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Not Even This by Ocean Vuong | Poetry Magazine

poetryfoundation.org · 852 words · saved by 1 readers

Born in Saigon, poet and editor Ocean Vuong was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned a BA at Brooklyn College (CUNY). In his poems, he often explores transformation, desire, and violent loss. In a 2013 interview with Edward J. Rathke, Vuong discussed the relationship between...

Share Hey. I used to be a fag now I’m a checkbox. The pen tip jabbed in my back, I feel the mark of progress. I will not dance alone in the municipal graveyard at midnight, blasting sad songs on my phone, for nothing. I promise you, I was here. I felt things that made death so large it was indistinguishable from air—and I went on destroying inside it like wind in a storm. The way Lil Peep says I’ll be back in the mornin’ when you know how it ends. The way I kept dancing when the song was over, because it freed me. The way the streetlight blinks once, before waking up for its night shift, like

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