Danielle Nguyen

Perhaps it was in that particular
MOment when it was finally confessed that
ThE lives of the two became marked and
ParT of her would always have the truth of lies
...

Fog glows and hazes
...

I wish that
...

We’d hear all the time that we’d understand when we’re older,
but no one ever said that there’d be
world hunger,
mothers dying,
...

Remember how I would yield for you?
Yield, stop thought
I would think,
what am I doing? and
why?
...

I tell you, “There are weeds in your hair, ”
and you squint up, roughened at the knees,
dirt between the frays of your jeans
and on the angle of your jaw.
...

If I were to be truthful
you would know that I do not simply love you
in happiness
and that I do not simply bend for you
...

I was going to stand in front of you.
I was going to make you smile like
fresh cupcakes on your birthday or
a non-platonic Valentine.
...

When this started, you were tall
You were all the way up there, a statue.

I climbed.
...

Eventually she will wear out
Slipping like shadows past his fingers.

Eventually he will wear out
...

Their mindless, bowing heads
Don’t look too different from Germany 1940s
Don’t look too different from ants at the queen
Don’t look too different from vapid, suckling piglets
...

Small desert flowers like
small, soft hands,
nestled in a pool of sand,
helpless under the indifferent sun,
...

Snow.
I froze Like a brick wall.
Look up. Was she crying?
So quiet. Silent ringing.
...

I have taken this opportunity of the frozen morning-night
to reflect upon the now-cooled sweat of your skin,
the broad planes of your back upon which the
moonlight drifts, falling into subtle shallows
...

Was it a heaven-place or a hell-place? They asked me.
And when I looked up, I wondered if they could see
a sky so grey.
I tell them, it was both.
...

I wait for night time.
I, the messenger of dreams,
stand under the black expanse
arching tall and vastly silent
...

Oh! You pretty things. he says
Let's rock
The hair almost electric, tacky and tall
The face glittering and shining
...

...

You’re so sad.

I can tell when my fingers move
before your empty stare
...

When afternoons are quiet and
birds chirp outside,
I think of my father.
I can see him standing there,
...