everythings cold

cars are the dominant species on this planet. Adams had it right. and so did the other adams, we're just star dust after all. I sat at the top of my parking garage, a hundred feet above that which I'm trying to avoid, and its all I could think about. I was frozen physically and figuratively. I hate the holidays, especially being broke and seeing money just being thrown away for junk. Junk that I sell happily but falsely to anyone. I love my job, but only the part where Im a kid in a candy store running frantically to the next hot item. I hate the consumer ideology yet I follow its creed to the letter.

thousands millions billions of us all scrambling and jostling for what they believe make others happy and I try to make only myself happy and fail. No one's to blame, but I'll do it anyway, the winter. Literally life threatening to stay outdoors, the one place I find solace, and being broke cuts the chances I can "be" freely.

I suppose thats enough, I dont want to be late for work.

how it used to be

pick it up and look now, it's okay to look.
it's nothing new, it's all the same.
or, really, it's how it used to be.
well, you've changed a little.
but i'm the same. i think.
alright, i'll be honest, it's all different.
different than it's been recently, i mean.
it's the way it used to be, don't you understand?
it's not how it was, but it's how we started.
all this time i thought you wanted to begin again.
my mistake. i'd re-do it if i could.
but i can't.
so you'll have to be content with the way we've left things.
because we have left them, haven't we?
or maybe we're leaving them.
but it's how we began, anyway. don't you remember?
i suppose i don't either.

what I havent got yet

just for a time, we should all allowed to be the people we want to be. I want to see what it would be like to be lost in the woods. To live in a log cabin by myself or with a dog. To be a professional anything through which opinion matters. I want to try to be in a failing relationship, or a new upcoming one, or an aggresive one, or a dull one. I want all of my friends to hate me and disrespect me., to spit in my path as I go about my day. I want to eat right, work out, be lazy and binge. I want a disease, some life consuming bout of sickness to sap me of all desire. I want cancer. I want euthanizing drugs. I want a family, both one to see me off with cancer, and one to just live happy with. I want a society of innocents; ignorant people sure, but happy. I want to live in the city, in the slums of new york. Skid row and have it feel natural. I want to fly. To swim without fear. to roll in the grass down a hill in summer. to jump in more leaf piles. To break bones, to injure myself. To do dangerous things just for the scars, the stories. Reading books. Reading magazines. Reading newspapers. to be an intricate part of the world and to watch from the side lines. to see the rise and fall of things like the economy, moral values, religious movements and tectonic shifts. Just bring it. All of it. I dare you.

A Revisit Mutilated

Somewhere in the middle, I got to have my fantasy. Its brief like most men and all I do is sit.

After he takes off all his clothes, I say no.

And you see, maybe the problem was, I wanted to teach him color theory with my mouth.

.......

I had a dream last night in which I considered the morning, afternoon and night of a bullet as it traveled on the way to its destination.

.......

Last night, all I knew were the bloodstains on my pillow and how difficult it was to fall back asleep.

......

I’ve had my anger, my repulsion, my jealousy. I’ve mourned and celebrated you. You are the story I love to tell. The story necessary for those who want to know me. And in all of our destruction, we’ve never destroyed each other.

......

So the pressure, followed by the relief, my ability to disappear just like you. But now, pressing, like teeth against skin, sinking deeper, pain masked by the dance of the tongue. Deeper, begging to bruise... do you bruise?

......

Eager enthusiasm is my dis-ease.

why do all girls drag their feet?

they weigh less than most men, so burden is no physical issue.

they wear sneakers like men. So footwear isnt a valid arguement

is it a way to get into our heads?

I know it distracts me. Why cant the soles be picked up?

Is it really that hard to separate foot from floor?

tell me why, as I ask in every entry.

please, for the love of everything,

stop ruining shoes and defiling floor tiles.

pick up your feet and move

sunspots and candy dots

one last stand and Im no tlaone any more. Theese peeps wont stand idly by to watch the consumption of such an important ally. no more will the prosspcful doctors and lawyers watch the sick die young and unjust. My kids will live, and if not, I wont blame the doctors and lawers, I wont scream a lords name in vain. I wont seek revenge unless I need to.

happy go lucky and I, all a flutter. leaving it all to chance, and I cant really say what will return of it.

nothing here is in my control, Im succumbing to it all. let if flow, and if it flows angry and uphill, so. be. it.

dear red

cup me up in your palm tips in your cathedral ribcage behind your oak doors behind your weigh lines behind your latitudinous planes all croos roads and vigor.

the simple spit of salt and peper.

the thin thin thin. the tintinnabulation of baldness.

stop thinking, start working

so what today?

more happy go lucky sundance tales of yore?

or more recent complaints over internal systems?

or maybe a startling new revelation which I will now share with every audience?

na

ya

maybe

not until this jargon sparks a conversation with a reader will any of this have any point, so until its all been seen, whats the purpose?

jargon is a word I enjoy tossing simply because it means to me the junk, the waste, the flotsam and jetsam of whatever Im referring to. thats what this is. my Flotsam and Jetsam. Ariel's eels, taunting her with failure and obliteration. Tide pool trash. washing along unnoticed until some sob walking their dog discovers it under their sandal. The smell of low tide, actually a smell I enjoy. It reminds me after all that Im at a beach, and no fowl smell will change that. I guess its one of the few things to be thankful for, and not whiney about. Where else can on get premium salt water taffy at a steal? where else can lobster be as guiness in ireland? where else is it not only customary to feed the guls, but to revere them as its their domain? Its no wonder homes are so expensive there, and still its wondrous how the home owners could complain about a little natural thing like the smell every 9 hours when I would happily trade places.

we dont all know what to be thankful for. Maybe thats why thanksgiving has never really been that epic to me.

