Valentines: “on ocean avenue” by k j tiao
on ocean avenue
fate is curly, like a spiral bound notebook, or certain french fries. now, i am living in this house with my lover, where before lived a dear friend, & before them, their former lover, & before them, a poet, & before them, a musician, & before them, another musician. but this is false too, the line between poet & musician & lover & dear friend sometimes does not exist. in this house, years prior, before my lover & i lived in the same country, i plant-sat for my dear friend, and accidentally dosed myself with weed gummies hidden in a bag of haribo’s by the former resident, & spent the night thinking i was having a stroke. i didn’t know i would return to this space, but love lassoed me in. in this house, my dear friend suffered a heartbreak bigger than one person can carry—this inhospitable nation forcing their return to an equally inhospitable nation state. on their final day, we played music listening closely to one another, as if the boxes were already packed, as if the sound would stretch our hours together. in this house, on our third day as residents, we captured a mouse & at this moment that my lover discovered that mice & rats are not the same creature (in chinese, there is no linguistic distinction) & began to understand the character design of a certain mickey. in this house, on a street named for its terminus at the ocean, i scrubbed out the stains of creatures who came before me, so as to continue the cycle, & create our own stains. in this house, we fed our creature selves, to spite the violent logic of nation states, we loved one another in every which way, played catch & release with our bodies, bled out music into the halls the block the borough the city until the sound borders collapsed & left us there singing out of time.
august 15th ari calls to tell me they scheduled their top surgery and suddenly i feel like living again
time crunches in a new way, with vigor, like a mouth full of potato chips, all sharp angles against gums. o, that things move in parallel still, that bodies churn and bubble together, apart. the skin on my back peels from summer sun’s refrain. stalled on the bridge on the q train, i want to show you, this: my favorite part of my commute, watching the boats leaving bright wakes on the glittering east river. the line between this life and the next feels almost permeable. your whisper races along string stretched between tin cans across this land, clenched tight in the hand of empire. i breathe easier, lungs unfurled by the tether of your voice.
About k j tiao
k j tiao is an artist, educator, and shapeshifter. their work has appeared in Washington Square Review, Puerto del Sol, Soap Ear, TPCreview, and elsewhere. they live with their partner in brooklyn. you can also find them in the snack aisle, dipping into a body of water, or cooking up a gremlin meal. their first book, transpacific, is forthcoming with Noemi Press in 2027.
