First Time Watching Breaking Bad S.2 Ep.3
I want Jesse Pinkman to live a happy and fulfilling life
I want Jesse Pinkman to experience the seven wonders of the world
I want Jesse Pinkman to have a week where he feels lucky
I want Jesse Pinkman to realize Walt isn’t nice to him and that’s not Jesse’s fault
I want Jesse Pinkman to only ever have to say something once
I hope Jesse Pinkman gets to have soft luxury in life without being punished for liking it, and when Jesse Pinkman is just so tired and his body hurts so bad for so many reasons,
I hope Jesse Pinkman gets to lay his body down in the soft cotton of his childhood bedroom heavy
bones first, tired, aching head second, and it’s just that easy
I want Jesse Pinkman to have a week where he feels lucky and he doesn’t have to worry about
being punished for it
And if Jesse Pinkman is the type of person who attracts worst possible scenarios
which confound the logic of modern medicine and everybody else’s relatively undire daily lives,
I hope Jesse Pinkman gets to have something go inexplicably right, just so lucky,
easy, effortless, given, like
magic
or whatever’s the reverse of a catastrophe
And if Jesse Pinkman sees a bug by his foot and decides to let it crawl over the rough
and cut
dirty bits of his hand because the big wasn’t bothering anyone,
I hope
that after jesse sets down the little bug back down on the ground,
nobody
comes up right after and squishes it dead without thinking–
maybe Jesse Pinkman really liked that bug and wanted
the bug
to live a happy and fulfilling life
I Cannot Not Note All the Beautiful Things I Cannot Ignore by Lucia Perri
A cento from a beauty journal I once kept
I ring through the streets crying
a cacophony of melancholy, echoing
all the things that I have loved,
especially when they have passed me by,
always attempting to stretch my temporaries—
(soft pink foam, I bubble at the sight)
(confronting the carved face of the moon)
(a huff of breath, a stifled moan, and maybe, “I – – you”)
—into eternities, begging time to move drunkenly, to slur from second
to
second,
so that every eroticism might not escape unseen.
I work furiously to account for if the world exploded at this moment,
so the historians who excavate my body
can assume the most beautiful story for my circumstances.
I dream of sweet red raspberry beers
that turn into pure cinematic yearning.
I waltz crossfaded in bulky black boots
among five-hundred-year-old Dutch masterpieces.
And for each of their beautiful mistakes, I wear them like jewelry, burning ruby necklaces for everything they say flippantly.
(so that) Someday, I might speak
the language of snakes and birds and lovers. (so that) I have placed myself
in such proximity to beauty,
that I am choked
with so many precious thoughts
that if someone should ask me a question, I would have to remain silent
or be forced to lie.
The Resurrection of Beauty
An Antonymic Translation After T.S. Eliot’s “Burial of the Dead”
June is the sweetest month, raising
roses out of the lush land, kissing
nostalgia and desire, inspiring
fresh shoots with strong storms.
Autumn flushed our cheeks, coloring
Earth in awakening shades, serving
so much luxury in aging leaves.
Winter waved calmly, rolling over the Appalachians with cloudy breath; he and I drove through The Lights, and went on in multicolored night, into the backseat, and loved softly, and talked for two hours.
Soy Puertorriqueña, soy de Oeste Virginia, los dos me hacen entera.
And when you and I were children, sleepover at your house, my best friend. We pointed to the trees,
and I was certain. I said, “——–,”
“——–,” listen to me. And so we believed:
Undercover, lightning bugs out of reach are fairies.
I absorb the light of day, and I glow softly in its absence.
How high go the maples that yearn, what branches grow into this hugging sky? Son of Man,
I could say, or guess, but I know surely,
a swell of private love, where the heart beats,
and the thick pine holds a haven, the hare huddles beneath,
and the crack in painted tiles springs forth immortality. Abundantly, there is cool water in the creek,
(Step into the cool water of this creek),
I will teach you something new from either
the memories of your former self flowing past you
or the versions of your future being rushing to greet you;
I will teach you hope in a palm-sized puddle.
