Jaiden Geolingo

Litany In 90 Degrees

Every day I’m full of heat. Our throats are full
of acid. It’s too early to howl like this, too heavy

of a morning. If you look out the window sill, the gravel
threatens us with lava. We fight back with origami fans

that blow typhoon squalls. And here is where the world thickens
into a boiling point. Your sweat ringed like a flaxen engagement.

An afterimage of gnats tremoring in our retinas. Do you love this.
This mourning of heat mirages. The odes I write always regressing

to burning elegies; I hope you can curb each vestige.
You know better: these stories always tend to end

in fireworks. I’ll have you stand at the nucleus of this
explosion. I’ll have you witnessing this genesis. My hands.

How it travels in symmetry, and sometimes, it never does. How
it tries to reach you. This can end in many ways, you unbridled

thing. This version will end in a gospel of hurt. Sometimes love.
Sometimes it’ll have us salsa-dancing, and I’d admit we look so good.

With your sweat-swathed palm, please brush away the molasses strand
of hair from my eyes. I want you to look into my irises

and unspool something lukewarm. I want you to hurriedly
start dreaming. I want you to forget how to say sorry. Just like that.

Jaiden Geolingo is a Pinoy writer based in Georgia, United States, and the author of How to Migrate Ghosts (kith books, 2025). His work has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation, the Georgia Council for the Arts, Bennington College, and the Alliance for Young Writers & Artists, among others. A finalist for the Georgia Poet Laureate’s Prize and a 2025 National YoungArts Winner, his writing appears or is forthcoming in diode poetry journal, The Poetry Society, Atlanta Magazine, The Shore, and elsewhere.