earlgaylatte

[earlgaylatte]

Burnt Popcorn

I never misgender myself, Unless I’m standing in the kitchen with my mom,  Cooking popcorn a bit too long So it sits on my tongue with that bitter-salt-char Only the two of us can stand. 

When I was growing up,  The kitchen was small enough to call it A confessional booth, small enough,  To keep fathers and devils out of it,  Small enough, That male intrusion felt like sacrilege. 

One of these afternoons, I just know- I’ll come home to it expanded,  Rugs pushing neatly into the living room, Cupboards organized by ingredients  Instead of color. 

I’m not a woman, but part of me Will always be a little girl twisted  Up on the floor of the kitchen chewing Mango pits and getting caught underfoot.

Sometimes I see her in the reflection of clean pots and pans,  When I’m seasoning cast iron. I make tea and the loose lemongrass in Mom’s cup Forms her daughter’s face.

Did you have prophecies too, Mama? Or  Is that something you shed like a Second skin when you started going to that Fundie church for a boy with blue-grey eyes and A haunting grin? I want to know

If the ashes from his cigarette falling Onto your pregnant belly revealed the Spiteful bitch I’d become.

I used to identify as a girl, now,  I  identify as a witch and a bastard. I call myself things You’re too disgusted to utter out loud. 

But sometimes, I miss using your wooden spoons to burn popcorn The way we both like. I’d let you kick me off your counters  A thousand times if you’d just call me your son.

Dear Midwestern Daughter, Dear Midwestern Ghost.  One of these days I’ll hand you the dread I shouldered like Judas and teach You just how I earned this name.

[earlgaylatte]

Witches in Love

fall) bristles caressing the cuffed sleeves

of that beaten corduroy jacket, clinging

close enough that I grow jealous. the fall of a changing

village, streets bright with pops of orange. may these

changing leaves change me, into

a beast less hungry. I've heard whispers of phantoms, 

Or the things townsfolk call phantoms:

(Your laugh loud and echoing, enough that

stray cats come to investigate. 

Your sweet face scrunched in the autumn sun.)

winter) the slowness of love like a tear falling

down your cheek, kissing your jaw

with its warmth in the sharp snowy air.

-I'd take your warmth in my mouth if you

catch my drift- so long as you keep

those pretty lips praying. mom once said

if I am down on all fours

it better be for religion. the floor

creeks under the weight

of me shifting from knees to

palms; your hands ghost

over my hair like an Ouija board.

spring) it reminds me of spirits, which is to say, 

it reminds me of lying chest to chest in the shrubs, 

hearts beating like a beckoning call

for wraiths to rest in our skin. you

were focused on apparitions.

I was trying to make a worship of counting

each crease by your eyes when you smile,

each time your breath ghosted my ears.

everything ended in fours, so I

had to kiss you; four breaths in

like the hands on the dial, like the

number of books thrown off my shelf

by some energy stirring, wild and restless.

summer) the thing about the occult is once

you invite it in, it'll 

linger at every doorstep you know.

oh, soul of my damn spell work, tender as ever. 

oh, strawberry-kissed mouth.

oh, blooming summer flowers, spewing pollen over everything,

even our thighs where they meet. My

heart beat is so loud that it

could set a rhythm for us to turn

this flower field into a bedroom. 

[earlgaylatte]

Female President-

The day before this election passes like a bad dream, we’ll wake up with our limbs tangled around each other like we grew up a house apart. Feel this, my heart racing first thing in the morning. Taste this, coffee and ashes from the stove mixed into some strange elixir. Depsite the dread, the sun still rises like the price of oranges this November day. Beside me, you’re still asleep. You wrap your arms around my wrist like a ghost of the childhood friends who will vote against me this Tuesday. Like back when it was summer and we would lie in the grass, heads on each other’s stomachs. I told those kids secrets like it was pillow talk, but now only the dragonflies remember them. When I was six, I wanted to be the first Female President of the United States. Now I wear my student debt and American sorrow like a purple heart. Now I’m scared I’d become like every other white male politician promising things he’ll never keep. Feel my heart again, it’s beating faster. I thank god you’re not a boy so I can still say the only boy I’ve ever fallen in love with is myself. Stay curled up on the mattress like a portrait so that if I check the news and we’ve lost it all, this is how I’ll remember you. And when you wake up, wrap your arms around me from behind while I make breakfast. Pretend you don’t feel the way my shoulders shake. I’ll put Bailey’s in our lattes this morning if you promise not to drive. And if you show up at our doorstep five minutes after class should have started, you better not have a Bible or a bottle in your hands. I always fall in love with people who trace the freckles on my forearms and smell like wood and whiskey. Swear you won’t judge me if you catch me praying (begging) to every God I know the name of. If I am going to have my life cut short by American politics, I’ve decided that it has to be meaningful from now on. 

