The Law of Conservation in Four Acts
by Ari Lohr
and from whom does God commission light? beneath the sultry embrace of my mother’s fists, the buck’s torso shutters but it remains stagnant. its carcass trails the muted glow of her fingertips, and i wonder under which breath the beast first fathomed its own passing. i ask, and she clutches its horns and her hands tremble and her mouth quivers, and she whispers of the silent, restless elegy of heat escaping the corpse. truly, i doubt the burden algor bears on a beast.
before dinner, my father methodically strips the meat from the buck’s skin. mother finds comfort in the calculated shedding of being to bread // the systematic exchange of warm // to frigid // to sweltering beneath the brisk heat of the grill. the flame’s anxious tremble. the kindling forged from mortis. the outburst of the brazen body and its divine and magic hands. i call it playing God; mother calls it survival.
that night, i read that up to thirty stars explode in a given second somewhere in the universe, releasing enough energy to light the galaxy for weeks. i ponder what strange sort of magic it takes to devour a supernova, and after research, learn that a star’s life ends when it consumes the entirety of its fuel and is no longer capable of burning. crushed by the calloused grip of sulfur and iron, the star becomes so dense it collapses beneath the weight of its own gravity.
the day you died, 2,592,000 stars exploded somewhere in the universe. i ask God which one he used your body for. i ask God how it feels to be kinetic. he says nothing, but glows.
ELEGY (ii.)
by Ari Lohr
in an instant
the blood runs
and the eyes shut
and the lungs shriek for air.
you ask how i’m feeling,
and i respond
whatever the opposite of weightless is.
and what a sick and sadistic
symphony silence performs.
how strange a song
held breaths compose.
of course
you reject the music and instead
insist on an orchestra of heartbeats and pressed lips
and i make no sound
except the frantic arrangement of tremors and gasps
like the percussion of
skyline and sea
and you glide your fingers along my thigh
and i wonder
if this is how it feels
to will away gravity. again
you ask how i’m feeling,
and i croak out an ensemble of worship
two octaves above my natural voice.
what a brief and beautiful rhythm lust is—
to chant crescendos of tension
and drown in the downbeat.
i tell you i fear the ocean;
you say you’re a strong swimmer.
we kiss,
and for six seconds
i believe it.
ELEGY (iii.)
by Ari Lohr
the man
swallows the bullet and speaks
and from his tongue
spews an opera of hail and wind.
it’s 3 pm and i’m
flying over the atlantic,
and i realize i’m closer
to touching the sun
than i’ll ever be. from above
the water looks
less like an ocean and more
like the fragile waltz of
windows and light. of course
i say waltz when really
i mean weapon. i say light
when really i mean time.
because that window—
if opened—
would kill everyone on this plane
in seconds.
what a bitter and cruel irony it is
to see straight through
your own death with each
inner glance you take.
still
what alluring magic it is to fly;
the seconds before the smoke
makes your nose into an hourglass
of gunshots and rain
and your eyes flood
like the ocean reloads
into barrels of salt,
sweat, and sea.
what a stunning,
brutal beauty that is.
Gravity
by Ari Lohr
TRIGGER WARNING: SELF-HARM, SUICIDE
at a maximum height of 746 feet, the Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular suicide destination in the world. accounting for gravity, it took six seconds to reach the water from the place you jumped.
6.
& with a warm kiss,
you’re gone. six months
after you left
to study physics,
i sift for clues
in research articles
published long before
your death.
5.
as if endlessly grasping
for god’s arm, it
is impossible for two
atoms to touch.
sharing the same charge,
electrons on the outside
of atoms repel each
other. technically speaking,
the closest one gets
to touching something
is hovering just
above it.
4.
i could write
a metaphor for water,
compare the ocean
to god—
say
in the seconds
before impact, you found
yourself in its image,
your arm
outstretched
& shivering in the
kinetic midnight air.
to do so, however,
would imply
that you actually
touched it.
3.
the night you jumped,
it was cold enough
for the sea
to almost
freeze. there,
the current slows with
each moment, as if
each molecule
were an interlude
in your own death.
as your palms hover
just above
the water, i imagine
them, still warm,
cradling a birthday candle
between your lips.
then,
a soft breeze.
your breath melting
in the air forever.
2.
of course,
time is never
really frozen. only,
the larger an object grows,
the longer each second lasts.
in this space,
i have time to ask you why.
i have time to find your mother.
i have time to write this poem. and
another. and another.
what comes from smoke
is more smoke.
what comes from heat is more heat.
in six seconds,
i have spent years
waiting for your return.
