the first time i cry watching u skate im lying in bed with your milano cortina short program & ‘my promise’ echoing thru the stadium & the walls of my room

i feel an ache in my heart and that’s not a metaphor, i think there might actually be something seriously wrong with my literal heart

 

*

 

i go thru ur instagram and make a playlist of every song you’ve ever posted, only to find out that someone named lissy’s already made that playlist, titled ‘alysa liu: every song alysa has posted on her ig and more.’

 

*

 

i have to resign myself to the fact that my new crush is much more famous than my last, and many more people will be equally if not more obsessed with her than me, that someone might even one day write something better about alysa than this

 

*

 

on the phone to my girlfriend i bring up alysa liu because i saw that she was following her and so thought it’d be ground for mutual admiration, and because my girlfriend brings up the olympics first, i repeat the same thing i’ve heard every commentator say: it’s so crazy how it doesn’t even look like she’s performing, she looks like she’s just out there having fun, but my gf doesn’t like this, she says great, the way she always does when she’s jealous

 

*

 

on the way to yoga with my mom, i play the playlist of every song you’ve ever posted on instagram, and my mom hums along, and i like that, and think it’s cute, that my mom would think you have good taste in music

 

*

 

i wonder what ur favorite animal is, and whether u have a collection of them in ur bedroom. probably a racoon, i think, or an angel. alysa liu’s spirit animal is definitely an angel

 

*

 

today i told my mom i keep staying up late, even when i’m tired, and lied when i said i didn’t know why. it’s because of you. i can’t stop watching videos of you skating to songs i’ve never heard of but already love, they enter my ears the same way your skating enters my eyes, seamlessly, as tho slicing thru me, and that’s what it feels like, like that vivi hayes tweet about how when her first crush posted anything online it felt like she was being stabbed, or like that untitled margaret atwood poem where she says, you fit into me / like a hook into an eye // a fish hook / an open eye, and it really does feel like you’re stabbing me every time i watch you skate, like you’re shanking me on a battlefield that i knew i was going to die on anyway, and so am happy to be on the ground, because it means the worst part’s over, the fear, and now all that’s left is to enjoy the pain of dying, which is no pain at all, since it’s your blade sending me into the afterlife, where i hope to see you again, and where you say i will, as you bring the blade to my throat and remove my ability to speak

 

*

 

just sent u a dm saying “hi! super random but i’m writing a short story about u & was wondering if you’d wanna read it when it’s finished! no presh obvvv, huge fan :)”

idk why i did that

i definitely shouldn’t’ve done that

it was 1:11am so i thought maybe it being my birth time would give me good luck

 

*

 

if someone came up to me and said would you date alysa liu i’d say my love for alysa liu is not so lustful, okay? i respect her as an artist, alysa liu is my goat. i would never destroy the purity and sanctity of my love for alysa liu

 

*

 

i go to the grocery store & gamble my heart with a bottle of chianti. when i’m home i try reading but can’t, then turn to your tiktoks, which help me recognize the platform’s temporal thematics, how the app’s name is literally onomatopoeia

tiktok, the only social media that reminds me of death

 

*

 

today while calling my gf as i kicked a tennis ball in my backyard i tried telling her about the project where i’m plagiarizing micro fictions from the last twenty years and building a polyvocal novel out of them, but all she brought up was copyright infringement. i think it’s interesting, actually, how the book won’t be able to be bought or sold, how it’ll evade capitalism by refusing to exist within the marketplace, i said, then, you’re never excited by anything i say

 

*

 

someone threw a pink plushie on the ice after ur gaga performance and im wondering if that’s yours or a fan’s? do fans throw plushies on the ice instead of roses? is that what people do?

 

*

 

i keep watching you, not because i love you, or ever could, but because you help me cry more than i otherwise would

 

*

 

i heard ur dad spent millions on u, had u thru surrogacy, sent u to the best japanese coaches, etc, and im like u know what, good for him, good for u, what an awesome dad, doing everything to make sure yours and his dreams came true

 

*

 

i can’t even be mad at anyone who’s in love with you, not even carlo, who already has a gf who looks like lea seydoux, not even then am i mad, because i understand, i genuinely get it

 

*

 

w sickysab it was different. you have less posts than her, the scarcity of which only increases my desire, plus the fact that sickysab’s a microceleb, not a literal olympian gold medalist, so the distance wasn’t so great with her, but with you it’s actually impossible, there’s no concert i could ever conceivably meet you at, you’re actually this time completely out of reach, which only makes me more obsessed, since desire is defined by lack, you can’t desire what you already have, or you can, but you’ll always want even more what you don’t

 

*

 

it’s so obvious this is a nationalistic psyop to get americans back on board w the idea of supporting the country via olympian proxy, but i don’t actually care, because i care more about alysa liu than i care about the united states of america

 

*

 

u look so losercore w/o make up in that parking lot in an oversized red tee and i love it, u kinda have the same rizz as @ihaveagrlmouth on instagram, who at one point said ‘guys i know im a girl but if ur a guy thats into me theres gotta be something a little queer about u’

 

*

 

ur younger sister selena was so right when she said a new environment really stimulates ur brain, that’s literally the entire phenomenology underpinning the poetics of my whole life project

 

*

 

in ur st louis vlog you say “guys you will never guess where i’m at” but i know you’re on the corner of walnut and 10th bc of the street signs behind ur head

 

