Into Silence : a reverse burning haibun
by D. Keali’i MacKenzie
tell him
you imagined the weight
of one syllable
Into Silence : a reverse burning haibun
Springfield, Massachusetts
1997
You wanted him. Slow. A night drawn in haze and gauze, muggy air intensifying slick bodies.
Knew this at fifteen. The sweet horror of wanting — then loving — after another boy. Guilt brought you to your knees. Each prayer for change, a lost opportunity for confession. You couldn’t tell him, so as penance you attempted to famish desire. Whisper-clutched a rosary. Failed.
At night you tossed. Found relief in your hand down at your crotch, wished it was his hand instead. Arm across your chest, his body in sweet unrelenting motion.
What scared you most was how you imagined the after: back to torso, a long sigh, mornings after a hopeful promise of … you didn’t even have the words for ‘relationship.’ Yet alone a queer one.
You wrote him letters. Mailed them into silence. If only you remembered what words you scrawled. Was silence acknowledgment? Did he cypher your feelings between the lines,
the poor penmanship? Fear? You couldn’t say it out loud. Saw words collapse under the weight of possibility, as so much fragmented glass.
Still, longing pushed you to pen him everything except what you wanted.
No response. Not one syllable came back. Not even a ‘no.’ Which in the end was its own reply.
Into Silence: a reverse burning haibun
Springfield, Massachusetts
1997
You wanted him. Slow. A night drawn in haze and gauze, muggy air intensifying slick bodies.
Knew this at fifteen. The sweet horror of wanting — then loving — after another boy. Guilt brought you to your knees. Each prayer for change, a lost opportunity for confession. You couldn’t tell him, so as penance you attempted to famish desire. Whisper-clutched a rosary. Failed.
At night you tossed. Found relief in your hand down at your crotch, wished it was his hand instead. Arm across your chest, his body in sweet unrelenting motion.
What scared you most was how you imagined the after: back to torso, a long sigh, mornings after a hopeful promise of … you didn’t even have the words for ‘relationship.’ Yet alone a queer one.
You wrote him letters. Mailed them into silence. If only you remembered what words you scrawled. Was silence acknowledgment? Did he cypher your feelings between the lines,
the poor penmanship? Fear? You couldn’t say it out loud. Saw words collapse under the weight of possibility, as so much fragmented glass.
Still, longing pushed you to pen him everything except what you wanted.
No response. Not one syllable came back. Not even a ‘no.’ Which in the end was its own reply.
D. Keali‘i MacKenzie is the author of the chapbooks From Hunger to Prayer (Silver Needle Press) and The Mana of Salt (Backbone Press). Born and raised in Western Massachusetts, the traditional territories of the Agawam, Nonotuk, and Nipmuc peoples, he moved to Hawai‘i in 2010 where he received an MA in Pacific Islands Studies, and an MLIS, from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
A queer poet of Kanaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian), European, and Chinese descent; his work appears in Pacific Islander Eco-Literatures, Poem-a-Day, Foglifter, Failed Haiku, and Prismatica LGBTQ Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. He is a co-editor of Bamboo Ridge’s Snaring New Suns: Speculative Works from Hawai‘i and Beyond.
He currently resides in Ko‘olaupoko, the land of his kūpuna, on the island of O‘ahu.