disconnectia

[disconnectia]

there is a memory, or several; blurred out and blurred together, neon-lit; that you might call dirty, unclean; money shifting hands, knees and hips bruised by morning; my voice roughened and coarse as the skin that touched mine; this memory of honest moments, honest work, of being seen; and yes, being useful, being used, willingly, wantonly; of gasping for something I don't believe in; of a few years of abandon; of becoming real; taking needles to the outer quad; of saving for surgery; waking waking waking; learning myself, loving myself; loving; in some strange way; each man whose name I didn't remember past morning. on the other side of the memory I stand; taller; stronger; freed from the weight of my chest; unburdened; nights dedicated to one consistent lover; occasionally a comet; and we breathe each others names; reverently, because we are holy; I know this; I baptized myself in alcohol; in smoke; in drugs; in sex and bruises and luck; changed my name; shaved my head; changed my body; became real

#poetry #ethan sol leach #poem #first draft #tw: sex work #tw: drugs mention #tw: alcohol mention #transition #i liked doing sex work

[disconnectia]

How strange it is-

now that you are gone

(im some ways, you never leave)

-to open a box of remnants

(the remnants of your life)

that are somehow your memories

and not mine

I do not recognise this girl-

in your passport photo

(black and white)

-younger than I am now

(this print older than me)

who went to different places

I've never seen

#poem #poetry #ethan sol leach #first draft #tw: grief #tw: loss

[disconnectia]

it's in the space zipped up

at high tide

with fingers under the chin

and the way we pluck

glasses from sleeping faces

things we don't like from one anothers plates

it's something that

burns, bright before embers

grows, sprout into dappled shade

and the way we don't notice

as silver streaks our temples

and the map forms around our eyes

it's hidden inside

the curl of your tongue when you say my name

the thread of you that thrums through my blood

and the way we move

around, in sequence, call and response

inhale, exhale, our own murmuration

it's in the way

you're my first thought in the morning

you don't hate me for my grumpiness, or pain

and the way without intent

you ensure I can eat, or sleep, or move

and my sangfroid is only seen if you see a wasp

it's something growing

winding through our life, weaving us

until the taste of flowers is everything

and the simple fact

that we never need anything more

than this; whatever it is, wherever it is

#poetry #ethan sol leach #first draft #love poem

[disconnectia]

some things seem eternal-

the way his fingers slide into my hair,

stealing my breath, stolen right back,

the way, at night, we are a shoreline

together, then apart

not unraveled, then; remade

some things may fade-

the copper in his dark hair, and mine

the strength in our limbs,

perhaps, even, the memory of a clocktower,

a sunset, a chill breeze;

the beginning that wasn't

whatever our future holds,

cupped, delicate, sheltered from sight;

I hope it is always we,

I cannot wait / I would wait forever

#poetry #first draft #ethan sol leach #love poem

[disconnectia]

There is a room in Edinburgh I never left

A nest in the corner the nurses allowed

The machines, your breath, the cold

If anything could make me pray it would be this

That you did not know

That you were not there

And now there are things that send me off

Visions and sounds and

Hands, clasped, for the last time

When does this stop

When do I leave

The room, the floor, your hand

We are both gone, but I remain

It's been five years

Heart still races after you

A sight

A sound

A name-

A voice whispering as you left my arms

There is a room in Edinburgh I never left

#poetry #first draft #poem #tw: grief #tw: loss #tw trauma #i think i might have PTSD or something #i don't know what to do about it #ethan sol leach

[disconnectia]

There Were Bees on My Nightie When I Was Four

The needle doesn't contain thread

And yet I picture it

Slowly pulling me together

Or perhaps embroidering

Florals and curls and bees

Trailing dashed lines like the nightie I wore

When I was small and soft

Before I was lost

Before I got found;

There are no gods here

We are self-made

Sewing ourselves together

Embellishing ourselves

With queer joy

Gold or red thread, scars shining

Silver or flushed or bronzed

Or white as the snow

We pile over traumas

Not to hide or hush

Just to rest, to ready;

