Hybrid: "It Is Comfortable to Be Alive This Way, Especially Now" and "Origami, Euphemized" by Narisma
It Is Comfortable to Be Alive This Way, Especially Now
That you have a soul — your own, no one else's — that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own. So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours more than my own.
— Mary Oliver
My body, water, your body, a trail of hands carrying the river to the sea.
— Danez Smith
And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.
— 1 Samuel 18:3
Jan is the ocean. Apparently, I’m the only person in Brooklyn who knows how to swim. It’s funny. I was on the swim team in high school but hated the ocean in fourth grade. He said we were best friends and I told him to go away. The ocean played Club Penguin with Keishin. I had more refined hobbies, like pretending I was a celebrity in case my mother won it big, or reading her secret books about sex. In another life, I am Apollo 11. I used to be evangelical but now
I’m just myself. It’s funny.
My country is an island of islands.
My people are made of water.
The ocean has blond hair and brown eyes. He has a little sister like me. In fifth grade, Jan gifted me a Swiss army knife, and I almost immediately cut my hand. As his mother cleaned my wound, she shared a vague look with her son, as if this quiet collusion could ever save me
from my fate. In reality, I could never afford my grief.
I only let Jan sleep over once because unlike his mother, mine was a violent alcoholic. It’s funny. Jan’s family used to run a rehab. I only know that word because Keishin taught me the song “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse. I nearly got my mother to check in there, can you imagine the shitshow that would’ve been? I used to be sad but now
I’m just a boy.
In another life, Jan and I are paratroopers. Have you ever watched the ocean fall from the sky? God did this once too, to make the earth new again. Before there was creation, there was watery chaos. Some days, I’m still dangling from the air, watching my mother’s war
unfold beneath me.
After the debt and hunger and strange men, my sister and I moved in with our aunts. We lived between a bakery and a man who we suspected abused his wife. The ocean likes to bake too. He used to bring fresh rolls of bread to school. After giving thanks, we’d break it together. Remember, it is written:
Ito ang aking katawan na inihahandog para sa inyo. Gawin ninyo ito bilang pag-aalaala sa akin.
In another life, I am a cartographer.
Jan once invited a group of us to go sailing. “I don’t know how to run a boat,” I protested. “What am I supposed to do?”
“You could stay on shore with Pete.”
“Who’s Pete?” I asked.
“You know,” Jan said, “Pyromaniac Pete.”
That night, I dreamed of my people on fire.
When my mother died, the ocean took me home. I lay flat on the shower floor, waiting for my sister to barge in and say it was all a joke. I submerged myself for months. Bleached my hair and starved myself and pretended it was worth it for the poems. Yehuda Amichai said, The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet. Jan is a good friend. He never pointed out the obvious:
I was slowly losing my mind.
Jan visited the hospital twice. Once after I failed to kill myself, and again when I spent two weeks trapped in psychiatric care. The second time, he came alone. The nurse and I watched him flood the room, more and more, until we could no longer see. In that underwater cathedral, Jan and I prayed.
“Isn’t this our own miracle?” I said, bubbles littering my face. “Look how real the world has become!”
“You’re being weird again,” Jan replied.
The ocean drained and I found myself in New York. It’s funny. I live with Keishin and his girlfriend now. When I’m feeling especially lonely, I go to Marsha P. Johnson State Park. The water reminds me of home — or rather, the lack of it. I used to be evangelical but now
God is actually kind. It’s been four years since my mother’s death. Everywhere has become a cemetery.
In another life, Jan and I start a publishing firm. Except the only books we sell are about gender, engineering, British politics, and Elon Musk. “When will I see you again?” I text Jan.
“You know,” he says.
(I never do.)
In my language, “love” and “friend” both share the same word: ibig.
So does the phrase, “I mean to say”.
A replacement poem: “[Ang ibig kong sabihin ay] when you part from [the ocean], you grieve not; for that which you love most in [it] may be clearer in [its] absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain”.
It’s funny. I could have sworn we were smaller than this.
“You think in beautiful ways,” Jan once told me. I’m advertising myself again, I know. But really, I’m only beautiful because of the distance. Even Pyromaniac Pete knew this. There’s no house for everybody. Between here and there, the ocean swells. I used to be lonely but now
I just visit the shore.
Notes:
Ito ang aking katawan na inihahandog para sa inyo. Gawin ninyo ito bilang pag-aalaala sa akin — “This is my body which is offered to you. Do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24)
Ang ibig kong sabihin ay — “What I mean to say is”
Quotes are lifted from “On Friendship” by Kahlil Gibran and “There Will Be No Funeral” by Janice Lobo Sapigao
Poem title is borrowed from “My Kingdom for a Murmur of Fanfare” by Kaveh Akbar
Origami, Euphemized
The morning after I swallow an entire box of antidepressants, I discover Eunice folding paper rabbits at the foot of my bed. Her fingers gather like wings, and my hospital room becomes the sky. No one, not even the toxicologist, mentions the word ‘death’. In the present, I care less about the future than myself. In the present, carcinogenesis still has no meaning. I have not yet moved from home, I am still your bebe boy.
The word ‘origami’ is a compound of two smaller Japanese terms: ori (root verb oru), meaning ‘to fold’, and kami, meaning ‘paper’. The throat is like paper, it crinkles and folds. The throat is like paper, it unfolds and burns. You sing me to sleep, everything burns.
i.
My lover is throwing up into the toilet again, and her shoulder blades are folded between my hands. Together, we make a perfect crane. She can’t harmonize the way you do, but then again, no one can. If I could beg you to call me, I would, but you’re not in the mood, so we text instead. Our conversations range from karaoke nights to motherhood, desperation to unpaid medical bills. You say ‘I love you’ with vehemence, as if you don’t trust the term.
It’s okay, neither do I.
In the present, my lover reeks of cheap alcohol and sweat. Downstairs, the music continues to throb — racing heart beat, distant bass drum. The dance floor is a moonscape and we are two craters of blue light. Later at home, I tear poems by Ihara Saikaku and stuff them into my mouth. Between my teeth, the sheets crumple into fish. In the living room, her parents dial up the volume of the Sunday radio sermon, muffling the sound of howling from our bedroom.
i.
“The doctors said my voice will never be the same.”
You almost sound indifferent. For the first time in my life, I notice your age. The mug of Milo shakes between your hands, your lips pressed into a thin smile. They’ve managed to kill the cancer (or so they say).
I kiss your wrist to prevent myself from crying. Your skin tastes like sandpaper. In the present, I dream of Kawasaki roses pouring from your throat.
About Narisma
Narisma is a writer and artist from the Philippines. His work has appeared or is forthcoming from Atticus Review, Oyster River Pages, and Club Plum, among others. He is an honors student at Brooklyn College (CUNY), where he serves as Music Director for the school radio. Find him on Instagram at @_narisma_.
