Merilyn Chang is a journalist and digital media manager based between New York and Berlin. She’s studied comparative literature and creative writing for her bachelor’s and has since been working on her first novel. Her work has been published by Dazed, Resident Advisor, Fact Mag and more.
Orison
Walk back with me to the green house no one lives in anymore.
Thursdays always taste grey and red, but for you, it was my
favorite day. When we spent most nights walking and the furthest
we’d ever made it was between three pieces of land all wedged together
like cars on Madison Avenue. We talked about
Running around a desert in north Asia, on prairies or tall grass,
Sleeping in tents. I saw all the stars but I couldn’t capture it on a camera.
We sat 10 feet away from the tent, in my mind, on a black blanket.
You laid down, your head close to my hip and you put your right hand on my lower back.
We don’t kiss or anything, yet. It would be just warm enough for a light
jacket in late August, except we were both in different places.
And other people were there too, in our minds.
But you were still in mine, every day. Every day I think about cooking pork
on your stove top that was covered in burnt char from the days before.
Everyday, the raspberry vitamin drink you made me and the mold
growing in the blender and the rain that day, before we walked to the
atrium style train stop, before you called my name under the underpass and it echoed in threes,
cascading off the walls. Cars fettered water in our direction but we didn’t care.
Think of a gentle without cold. And hands trimming facial hair. We
are not tender because we choose to be but because we would not be,
without tenderness. Slice the lemons so thinly and I’ll play an augmented seventh
on the Rhodes against the wall. You liked dissonances and my favorite part is the
Resolve after the muddle. The ray of light that comes when you stand in the perfect
position under a bed of leaves sounds like a fifth after six black keys.
At night we sleep and Jeff Buckley plays sweet harmony.
All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter. It’s never over. He hangs brightly
and breathes lightly. My sweet. Sugar plum. We never made it there.
Summer would be rolling on wood floors, hands dancing around the metal
pull-chain of a ceiling fan. But autumn was for strawberry sheets, waiting for a
relapse in the summer. In the green house where no one lives anymore, the landlords
upstairs say prayer at 5 in the morning, as we come home and unload stands
and gear and quietly walk up stairs that became drums in a song.
Think of me fondly. In November, send sweet songs and dissolved melodies.
Missing was never complete as much as it was a reach for completion.
Loving is only done out of survival but sometimes it feels enough to throw a car in the water.
Complete me dear, for I don’t think you could ever complete me. But glasses
still hold water, and trains still run east. The dining room table is still
covered in green from last night’s feast. All you can remember.
Can I tell you something? We were in the part of the dream, now
where the world was ending and the ground was orange, the sky was lilac.
There were palm trees outside the window, glowing green. I was in the part
Of the library with every single book ever written. A man sat at the
center in a suit. Told me I could read. And I looked down and you messaged me.
Do you know what you asked? You asked if I remembered the last time
we kissed. The dream ends there and I wake up and it is my birthday
and three days ago I was tripping on something that kept me up till
10 in the morning, and I thought of walking again to the green house.
Sweep old contact shells from the floors and pick at cold blades of the AC
vent. Lay me down, and bring in the utensils that beg for meat to cut into.
But don’t cut into it. Think of the whole that comes from mercy.
Sometimes I watch old videos of you and freeze the frame right when the
light hits your eyes and I remember the way you looked at me the third time
I saw you. You have stars in your eyes, sometimes. I am giving you the spoon now
and asking you if you will please wash it twice. I am holding the blue to the light
while you stand on chairs. I am, again, in the part of the Dream where the world is ending
and I am walking east out of the library under the palm trees
wondering if you’ll meet me. The grass has grown slightly.
And the air smells like rain from October four years ago.