To await our spring

Some things will stop festering

In that cold blanket

And others can gradually

Unfurl - - -

Into something more like

Strong roots that know

Just how to spread

To avoid the things that bear

Rotten fruit; instead

Our vines grow together

Threaded through and through

Lush, powerful

And true

#poetry #first draft #ethan sol leach #queer poetry #trans poetry #poem

[disconnectia]

were we all so caught up in our heads

back then? as to touch, and take

and not see no

under the pool table with the night

a blanket nailed down to my skin

in the back of a kitchen, after close-down

boys with hungry hands and eyes

too dark to see-

and caught, bruised stuttering

no- a scar, unearned and jagged

raised, swollen, desperate

i lost count before i learned

the map of things i did not say

dragged across and within

is as real as those i did

in our palimpsests, did we all burn

back then and there

was the best part of us rewritten

again and again for that use

did we come undone-

and when, exactly, did we find

all our pieces at last and gather

tattered along the way

a treasure map to be reborn

#first draft #poem #babr #queer poetry #tw: sexual assault #ethan sol leach #poetry

[disconnectia]

I am addicted to your existence, breathlessly waiting for the next hit, fanned in my face by the beating air beneath your wings while the hedges are frothing around us; this mythical event is engraved into my heart, or written perhaps, a poem-bandage, sealing cracks with ink and wax. You have no idea of all the things that have happened to me, but we can survive, each sunrise is invocation, even when everything around us is falling apart; you are how the wind blows, low and sweet, and when I first took in this air a voice in my chest I had long thought dead began to sing. There is a metaphor, somewhere, in the shadow beneath your cheekbone, the curls at the nape of your neck; something poignant and nakedly true, something that could break me, but carries me softly through dappled light, stroking my hair, telling me we're all right. And I know, I know, as the leaves fall, and we curl together for warmth, that we are dying together here 

It sneaks in, red as the stitches I use to repair my clothes; I cannot break free. In the morning the sky breaks the news blazing bright and wide and whispering, but when I look at you the voice in my chest sings in a language I'd long thought dead.

Fingers interlaced, under the blankets, untethered, I spin out, into the mattress, your breath the rising tide. Autumn has come, suddenly the trees become thin, standing over their golden hoard, mornings bruised, hungover, the stars at night bleary through turgid clouds, whilst in my chest a dent forms in the shape of your elbow. Sand has eroded the walls of this transitional house, pouring endlessly through the cracks.

And I know, I know, as the leaves fall, and we curl together for warmth, that we are dying together here.

#first draft #Ethan Sol Leach #poetry #poem

[disconnectia]

to the memory of who we were

there was something fragile about the way we spoke to one another, grown up under that 28, fearful and courageous, something tender and new and pale, fresh grass, a spring sunrise, all pastels and bruises

we'd sneak around in the wee hours, but hold hands in public, trick each other into honest emotional speech, kiss noses, swap clothes, invent our own languages, write sappy letters and cover them in different lipstick kisses

i keep them in a wire box, more like a cage

#first draft #poetry #ethan sol leach

[disconnectia]

when I am most empty and touch starved I think of him there

in his garage in the cool dark

dangling, hanging

I wonder idly how long it took

I expect he didn't manage to break his neck

the quick snap

no, it would have been the slow fade

I wonder if he regretted it as his throat constricted

i think of him there

in his garage in the cool, quiet dark

the cool, quiet dark

a slow fade

#first draft #tw: suicide #tw: hanging

[disconnectia]

pour your laughter into me

we'll map its path, messy and sweet

follow it

find the cracks of me filling up

cup those fragile parts in our palms

keep me close, hold me, protect me

oh please, take me apart, keep me, all of me

spread joy over the marks of the past

paste me back together; i was undone by you

unspoken prayers your eyes are candles

incandescent, your light blinding

binding, binding, benediction, sweetness unearned

i will lay hollow boned, becoming filigree beneath your hands

slow and lingering; incandescence

every look is sunrise, sunlight, breaking over me and gilding me

all my rough edges burnished with delicate care

this is fervour, nonsense, rusted sounds and shapes

delirious reverence filling me thick and golden

lashed and flayed in light

there is a timelessness here between us; shared breaths, beating hearts, warm skin

the shape of your smile is contentment, covenant,

sanctuary

#poetry #love #first draft #love poem #ethan sol leach #babr

[disconnectia]

curve of the soil soul sole the earth is here she is coming to meet me and then will the cloud come down too to drown two lungs wrapped in bone and meat will I sink into the yellow field and grey water will I sink into the roots of the plants or the earth or the cloud will I sink drinking and dying and dreaming of the graves the heart holds close don't forget don't forget your faces carved deep your voices vibrate gently beneath breastbone coarse as it sticks to the skin above and each breath a shallow agony here beneath everything behind eyes and mind I know you all I won't forget you I won't forget the way your laugh and your knee your beard your smile your moustache and I won't forget you you were each so kind and loss is a cut my scars gnarled now no longer smooth white lines there's something broken in the way the skin knits back together not like those first scars you helped me bathe in the bathroom where we made the rainbow melting plastacine radiators

