms that haunt the top of the staircase
and you’ll turn their blood a little warmer, their voice 
a little louder, hone the sharp-boned restlessness 
they house: the same one sitting behind the mirror, 
the same one smiling with your mouth.

—q.l. | for day #3 of @avolitorial’snapowrimo prompts

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF LOVE

twelve alarms set in five-minute intervals
because you might not have an early start
next morning, but you know i do. i keep a list
of all your favourite things, reread it until
i almost trust memorization again. sometimes
i stay up all night watching candles burn down
in case of something i don’t know how to name
without making it dissipate at the sound, but
all the pictures hung on the walls are crooked,
because it mattered more to measure the time
we were spending. listen, when i call winter
the warmest season, i mean i still remember
how many times we brushed the settled snow
from each other’s shoulders, even knowing
they’d be coated again in a matter of moments.
everything and anything to bring a bit more
comfort to this corner of the world, meaning
every extra cushion, every blanket pulled
straight from the dryer. every time you shift
to make more space without waiting for me
to ask for it. if happiness is a heart kept open,
i know this door is always unlocked. the green
onions perched along the kitchen windowsill
are growing a little taller every day. i want
to share them with you.

—q.l. | for day #1 of thesetwo prompt lists