*

 

o shit, that was actually really cool seeing u in the hallway on ur way to do more media stuff when u were like some ppl say uh-lee-suh, or some people say it the usual way, bc ppl are always like how do u say ur name to me, and when i tell ppl idc how they say it theyre like no surely you care a lot abt how ppl say ur name and when i insist that i dont, that they can say it however they want, they get really uncomfortable with not being told exactly how they should say my name, probably bc theyre so afraid of saying it wrong, even when there’s no right way of saying it

 

*

 

soundcloud tells me lil peep just dropped a posthumous beat but idgaf about posthumous lil peep all i care abt is alysa liu

 

*

 

it’s the feeling that you get from skating that you care about, and it’s the feeling that i get when u say that it’s the feeling that u get from skating that you care about that i care about, & i dont rlly kno where im going w this but i just wanted to say thank you at some point in this whole thing so consider this me being grateful

 

*

 

@drewpavlou on twitter says “I would die to defend Alyssa Liu. Seriously if I was at an event and we were attacked by Islamic terrorists and they were about to kill Alyssa I would 100% sacrifice myself to defend her. I would try to wrestle the gun off them even if it meant certain death. If they had a suicide vest I would just crash tackle them and absorb the blast.”

@amorgosoid says “would you suck the islamic terrorists’ cocks to save alysa liu?”

@drewpavlou says “that’s a step too far”

but not for me 

nothing’s a step too far for me

i would certainly suck the islamic terrorists' cocks to save alysa liu

 

*

 

when at the press conference u talk abt how a low point isnt a low point but a learning point, & how u wish there are more moments like that for u in the future, you change how i look at my life and suddenly im glad i’m not where i want to be, writing the poems i know i can, because it forces me to try new things. sometimes it’s good to be desperate, to not know what to do, because then you do things you’d never, & anyways it’s always a blessing to be humbled by you

 

*

 

alysa, i love u bc u dont think anything’s going to be hard, and it isn’t

“what is there to lose? every second youre there youre gaining something, there’s nothing to be lost, you know what i’m saying”

i know exactly what you’re saying, alysa, and i agree

it’s like when trump said nothing bad can happen it can only good happen

 

*

 

when at the same press conference amber glenn says you’re not supposed to say what you just said, i’m glad u said it, bc there’s nothing to lose, which amber would’ve known if she’d been listening to you

 

*

 

the fact that the reason u did the halo rings was bc u wanted to be a tree……

i love trees

i love them more than anything

but not more than i love you

 

*

 

the way u blow off a bad performance like, ‘i wanna do clean jumps, cos like i know i can do them, so its a little bit frustrating.. and like im pretty sure its cos i tied my skates too tight and thats so annoying cos like why did i do that… that’s so easily avoidable… but you know what it’s totally okay, it’s totally okay, silly mistake’ is so inspiring bc when i tied my laces too tight before a high school basketball game my feet got so swollen that i lost my spot on the starting line up and never got it back, or over it, not until now, hearing u talk

 

*

 

i heart the reel of u saluting the star spangled banner & ur face fading into the flag, and the one of u celebrating gold w “vampire” written over it, and the one that zooms in on ur eye & takes us to agartha, to UFO’s flying over the ocean, and nuclear warfare simulations, and likewise the one announcing u as agartha’s first waysian ambassador, and the one of u pretending to shoot a bow & arrow at the camera as u come out onto the ice, and all the ones w carti’s “Olympian” playing in the background, and the one that looks like it was shot in 8k where youre spreading the corners of ur mouth w ur pinkies, which u often do, revealing ur frenulum smiley piercing, and the one of you after winning saying where’s my lipstick wait my lipstick, reapplying the semi-dark cherry gloss while u check urself out in the camera’s reflection before going out to receive your medal and applause and standing ovation, and all the ones w the song that says never seen a girl this perfect, sticking out ur tongue for the picture, you're so pretty, you're so popular, and the one of @dreadfuladventures putting u on vhs, and the one where you say my main goal for this competition was to mog, so hopefully i did that, and the one where you say alysa liu is from the bayyy, and the one where you say winning isn’t all that, and neither is losing, it’s just something that happens, it’s the outcome, but what matters is the input and the journey, and the one where you reveal ur a fan of my little pony, rainbow dash being ur favorite, and the one set to king krule’s ‘out getting ribs’ where you say take those breaks, you need them, and don’t let anyone push you past your breaking point, you are the only one who knows your limit, and you know yourself, i would say every athlete should take a break, or not even just athlete, every person, take a break from that life that you’re so stuck in, because stepping back will give you such a different perspective, and you learn so much, and that’s what life is about, learning, to which i cried, thinking about my girlfriend, and the one where u say u don’t view other skaters as competition, but as independent artists, and the one where you say you’re just happy that you connected w the audience and that ppl got to see ur dress, and the montage of u smiling and celebrating set to the song ‘assumptions’, and the one meme that says why are u so quiet what’s on ur mind and it’s a drawing of a guy with a video of ur gala performance playing in his head, and all the snow strippers edits, and the pic of u smiling w “when there is lowkey hope again” written over your face, and the meme of a guy in an MRI asking Doc how does it look and the Doc on his desktop watching u hit zara larsson’s 'boots' saying hold on fam

 

*

 

when i find out ur a lesbian, i’m glad bc that means no other guy can have u

 

*

 

now that i know that messing up doesn’t take away from anything, that it’s still something, it’s still a story, that a bad story is still a story, i think that's beautiful, and there's no way to lose, so i think i’ll follow thru w my micronovel, since i love to struggle, and it makes me feel alive, too

 

*

 

at the doctor’s office, dr. keane points at my upturned palms and says to the medical student shadowing him: see how pink they are? good blood flow