2:51 am – Lue “LIKETHEHIGHWAY” Khoury

April 26, 2026

there is a heaviness in my heart, and I just can’t place it
it watches me eat,
murmured commentary of a mother-in-law or that one friend from elementary school
you know the one, the one you wish you were
the one who wished you weren’t, the one your mom always had a bad feeling about
the one who was a little too flirty with your boyfriend, but,
it doesn’t matter now cus you’re a lesbian, so it never really mattered anyway

but there is a heaviness in my heart, or more so, where my heart should be
be beating

but instead it’s quicksand and Big League Chew like that dream I have where I’m chewing and chewing and my mouth is full of this yellow goo, and maybe it’s Juicy Fruit and not Big League Chew, but either way I’m crying and screaming and my teeth are fussing turning into my gums and I can’t open my mouth because it’s just so full of that yellow yellow goo and I’m ripping my mouth open, tearing it out, sacrifyicing my nail beds, loosing my fingers inside of it it fighting for my breath to no avail because it never stops and I’m choking on it an crying untill I wake up sweating

and the heaviness is watching me
and it is laughing

tonight, it takes the shape of the shadow cast by my coat rack

there is no monster under my bed, it is in the closet where I met it.
there is no monster under my bed, it is in the ceiling, a mobile of masochism
screaming me a lullaby and painting me an insomniac, there is no monster under my bed, it is in my chest where my heart should be
be beating
it is in my head where my thoughts should be
I fear it is in me
I fear it is me

there is a heaviness in my chest and sometimes it claws it’s way through me
up my sternum, through my spine, wringing my neck and perching on my shoulders
I made friends with it when I was a child. We made faces in the mirror,
It told me it was a secret I kept I should keep.
in the back seats of cars, we dreamt of becoming road kill
I envied the squirrels squished under tires, but knew I would leave a bigger stain
so I guess that makes me better.
more important

Better than something that was weak enough to die, to become the heaviness.
Better than becoming someone else’s heaviness. Important enough to be able to.
Important enough to have a heaviness to wear like a badge of honor,
Proof of strength: validated.
Important enough to be stoic.
To hide the heaviness.

The heaviness is not always crushing.
On days when it’s 68 and sunny, when the wind kisses your skin so softly, you forget it’s there.
On days when you don’t need a sweater, it is lighter, even floating, even not there.

When the heaviness meets a similar shape, sometimes they run off together, and I can stretch my neck and my shoulders. wring out my spine and breathe a little deeper.

Ruby told me she dreams of the goo too. We smoke cigarettes and talk about death and let our heaviness run away, making a makeshift playground of the street,
and we watch them like exhausted parents drowning in sleep debt
and though we are describing our dream tombstones
I don’t feel like dying.
At least not yet.

Lila told me that sometimes she feels like her heart is running away from her body and her soul is calling it back,
I feel like this when I say the wrong thing, when I meet new people, when I’m at the grocery store, or when I have to order food,
This is not the heaviness it is almost too light,
Unteathered
I think I like the heaviness better
Even though I almost became it
I think I like the heaviness better
It tethers me
Turning me to concrete
But not roadkill
Because baba stood over me with an umbrella as I laid trying to wash my heaviness in the rain
Trying to make it cleaner

Ali and I smoke cigarettes under his new favorite tree, he shows me his heaviness, and I show him mine. It’s not 68 degrees and sunny in fact, it’s drizzling and nighttime, but still, I feel our heavinesses have made friends with each other and grown smaller, and the heaviness is lighter but I am not
unteathered