lust fragment 4

4.

I love this humid city thick

with ghosts. Last night Emily and I

.

walked the highway and I told her everything

I knew about the city and the way it feels.

.

She was staying in a resort the locals

mock as "Fake Hawaii" and I am docked

.

on a ship that doesn't fit with the direction

the island is trying to shift. She felt the eerie-

.

ness, too, and was writing a poem about water,

light and dark. Last year we were docked

.

here for three months and I walked this stretch

drunk at night along the bay, listening

.

to Lana del Rey and reading Arthur Rimbaud.

I tried writing this poem but hid it all

.

inside a dream, which is overplayed

as a device in poems but easier

.

than telling you the truth.

I was lonely. I am lonely. I have always been.

.

I've walked in the light and the dark and the water

and in the thick streets filled with humid ghosts.

.

I told Emily this city was powerful to me.

It's not as true as I wish it was.

.

I trudged past the Kaka'ako cemetery

and swore I saw tombstones of coral

.

but this year I discovered they're not there.

I was obsessed. I am obsessed. I have always been.

.

But it was never this city that held power,

and it was never you. It was all of these words.

This poem was included in my book "I want you to feel ugly, too," which can be read on issuu.