Lately I’ve been listening to the Oceans:
Frank, Vuong, Pacific
Lately I’ve been writing from all angles. It’s a word I can’t spell anymore without writing angels first, then deleting it. I used to write the name of this city as Los Angles until I started to hear it in Spanish in my head and never mistook a godly creature for the space between two intersecting lines again.
Ocean {Vuong} writes: 
There is a space between us intersecting but maybe that’s just cause we spelled angels wrong.
{Frank} Ocean released an album in this, my favorite month, with two spellings and won’t tell us which is right. I’ve been driving around Los Angeles listening to Blond(e) wishing everything but this album could have turned out different.
I drive past the Elliot Smith mural on Sunset Blvd where so many peoples’ ghosts are married to each others’ past presences there. I think how if there were a way to photograph duration for longer than it takes all the light in a moment to enter the lens, we could capture everyone who’s ever stood at that mural in one wide frame. This is where I hold space for us. This impossible imaginary of us and everyone leaning against the Figure 8 wall. When I drive by this place, Frank sings this is not my life, it’s just a fond farewell to a friend and I think of mornings listening to Elliot Smith alone in my apartment but not alone in my apartment.
{Frank} Ocean sings:
Twice a week I go to the Pacific. It’s the only ocean that says nothing, just listens but I’m not the only one who goes there to cry. Or rather, it says everything in a loud hush.
When I lie face down in the sand, ear to the earth, I can hear my own heart beat. Lately I’ve been writing poems. Lately I’ve been trying to write my way out of this. Or into it.
Eight years ago today I fell in love for what feels like the first time. But most certainly wasn’t the last. Because I’d do anything for you means nothing if it’s only (in the dark). The Oceans seem to know where my heart’s at, not just because they can hear it beating, but because they can beat it back to me just the same.
- Ocean Vuong & I say:
- Frank Ocean & I say:
3. The Pacific Ocean & I say:
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