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HANIF ABDURRAQIB

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הבל | hevel

This is how it goes: God whispers in Cain’s jealous ear, drawing his attention to the Sin crouched at his doorway. Sin has haunted eyes and a mouth that has been kissed. Let there be no doubt that Sin has been kissed, with a wet-red mouth that may taste of blood or pomegranate or the electric crackle of a stoplight. Cain looks at Sin. He runs his tongue over his teeth.

This is how it goes: Cain leaves the house at one am in bare feet and a hoodie, careful to avoid the last stair that creaks, and treks out into the Field. There are many fields in the world but there is only one Field. Cain feels the difference in the grass when he crosses the border from field to Field, the way the grey-green blades stand up at attention in his wake, the way the dirt turns ice-cold and furious beneath his heels. The earth is good with foreshadowing. The tree of Knowledge has deep roots.

This is how it goes: God says, I will take you or your brother.

God says, You get to choose.

And Cain says, “When you split me and my brother in the womb, you did not divide us evenly. He got kindness, and I got longing. He got complacence, and I got ambition. I want to kill him sometimes. I think sometimes he wants to die.”

I have never made brothers before, God explains. That is how I thought they were made. What more do you want?

“I want to steal some of his kindness,” Cain says, and shakes his pocket knife out of his sleeve.

Back at home, Abel sits up in his bed with a start, heart racing. That was close, he thinks, that was a damn close one, and does not know why.

In the Field, the ground warms as blood seeps into the dirt. 

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NOT ALL OF US GET TO BE GHOSTS

In December I watch movies about ghosts with a woman I call mama though she is not my mother, only a woman who is kind, this all I require. We take breaks to lean against each other on the porch, her sucking smoke from between her fingers, exhaling its skirling; each mouthful dissipating, becoming something like air. My breath’s a less impressive phantom, fleeting silver in the cold light. Standing there in our small shadows, we discuss the ways of the dead, their metaphysics, as if we were experts by osmosis, a certain knowledge absorbed. I say I think our ghosts become us, or at least reside in our dark like tenants we haven’t the heart to kick out. She says, though she hasn’t quite figured it out yet, there are rules: not all of us get to be ghosts.

LEILA CHATTI

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ONE LAST POEM FOR RICHARD

December 24th and we’re through again. This time for good I know because I didn’t throw you out — and anyway we waved. No shoes. No angry doors. We folded clothes and went our separate ways. You left behind that flannel shirt of yours I liked but remembered to take your toothbrush. Where are you tonight? Richard, it’s Christmas Eve again and old ghosts come back home. I’m sitting by the Christmas tree wondering where did we go wrong. Okay, we didn’t work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren’t good. But sometimes there were good times. Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid. There should be stars for great wars like ours. There ought to be awards and plenty of champagne for the survivors. After all the years of degradations, the several holidays of failure, there should be something to commemorate the pain. Someday we’ll forget that great Brazil disaster. Till then, Richard, I wish you well. I wish you love affairs and plenty of hot water, and women kinder than I treated you. I forget the reason, but I loved you once, remember? Maybe in this season, drunk and sentimental, I’m willing to admit a part of me, crazed and kamikaze, ripe for anarchy, loves still.

SANDRA CISNEROS

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HAND ON MY HEART. HAND ON MY STUPID HEART

ross gay / susan sontag / unknown / richard siken / warsan shire / lana del ray / tturing / hera lindsay bird / richard siken

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Of Power and Time, Mary Oliver— from Upstream

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when Naruto said where did i go wrong i lost a friend somewhere along the bitterness and i would have stayed up with you all night had i known how to save a life

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“Rinascimento” by Yoshitaka Amano, Vogue Italia January 2020. 

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In the Mood for Love 2000, dir. Wong Kar-wai

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what a queen

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road music, richard siken.

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― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

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this is a demo i made a couple days ago after talking with q all day about hyperpop and making a couple of joke songs

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Finally dropped my first mixtape, hopefully i’ll have more people to share it with someday

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This is a song I made with the intention of putting it on the mixtape but it didn't really make it on there because i couldn't wrap my head around it at the time.

It's in two parts because I wrote them at two separate times and felt like they both deserve their own space.

Anyway this is a small glimpse (kinda not really) to what the mixtape will be like!

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Barbara Kruger

the globe shrinks