[earlgaylatte]

Hello 👋, I hope you're doing well..

My name is Mahmoud, and I'm a 17-year-old from Gaza. The ongoing war has devastated my city, destroyed my school, and made daily life incredibly challenging.

Despite these hardships, I'm determined to continue my education and build a better future. I've been given a chance to study abroad, but I need help to cover the costs of leaving Gaza, as well as living expenses and other essentials abroad once the crossing opens..

If you can, please consider donating or sharing, your kindness can truly make a difference, and thanks for your time. 🙏❤

gofund.me/bd3ccf0b

if anyone has any space in their budget to donate for Palestine, please please please help Mahmoud escape the genocide in Gaza and fund his education abroad.

[earlgaylatte]

Real Estate-

i'm looking for a house. low crime area,

affordable rent, no

lingering smell of weed or suicide.

two bedrooms.

attached to a bus line, prefferably-

i'm trying to find an answer to the lingering

dread in every 'for sale' sign littering

front lawns like garden gnomes.

i spend all my free time drifting from street

to street like a ghost, like

this isn't a pipe dream, and finally i can

settle down long enough for the

trembling in my shoulders to stop.

hope sparks up from unread emails but it

won't last-

any longer than a game of hopstoch

in the neighbourhood named solitude

i built up in my mind.

there's a road from your heart to mine, the

highway i built in our chests. let's go for

a midnight drive. this time

i won't spend the entire car ride weeping

over every crushed dog on the sidewalk,

collars bearing names like

"home ownership" or "marriage."

i'm trying to build an idylic house for us, i'm

trying,

but damn these roadblocks and potholes.

home insurrance won't kick in for another

three months. brick and mortar wraps

around us like a wet blanket. i'm looking for

a house with rooms close enough that i can

feel your sobs like

breath on my neck

through the echoing walls.

and if i find us a home, don't love it or

it won't last.

i know this because my stepdad never says

"i love you,"

but he does say

"if i didn't push you this hard,

you'd be stuck here until you died."

[earlgaylatte]

origami dragonfly

the ghosts are singing to me as

i unwrap them from

their paper casings in

a pit stop house

as i listen to songs that

claw at me like the beasts i

heard about in bedtime stories

these ghosts will become their

own bedtime stories someday

this room feels like a

room in my grandparent’s house that

i know is mine in the

moment but feels impermanent

a waiting room a pit

stop a cave on

a rainy night to take

shelter and then move

on

these ghosts look different under

these lights they seem

far away and

faded and yet i still

hear the voices of their

former selves every time i

glance

at the shelf the dresser the

desk that will be mine for all

of one week

(five days and eight

hours to be

precise and then i

will be gonegonegone

again and again how

many times will i leave

the places that cradled me in

cupped palms how

often will i leave the cave and step

into the howling winds and

chattering rain and wander

lost in the thrumming darkness)

i wish i could swear elegantly

and with poise in these tormented

things some people call

poems but the ghosts don’t

deserve fuck and shit and

damn and all the other

things that express anger because

i’m not angry with them or

even myself really it’s all just

spewed all over the floor like

packing paper and i

step and it crunches mother

says be careful dad is

sleeping and i say of

course as i trip over fucks and

shits and damns and all the things i

keep locked up inside but

the ghosts know and they

hold these secrets for me in

exchange for watching while i

cry to songs about hating your home and

wishing that i didn’t

understand what she meant when

she says we’ve been cursed

since the start Jesus didn’t

want us

the ghosts smile pityingly at

me from their shelves

and suddenly i do have fucks and

shits and damns to say to them because

how could you

leave me how

could you love me so

fucking conditionally how could

you give me feelings for

which i have no name

how could you fucking

change me and then leave

me to rot

and then the packing paper is

gone and the ghosts have

retreated and there are

only dim lights and

the hum of the overworked

ac to keep me company

and the wait continues

original work, 2024

[earlgaylatte]

