Two poems by Timmy Chong
Self care right now is everything
we said three summers back,
that we don’t need to live
by our moms and dads
or the bible always
under my bed
It’s the gentle truths that we
only accept from each other
how they can only love
us in their twisted ways cause
that’s how they were raised,
and maybe that’s okay.
It’s all half-baked has-beens,
all weekend spent resting
with the canvas of your skin,
the paradise of your lips
and every other synonym.
It’s when you call me this july
and you don’t say please
and I still say yes,
I’m all rocket fuel and bruises
bouncing off the walls,
waiting like a dog for you
knocking at my door with
sunscreen and car keys and
a season’s worth of dreams.
Self care right now is pretty
please pull up on me, no
I’m never done hustling,
but text me it’s time I’ll drop
the pen and the pipe and
we’ll pack up and drive until
no one knows our names.
It’s picking up smitten
from smithereens in
a house full of empty rooms,
and how I can be that heavy hour
of friday wild, all swing
and miss and busted seams.
It’s knee-deep in mornings
not sober and lips
on my neck like a kiss
can make me born again.
It’s how I write like I play the guitar,
an echo of the same old songs
and from a thousand miles
of soft memories and
bad haikus away I
let you pull me in,
all warm and dry like
a towel at the beach, which
we lifted like that postcard
From the Shade Garden—
You are still everywhere,
I wish you were here
an alarm since spring, and
nothing could be warmer
than us in all our privilege.
the somedays to live for, you
and i wearing down thin soles.
the somedays to die for, taking
in stride each excuse to sin more
clearing every dark
rooftop and sinkhole.
in our wandering we found that
the primrosed promised land
wasn’t fiction, by friction
of sin of skin on skin on
earth as it must
be in heaven.
and you had still stayed though i
smoked cigs, so i threaded needle
through these bars, stitched
up your scars until harmless.
you, broken in, soft-spoken
and i, smitten so brazen, us
brave as fuck and glowing
like the six o’ clock sun
laughing until numb as
the cold kitchen floor.
breathing in traces
of kimchi and rum
left our shoes and our
shame at the door.
