The Indicator x The Student: “Nighttime Ballad for a Green-Blue Song”

After Suji Kwock Kim

If these are not the nights of empty hands,
if these are not the nights of dreams galloping–

Then, tonight, I am asking you
to lead me away from these plains of haze
and newborn’s cry for mother’s milk;

I am asking you to kiss me,
for your stubbled face grazing my throat
to become the sand that speckles the contours
of my grandmother’s still body. Tonight,
the waves are breaking against my feet
and I am falling,
        falling,
            flying–

I am asking you to dismantle me
ever so tenderly, to blind me
from my own undoing. Tether me,
instead, to the doe’s glassy eyes,
so I may enshroud myself
from what I cannot unsee.

I am asking you all of this, knowing
that you cannot fall with me. Still,
I am asking you to crane your neck, to come
closer, closer–

For tonight, I am stranded in between
the bile-black waters of memory and want. Please,

I am begging you to sing that green-blue song for me,
I am begging you to pull me out from beneath this watery pall.