How to Empathize with the Sad Tboy who Lives in the Dorm Across From Yours-

1) Shed everything, from the seatbelt wrapped around your core to the sheets on your childhood bed. When the sun rises in the morning and peppers your face with kisses, draw the curtains and block him out. Believe what the media says about transness, that it is a life of absence.

2) Start practicing constant fear. Wake up with shaking hands and looming dread laying over you like a blanket. Check the news. Don't check the news. Prepare to carry the burden of every sixteen year old killed in the nearest big city, even when the police say it was a suicide. Check the news. Watch the murders slowly get closer to your home.

3) Put wrapping paper up over your mirrors because you can no longer bear the sight of yourself. If anyone asks why you aren't eating or showering, make something up. Fill your stomach on the feeling of shame.

4) Daydream that you were born a boy. Replace all your childhood memories with this version of you. Your father is still around, and he's carrying the precious little boy he's raising up to bed. His feet are nimbly dodging toy trucks and legos, and in the morning, he'll wake you up to scrambled eggs and little sips of his coffee. When he talks about you with his new family, he'll say, "That's my son," instead of "Pass me the bottle."

5) When your mom starts catching on, try to ignore the sobbing you hear from her bedroom, her shaking voice begging the pastor of your church to make sense of it. Don't knock and try to comfort her. Don't acknowledge how icy your stepfather has become, how often he seems to be accessing your masculinity and finding you lacking. And whatever you do, don't start trying to track down your father, who must've seen some ghost of it on you when he left.

6) When the church gathers around you in a circle, rebuking the boyhood they call demons, don't flinch. Don't cry either. Just clutch the baggy flannel you're wearing around you tighter, like a fabric hug could heal the fractures of your soul.

7) Don't call that church a cult, even if it was. Don't go back to it, either.

8) When you get older, stand in the bathroom with scissors, hair dye, and a promise. Slowly shape yourself into something you can recognize, soft waves of hair falling into the sink. When you see yourself again, it will be a disaster. But it will feel like being whole.

9) When your mom says that the HRT will kill you, when your stepdad says that the HRT will kill your mom, don't let it under your skin like the other cruelties. Don't trade a full life for conditional familiarity, some semblance of holiness, and no sense of self.

10) Instead, tell them that you want to live long enough to tell your story. Tell them if you die, it will be in a blaze of glory: god's gift of creation is told in the generational echoes of people like us.

[earlgaylatte]

There's Nothing to do In Duluth Minnesota-

"hey i want you to know i'm okay before you check the news but there was a drive by shooting across from my house and i'm being questioned and i'm freaking out my cousin was killed i didn't know him but i'm okay and the dogs are okay."

some day, people will stop looking at the

picturesque lake and will witness this city,

some day, the tourists will stop flocking to

the rocks and other attractions

like confused seagulls,

the bridge will split in half, and the boats

will capsize and the reporters and tabloids

will claim it's mutiny or

divine intervention.

one of these days the bus drivers will go on

strike and never come back,

pushed over the edge by some drunk

college kid on their bus,

spewing nazi propaganda to anyone who

will listen,

and when he gets off the bus and follows

me from the gas station to my school,

well,

one of these days

the police will intervene.

one day the murmurs about what happens

down in the west side will quiet

and everyone will stop looking at canal park

as some sort of beacon.

they'll stop gentrifying this city and when i

come back

i'll be able to recognize it.

but there's nothing to do in Duluth,

Minnesota,

except let your bones sink deep into the

pond out back or wish for the snow to start

mid July.

this is the city where Minnesotans come to

retire,

which is to say where they come to die.

one of these days i will sink my teeth into

the seedy underbelly of this town

and expose the rotten roots to everyone.

