i think everything will be okay if i can watch this film till the end. i’ll sit wide-eyed in my favourite chair & curl my nails into my palms until / this absence stops yearning. every tuesday, svasti & i will quote žižek & butler in our google classroom posts & laugh about how terrible everything is. how wonderful. to watch a film! to see our friends! in our zoom calls, horror will taste something bitter & achingly sweet because everything terrible / is followed by something beautiful. my favourite character dies quoting french & isn’t it a pity my lover will never strangle me to death? what other death exists? i sip my iced-tea & pretend like i know what i mean. Here’s a secret: every monday i quote professor on my twtr. Here’s another: i know exactly what i mean. only / i’ve never seen it. every wednesday, someone bleeds. It’s not you. we crack open our ribs & look! it’s a party / Intimacy & Desire & Porn & Jouissance stick like confetti to the back of my knees & i’m home! in the middle of a pandemic & what will my mum say when she sees the violet stains on the back of my skirt. i believe i can Theorise my way into my friends’ arms & my silly little sunsets. if only, nothing / everything was Real. every sky would be pink & every sky would be a poem & every sky would be in my mouth ¹ & what is a poem / if not my lover’s neck?

¹ “A poem, Arthur, is when you are in love and have the sky in your mouth.” — Jean-Pierre Simeón, This Is a Poem That Heals Fish