Not Even This by Ocean Vuong | Poetry Magazine

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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

Not Even This by Ocean Vuong | Poetry Magazine

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