#poetry #ethan sol leach #first draft #grief #mourning

[disconnectia]

after that storm i open myself up and run itinerant a solar shower heads to the coast

the coast the coast the coast

what space there is filled with words we used and now I can't ask where from drech, zooshy, bolschi, varda, orbs,

oh

I remember I remember

carrot seeds in the mud at two and you so happy I push them in just right, your little green thumb

plants stay alive and struggle on so why, why,

am I the only souvenir of your life, trace of your wisdom and love, a dream left in one of those books, a thread lost loose or undone

- the only person who knew me completely is gone

if I die in my sleep will I hear your voice again or just wake exhausted again alone crying with my houseplants waiting for the moon to return

I wish I could have lived inside your love, if you could live inside of mine, old lines, old lines

OH BEST BELOVED WHY ARE YOU GONE and yet so fucking HERE in everything I,

I never wanted anything more than to stop seeing your hands in mine

But what then?

If there's a soul that's where it resides, our busy makers, hands or feet or tools and you and I, we made things ephemeral, we grew plants and coding, cooked meals and fixed toys and all things temporal and bright and flickering from here to not

I still hear your voice in mine and it hurts it hurts it hurts

I want to go home

#tw: grief #ethan sol leach #poem #first draft #poetry

[disconnectia]

move me away from the burning nights and late night pains these fights battling something that hides unsaid and unclaimed unknowns we sacrificed on our altars of youth oh,

here the skies burn as we do - into dust, I guess

crumblingly fierce and brittle glaring out past the beach tide covering it rising from the inside out old laws of sand dunes and the first moment moving draining away beneath as void sky draws breath scurry scurry we huddle in

the sea is a sequel and a prelude roaring to remind us of mouths and darkness and if passive it is forcefully so eroding our youths year on year stripping us down to the darkest coves the places we met the people we lost

this heart is a graveyard overwhelmed and undercut

#ethan sol leach #poetry #first draft #mourning #trauma

[disconnectia]

When dancing we stellar mistakes our bodies finding new ways to make and god how much we would give how much we would give how much heavily gleaming the soft and smooth the muscle and bone a joint a crack or both at once stairwells with the word above a round inscribed with just her breath and away away away from that we dance we dance and floor ourselves whilst the soothe alarm hums sadness from before from when we small and quiet and breath still moved her and dance dance away from that a bird a sunrise a tree denuded a study a book a book a book but still it waits back then and now vanishing point swallowed darling left beeping and breathing the sun on her face for the last time and we

stellar mistakes

wheeling away from that vanishing point

#ethan sol leach #poetry #first draft #death #mourning

[disconnectia]

i always got the impression that hearts hardened thickened with tissue or scars as time went by as ghosts accumulate but it has not proved the case

child-i did not feel the sadness of loss and feared what it meant but here thirty-three I mourn the death of a small tree as it too pierces the space in which all my ghosts reside

I'd have thought I'd be over it by now

Nothing compares to losing your mother in your own arms

And yet I can't stop mourning

#ethan sol leach #first draft #not entirely a poem yet

[disconnectia]

Was it there? I will be used

Like a slope

Climb up and slide down

Inside, I am mud and worms

Take note

Bite the brake, and shine

Your order to be was too far;

I want to rest quiet

Push out grass and daisies

Let the world pass over me

Looking forward to winter

When white blankets keep me safe

Slumber as I recharge

Burst forth

Worth every moment of recovery

Every time and day and yet

Each rest away is sad somehow

I know where I belong

Time and distance; the same thing

Synonymous with ‘not there’

My mantra at night,

I’m going nowhere

Somewhere when

Some time back to you

#ethan sol leach #first draft #poetry