1.
despite centuries of research,
physicists are woefully unable
to explain gravity.
although undocumented,
it’s believed that gravity
has an equal and opposite force
somewhere in the universe.
in this way,
we are never truly apart.
somewhere, a place exists
where the air
does not heat
& the sea does
not thaw &
you are still
there
as you were once,
wings endlessly spread.
truthfully, Luka,
my pen
is the only force
keeping gravity from
killing you
a second time.
i don’t fight
for extra seconds;
i just write the clock
differently. each day,
i close my eyes &
count down
until, again,
you are right here.
sometimes,
i swear
if i reached out at night
i could graze your arm,
wet with longing, as if
each finger
were a passing wave
on your skin. but just
as i remember
atoms can’t touch,
my hand slips
& again
there is nothing
but moist air and darkness.
even though
i am always disappointed,
i still hope
the ink dries
before tomorrow,
or at least—
0.
Plant Nanny
by Ari Lohr
TRIGGER WARNING: SELF-HARM, SUICIDE
i have this app called Plant Nanny—
basically, you have a virtual plant in your phone.
every time you drink a glass of water,
you tell your phone,
and your little plant is watered too.
you can either water it,
let it grow,
foster it,
or you can watch it wilt.
of course, being a responsible,
competent college student, i
let it die within the first week.
i have learned a lot from this plant app—
like, when you see a virtual plant
die in front of you,
it does not motivate you to drink more
water, but it does motivate you
to feel really fucking guilty about yourself.
i have this thing called my mind—
every time you do something healthy,
your brain senses it,
and your mind lights up too.
you can either water it,
let it grow,
foster it,
or you can watch it die.
of course, being a responsible,
competent college student,
i have long felt
depression’s parched, calloused grip
around my throat.
depression’s parched, calloused grip
and desert lips.
i have learned a lot from my diagnosis—
like, when you see your own body
evaporate in front of you
it does not motivate you to drink more
water, but it does motivate you
to feel really fucking guilty about yourself.
you see, mental health is like a garden.
you can either water it,
let it grow,
foster it,
or you can neglect it,
watch it wilt,
watch it wither.
sometimes,
it’s the small things—
pruning the split ends
from my hair
like dead branches.
avoiding the shower
for a week, then,
running my fingers
dry along my scalp,
dandruff drifting
in the air
like a swarm of dandelion
seeds in the sizzling summer breeze.
my brother
telling me
to just go outside,
that if only
you had a little more sunlight
or just drank some more water
you would be fine.
sometimes,
i wonder if i should
just die. like,
i only thought about this plant
once i saw it had already wilted.
why is watering myself
the hardest thing i’ve ever done?
like,
again, i’m lying awake
at night—rose-petal ribs
and poison-ivy palms—
petrified of my own
drought.
but isn’t it funny
how the moon
always turns a firefly
into a phoenix? like,
my own mind
is an invasive species
i can’t fight off.
what is this pain
if not perennial?
every year
on my birthday,
i awake to a new
red-ring scar engraved
on my tree-trunk limbs.
i’ve spent years
dealing with self harm—
wet wrists
and dry tongue.
sometimes,
i saturate my skin
and germinate
my guts,
my spine
a nursery of dread.
if i could mutate my mouth,
i would.
if i could fertilize my fear,
i would.
if i could drink fucking water
without exhausting myself,
i would. you see,
self-care is like a garden—
you can either water it,
let it grow,
foster it,
or
you can neglect it,
watch it wilt,
watch it bleed,
i cut myself open
and rip out each vein
like a weed.
i am always thirsty,
but i am too busy
baptizing my bones in blood
to get a glass of water.
i can’t keep a
virtual plant alive
—not even
the fucking cactus—
because i
am too crazy
to remember
that if i don’t drink water,
it will die before i do.
when my brother asks
if i am feeling any better
after his advice,
i tell him that,
truthfully,
every night i imagine myself—
somewhere—
beneath six feet of dirt.
About the Author
Ari Lohr is a wannabe-astronaut-turned-poet attending university in Boston, MA. He is a Brave New Voices semifinalist, and has performed at various local and regional slams such as Slamlandia, Portland Poetry Slam, Verselandia, and more. Ari’s poetry focuses on the gravity between mental health, LGBTQ advocacy, grief, love, and a variety of other themes. He has been published in numerous magazines including the Big Windows Review, and is set to appear in various publications including the Incandescent Review and the Kalopsia Literary Journal later in 2020. He is also an editor for the Bitter Fruit Review magazine. Ari can be found on Instagram as @i.o.jupiter.