i will look the police in the eyes when they

ticket the third teacher this week,

and they'll come to their senses and find all

the native girls disappearing overnight and

stop wasting their time on parking meters

or harassing addicts, and the mayor will give

more than sidewalk chalk

to the homeless.

some day, i will settle into an idyllic life in a house with a garden and an extra room for my friends and a loving spouse and a cat. i will have time to bake bread on the weekends, i'll make perfume out of fresh mint and rosemary. i won't fear bears outside my window or pimps hovering outside my school and when one finally snaps i won't die a storm of regret and half hearted friendships haunting this damn town as another ghost shaped girl.

one of these days,

i'll shed the film that city left on me and i

will never ever go back to it again.

there's nothing to do in Duluth, Minnesota.

hey, are you fucking listening to me?

i said there's nothing to do in Duluth

Minnesota.

[earlgaylatte]

JESUS CHRIST /pos

In the event that the HRT stops my heart (a poem)

I'm laying on my bed in the dark and I can't breathe. I'm gasping for air, but every time my lungs expand, I feel them hit the bottom of my chest cavity. Like a wall. I am terrified, because what if this isn't a panic attack? What if these are legitimate signs of heart failure, what if my body gives out-and the doctors stop the injections? What if, two weeks on testosterone replacement therapy, I die? Before my voice drops, before my hair falls out-my heart stops beating? My mom would blame the HRT, my killer. But I wouldn't. It's not that I'd die free of regret. On the contrary, I would die full of rage. I have wanted to die for years but I have held out hope. Now, this tiny, delicate instrument is the only that stands between me, and oblivion. We leave for the ER at 11 am. It's late July. To the west, a pale blue halo of light hangs over the pines. The humidity is cloistering, my mom rolls the windows up. I know what she's thinking. I have work at 9 and we're going to the ER and nothing is wrong with me. Or, everything is wrong with me, and she was justified in her assertion that this was the biggest mistake of my life. One bottle of hormones to clot my veins, to stop my heart. She's watching me, and I am laying in a hospital bed, and the fluorescents are blinding. I feel like an outer-space alien, fallen to earth, strapped to a government lab table. The doctors take my shirt off, they hook wires to my chest and ask me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. Two-three, maybe four? I don't know what my heart's supposed to feel like. That makes them laugh. What should I say? Tantalus finally caught the skin of a grape between his teeth and the fruit was rotten. They tell me that what I'm doing isn't natural. So of course, I'm going to have unnatural reactions. But I don't think it's unnatural, I don't feel unnatural. My mom imagines a time bomb, planted in the folds of my brain, and she's waiting for the detonation. But what am I supposed to tell her? The Athenians stripped the rotting wood from Theseus's ship. How many chemicals can I pump into my body before I'm not me anymore? But I know, it's the same boat, and I am not a crime of nature. In the event that the HRT stops my heart, keep my death out of the mouths of politicians. Keep my life like a secret, keep my corpse in your garden, so that I may fertilize your wildflowers. And maybe someday the historians will dig up my unnatural bones and lament my unnatural death. But you will know that I did not die a coward, and that is enough.

[earlgaylatte]

Throat-

the end of the world came up in a rush,

with little to no dramatics other than the sky

slowly darkening.

it was simply a transition from

something,

to nothing. one minute, the heavens

were full of constellations.

the next, no one remembered what

ursa major looked like.

i had wanted

this to come in a blaze of glory-

i wanted,

a great fire to consume me. a million

weary souls beat as one,

hoping for the book of revelations.

a small part of me hoped for it with them.

i just wanted to believe something.

god came down to watch.

he stood nowhere near any of us.

god said:

"god created belief, why do you care

if it was honest or not?"

i screamed back:

"i care if it was honest! i needed to

be honest! i can't die guilty, please-"

but my voice overlapped with the sound

of the crickets losing their voices,

trees falling without a whisper. i prayed and

prayed.

but my

prayer was quiter than the ticking of

the earth, slowly turning into

memory.

the memory of me will

drift off with more haste than

the memory of great writers.

i wanted to be a poet once. i wanted,

to make something meaningful of this grief.

mostly,

i just wanted to believe in something.

the world is ending and i'm still stuck with

the wanting. i sob my desperation into the

blackening sky, but

i'm still left with my throat.

