Night Sky with Exit Wounds

by Ocean Vuong

For in the body, where everything has a price, I was alive. I didn’t know there was a better reason.

found the way a green bottle might appear at a boy’s feet containing a year he has never touched.

If you must know anything, know that the hardest task is to live only once.

When we left it, the city was still smoldering. Otherwise it was a perfect spring morning.

He said There is so much I need to tell you.

Stars. Or rather, the drains of heaven—waiting. Little holes. Little centuries opening just long enough for us to slip through.

He laughs but his eyes betray him. He laughs despite knowing he has ruined every beautiful thing just to prove beauty cannot change him.

Everyone’s shouting or singing and he can’t tell whether the song is for him—or the burning rooms he mistook for childhood.

Hey! You didn’t have to go this far. Why did you go so far?

If you must know anything, know that you were born because no one else was coming.

Sometimes I feel like an ampersand.

Maybe the body is the only question an answer c...

Everyone can forget us—as long as you remember.

what this means is that I don’t know / desire other than the need / to be shattered & rebuilt /

You can get lost in every book but you’ll never forget yourself the way god forgets his hands.

the body is a blade that sharpens by cutting.

America a row of streetlights

ADD. PTSD. POW. Pow. Pow. Pow says the sniper. Fuck you says the father,

Instead, let it be the echo to every footstep drowned out by rain,

Brooklyn’s too cold tonight & all my friends are three years away.

My mother said I could be anything I wanted—but I chose to live.

There was always the shotgun above the fireplace. Always another hour to kill—only to beg some god to give it back.

They have a good citizen in me. I love my country. I pretend nothing is wrong.

I love my country but who am I kidding?

the boy & his loneliness the boy who finds you beautiful only because you’re not a mirror

& you want to tell him it’s okay that the night is also a grave

you say thank you thank you thank you because you haven’t learned the purpose of forgive me

It’s simple: I just don’t know how to love a man

You’re so quiet you’re almost tomorrow.

The body was made soft to keep us from loneliness.

To love another man—is to leave no one behind to forgive me.

He dies when you wake & it’s November forever.

For hunger is to give the body what it knows it cannot keep.

Don’t we touch each other just to prove we are still here? I was still here once.

This means I won’t be afraid if we’re already here.

Silly me. I thought love was real & the body imaginary.

Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we’re this close to the devil.

How my greatest accolade was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge & not think of flight.

You will always remember what you were doing when it hurts the most.

There is so much I need to tell you—but I only earned one life. & I took nothing.

If I close my eyes no one can hurt me.

Suppose you do change your life.

Am I wrong to love those eyes, to see something so clear & blue—beg to remain clear & blue?

Do you understand? I closed my mouth but could still taste the ash because my eyes were open.

If you are given my body, put it down. If you are given anything be sure to leave no tracks in the snow.

That it was always October in

my throat

Turn back & find the book I left for us, filled with all the colors of the sky

Use it to prove how the stars were always what we knew they were: the exit wounds of every misfired word.

because you were never holy only beautiful enough to be found