This is where I try to remember.\u00a0 This is where I try to remember what has happened before this, any of this:\u00a0 where you were, where this all started.\u00a0 It started at the bottom with water everywhere.\u00a0 I know the weather everywhere.\u00a0 I turned off the lights.\u00a0 I turned off the lights because we are too far from the sun and there was something else.\u00a0 There was.\u00a0 This is what has happened.\u00a0 Forget that.\u00a0 This is what will happen.\u00a0 There will be wings that don\u2019t work:\u00a0 they will pierce through my skin and hang down from my shoulders like a dead plant.\u00a0 I do not believe that they are made of wax\u2014I do not believe that they will melt.\u00a0 At the top there is a prison, you say, and I agree:\u00a0 you are the holder of light, you have tended to the garden.\u00a0 You think I am an angel.\u00a0 You think I am not a man:\u00a0 that I can move amongst the waves and not lose anything.\u00a0 You think that I can fly.\u00a0 Tell me the story again.\u00a0 Tell me the story of where you met me and how you knew how I slept like a child with my knees pulled up to my chest.\u00a0 Tell me the story of how you knew I stuck an arrow in my mouth and swallowed:\u00a0 the wood piercing the back of my throat and how I kept the water running to cover up the sound of my coughing.\u00a0 Tell me what I told you it tasted like.\u00a0 Tell me about the dead trees whose branches look like west moving smoke.\u00a0 Tell me that you\u2019re glad I came\u2014to save you from rotting columns and wax candles.\u00a0 I am named after a void:\u00a0 a gap in the floor that I create as I move closer to where you are.\u00a0 I hear that you are having a baby.\u00a0 I hear that the lines in your face make you look older:\u00a0 a few coats of silver where black should be.\u00a0 Remember how I jump.\u00a0 Remember how I can make myself better\u2014the arrows shoot further than before\u2014they linger in the air for a second before disappearing into the dark, the sharp head dulling to nothing as it vanishes before it strikes your eye.\u00a0 You think you are rescuing me from all of this:\u00a0 you have given me a bow to escape here, to pretend that the heat and the sticking of skin to sheets is something that can be plucked out like the strings on a harp or a snake out of the riverbed.\u00a0 I will believe that I can be saved:\u00a0 that the rings around my wrist can rotate around me like I am a god and you are a goddess\u2014that there is light here, that there is water to drink that does not come from the river\u2014we will not feel the grit of silt on our teeth.\u00a0 These wings will not work.\u00a0 They are not like the limbs of birds.\u00a0 I will not lift.\u00a0 I will not drag.\u00a0 I will not glide the way that you want me to glide:\u00a0 like a mute swan, like I am ruby-throated.\u00a0 I can adapt, you say.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with angels and everything to do with angles:\u00a0 here are the numbers, here is how you ascend.\u00a0 Think of silk.\u00a0 My bones are made of palms:\u00a0 bend them into a cross.\u00a0 Comment on my shape\u2014a diamond, a triangle, the top of the umbrella you left in my closet.\u00a0 Tie a knot around my stomach.\u00a0 You believe that I am the lightest.\u00a0 You believe that I am made of silk:\u00a0 that whatever weight is left is less than the air, that at the end of all of this I can be something more than what I am\u2014I can double in size like you wished it to happen, that nothing needs to be said:\u00a0 you, standing in front of me after I killed the girl inside the eye.\u00a0 You behind the eye.\u00a0 You in front of a mirror, waving, you standing there all of this time as if you were a statue, a marble pillar, as if you knew that we were starting in the middle, as if I was not the last hope but just a hope\u2014an attempt, a try.\u00a0 You running, trying to catch the wind.\u00a0 Move with me and I will move\u2014I will move like there is nothing left.\u00a0 I will move like a myth on the air, like rocks falling from the sky.\u00a0 I will move like there is nothing worth remembering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“This is where I try to remember.\u00a0 This is where I try to remember what has happened before this, any of this:\u00a0 where you were, where this all started<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-brian-oliu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17635,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions\/17635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}