half of history fades into obscurity,

and the last stars implode like

new years fireworks

[earlgaylatte]

once again reblogging bc it made me cry, please give them all your love oh my god

recipe for nostalgia

90° on a southern night at

9:07 pm in a walmart

parking lot

and the ghosts of people i

once knew crouching in the

corners of my

eyes like nightmares

the boy in the sonic drive-thru that

i thought was kind of cute in a

dorky sort of way mixed with

the presence of my father in

the driver’s seat who

would hate me

for thinking so in the

first place

combine well with

driving through the square of

my town that isn’t my town that

won’t be my town in a week because

we’re moving and

i’m moving and

i’m leaving this wretched state

that i lovehateyearnfordespise

as i think of late night drives and

special songs and

the people who have moved

on

bake under the streetlights that

are too dim and

the stretch of road that’s too

dark and

the new gas station that sits

too bright and ugly near

my out-of-city-limits neighborhood that

is no longer mine

serve with the

many friends i made here

and the three and a half who haven’t

faded yet but they’re

close i can feel it

it tastes a little like freedom

a little like loss

a little like the flags i picked

up and dropped as i grasped for

something to define me

and leaves a churning in my

guy like nerves and anticipation and

sadness and anger

and loss

grieving a time that no longer is

feels like too many things to name

and too many things without words

original work, 2024

[earlgaylatte]

Northern Girls Don't Get The Blues-

Baby I spent this morning stretched in

Sunlight and mugwort like a tadpole,

Kissing my palm like it could kiss the sorrow

Off of me.

My mouth still feels slick and sweet with Jeju Oranges.

Tongue still soft like it's carrying soju.

I'm spending this lifetime in bed in the

Korean sunshine, waiting for it to freckle my

Skin and burn the grief out of me. I'm

Twisting these sheets around me like a second skin.

And I'm drinking soju mimosas

On a Tuesday night, making glitter of my

Korean language tests.

In the morning, I'll be back on that plane;

Back to small town Minnesota

Where the despair

Makes sense.

Northern girls don't get the blues, but

When a tree falls in the forrest, it's at the

Hands of a teenage girl with a vengeance.

Northern girls don't get the blues, we just

Carry the sadness like it's an empty bottle

And we're dragging our drunk bodies home.

[earlgaylatte]

This Is Not a Poem-

This is not a poem/ But attempt to be as good as you can be./ Walking a mile in the rain until your hair smells of it./ Trying to wash the yearning off of you./ Like it's something you could repent for./ Or that the monsoon raging outdoors isn't impartial to your exsistence./ You don't have to be good./ You don't have to fill every hollow of your body with thunder to be made/ meaningful./ So there is a grief inside of you/ Like a storm seeking a full life./ You're waiting for the lights of this city to go green,/ Sleeves soaked in gutter water from the tidal waves outside./ Eventually, the sun will rise on your face,/ And the ghosts you carry like penance will bask in the warmth./ But for now,/ The pertrichor on your jacket feels like a diagnosis./ And the sound of rain hitting your umbrella is enough to believe,/ Momentarily,/ That the phantoms are gone.

[earlgaylatte]

This is Not About Orpheus-

I'll build a home for us made of pure light.

Carpets woven with golden threads and promises. We could be something

Divine, if you swear not to look back at the past-

Yours or mine- and you promise to use those hands for

What they're made for: slender fingers pressed against my tongue

Like my body is an instrument. Waking up

Intertwined to the orange sun, sleeping

Like otters under the lychee moon.

Living in the light is not certain enough,

Keep your ghosts next to mine. Please, Darling,

Get home early so I don't have to descend

Down into the Tartarus of my soul.

Desiderum like a labyrinth.

If the garden behind our home leaves

The imprint, (but not you-) then, don't

Leave me desperate for an echo,

Wild eyes seeking yours.

Half of my humanity is captured in

Every head tilt to check if you're

Still behind me. My parents

Were stronger than that,

But I turn back for you each time.

[earlgaylatte]

God in South Korea

Is a bench every hundred meters of a mile

Hike, crawling with ants carrying

Plum blossoms or bamboo leaves in

Their maw.

Some bird singing from the

Head of a Korean red pine like

The mouth of a five headed angel

With wings too small

To carry the weight of its Hallelujah.

Trails carpeted with straw carpeted with

Lichen,

Pulsing and screaming that they're alive,

I'm alive we're alive alive alive-

The taste of sweet rice wine coarsing

Through veins thick with generational

Sorrow.

The sun beats over brow with the

Suffocating heat I imagine Judas knew

Stepping

From stool to Hades.

Three large koi fight the river, swimming

From lotus flowers to some sort of

Salvation,

The kind I seek in the face of every stranger

But never will know.

The God of South Korea doesn't speak my

Language,

But answers my babbling regardless. A

Dragonfly caught in my hair,

Or a shaded temple to weep under.

When I beg it for some semblance of

Belonging,

The warmth of bodies pressed

Into my back on a subway line is like a

Prayer for which no words exsist.

[earlgaylatte]

5 Shots of Soju In

and the air tastes like starlight,

bright enough to cause giddiness in every

step. light like

the fall off of suicide balcony would be;

the rain falls heavily,

each drop thrumming in my core

like an orgasm trying to build.

behind the giggles rising into the air

like carbonation,

i keep searching every stranger on the subway

for shoulders that slant like yours do.

the curve of them as delicate as the

slope of the Han River,

running through the heart of Seoul.

i think this bluetooth is killing me:

the quiet buzz of a notification

leading me on unsteady feet

into the nearest

karaoke bar. sweat beading on my

forehead as clear as soju.

behind drunken smiles lie

a mirriad of secrets i only confess to this city:

namely, i confess every wrongdoing like

it's religion;

i tell leaves on the sidewalk

how i miss the feel of your sleeve in

my mouth.

god don't look at me, i'm stumbling like a

newborn fawn

looking for a juniper tree to die under.

i'm trying to make this city

swallow me whole.

the streets here are lined with

Gingko trees, soft yellow lighting

illuminating the slender branches.

there's a room for quiet contemplation

wedged between rows of

ceramics and ancient silks.

and there are rolling hills, soft

with dew and mist, sheep like tired clouds

decorating the mounds like peonies.

i'll be home by the time the sun rises like a

headache. but let me enjoy this.

it's a beautiful night to be something new,

and the lithe stems of the vines growing

into the brick feel more like a mockery

the less i eat.

when the night wind rises up like the

slurred words echoing off

the fifth floor balcony,

it tastes so good i would

starve for it.

[earlgaylatte]

We Waited at the Train Station-

I had a dream where we waited at the train station from sun up to sun down waiting for our respective parents to step off the platform into our lives again. you curl your face into the crook of my neck, your breath touching the curve of my jaw like a hand preparing to strike. the cold chill of the air and the goosebumps rising against the freckles of my arms like a bad omen.

in this dream you look older, long curly hair and soft angles and if i were to depict you in some other sort of art i'd have to frame you with soft blooms of peonies in the background. the sky was grey with dew and matched the bags under our eyes, the sky was rich with pine in a way that can only mean the west coast. which is to say we lived long enough to be older.

this dream is like a stream of consciousness. a deep feeling of loss sits over our shoulders like a small dead thing. steam from trains turns into carbon. the world is ending and we're waiting for our parents at the train station. i want to tell you that they'll come, they have to come, but dreams don't deal with lies. i hold you like a bird in my arms, waiting for the grief to pass. i hold you because it's all i know how to do, like every night i spent curled up in your dorm when we were young. the sky goes dark. maybe it's the carbon.

the night becomes speckled with stars, bright enough to illuminate the grimace crossing your features. we rise on unsteady feat and follow the scent of warm rice to take us back to our apartment. the mist in the air is something that can be washed down, nursing a bottle of soju while i wait for you to come back from the long drive you took to warm up, something you had to do on your own. my bones are frigid in the crisp night air.

and the sky, she's crying on my shoulder. her grief so ancient it's without words. i deal with the loss of a parent easier than you. i deal with it by taking a hot shower. i learned that trick when i was six. i'm waiting for a flicker of something other than desperation to cross our features and i'm waiting for the water to warm up enough to feel like palms on my skin.