3 more

George Castanza needed to go up 5 flights because he forgot something important in his apartment. He starts for the elevator and I start berating him for being lazy. So I jump in the elevator with him to point him of his wrongdoings. We start up, its only 5 flights, but its 5 flights like willy wonka would have it. We're plastered to the walls, the ceiling, the floor, tripping out as we soared through space, through the clouds into the ground. We finally got to the 5th floor, and I know understood why George took the elevator.

A group of us were working construction or something by a river, and it was in the middle of night and time for me to quit. I make for my car, but I cant remember off hand where my keys or my car are. Thats when I get the sense that Im not alone, the pack has realized that Im alone and helpless. I hear one of them behind me, then 2 beside me, and I hear the scream of the hunter as its pouncing for me. I scramble for my keys, find them, press the unlock button and dive into my car. I peel out of the lot with a hunter at my passenger window, and I drive for miles in the south before I turn back. Its midafternoon by the time I return, and everyone is surprised Im still alive.

Two tanks were battling, and I thought, Great! they can kill eachother, and we dont have to worry. They heard me say that, and decided to join forces. Each of them turned to uber scary deceptacons, and were pursuing me. I think the trippy elevator will be safe. I jump in and pull my own personal autobot from my back pocket. By the time I reach the 5th floor I have a metalic heroic transformed cat at my side, ready to take on the double threat.

I wake up yet again.

in advance of a mental breakdown

I had a dream where we became friends again, and you told me I was missed. things became easier afterwards, then I woke up and realized again that it will probably never happen.

I had another dream where I knew it was a dream, but I couldnt control it like people say we should be able to. It was sorta Lucid I guess, but I couldnt fly, couldnt even jump more than 6 feet in the air.

I had a dream that was like everyday. It was a text asking for lunch, only to be awoken by a text asking me for lunch.

Everyday I wake to dreams becoming dreams becoming dreams. I catch myself in shock and awe in the fact that some of it ISNT a dream while others unfortunately are. And I reprimand myself for ever doubting the realities I've so easily dismissed as dreamt, and grow fierce when I feel tricked into a world I cant have.

7 behind

shouldne even be etaking the time to rambel there. no time but the little I have tp workd. why then do i insist on doing this to myself? I never ussed to be a student like this, Ivee always beena procrastinator but I;ve never slacked this bad. typing too fast to spell correctly, not even looking tathe screen, barely hitting backspace. watnt to just rest atop my parking garage back home. 5 stories a bove all other problems, alone with the birds, and church steeples. no one disturbs me, and I have a large desert of concrete to befreind. I can read, I can walk, I can breath slow, can smile. why cant i find any other place like that? That seems to be THE place. the place was searching for all summer long. I had thought I couldve found a lake or a place by the river to set up a hammock and bring a lunch with a book, but I never got around to finding JUST THE RIGHT PLACE. It was in concord the entire time, I have the parking garage now, just in time for winter to settle in and take it away from me, then spring to rain on, then summer when the tourists will fill up that desert and take all the privacy away from me. DAmn. but where then else? I cant take any of the woods, the mosquitos will make sure of that. no river or lake. casue all the places I find are places Id have to share. I cant find any clearings, they all lead to someone's backyard. I cant choose a building, cause that would destrpy the point. I need the seclusion, I need the privacy., I want to be sorta like Alexander Supertramp. He found a perfect spot (or so he thought) and he was happy for a time., thats all I want, only without the whole dead thing...

so anyway, these chapter summeries wont write themselves, I guess io can look away from the computer now.,,

circular desires

she thinks it's funny when he extends his arms and spins around in a circle. she laughs and even sometimes curls up on the floor inside her laughter, comfortable and confined. he doesn't do it to entertain her, he does it 'cause he thinks he'll turn into a tornado someday. he knows that by any conventional rules of science or reality it won't ever happen, but he doesn't care. he's like that cartoon with the penguin that tries to fly. so he don't got the wings. small detail.

he gets so dizzy he throws up sometimes, but she keeps laughing in her little space on the floor. it's all funny to her, his illusions and his dreams and his vomit down his shirt. when he sees her laughing he wants to laugh, too, but he'll rinse out his mouth with scope first. he'll kneel down and wrap his arms around that little ball she makes on the floor. they'll stay there for a long time, small on the floor where no one can see them.

feverpitch

feever fed this arctic snarrl on her lips, how she draws those canines
bearing fetid fresh-this is how it feels as the sweats descend and im doing
my best to trnslaet this to you in letters but i hope you don't understnad.

fearless and fearful the tribultaions how many ways they crossed the desert
and you she plotted the depths of the stars reflected in pebbles and particles
of the sandy spanse aliteration plot invaulable fagaries and vasilot tweeds.

exactly what you think it is. exactly what the person says through teeth and
tongue. how the patches. how the kneecaps. how the zany collapse like thin
creed. is this writing. is this roticulation. is this rotor mount. is this the way

we understand the constructions. the ship sails out of port at mornign and
i'll eb on it, waving. the shore sinks. the buildings steam and the boilers burts
and we know it'll all come down to pieces in the end, just like a juggle of dice.

The package said, Extra Soft, but I bought it because I had a coupon.

It happens at least once a week now. I don’t have any control over it and I don’t think any particularly special thoughts before falling asleep. I don’t focus in upon, obsess quietly about, or even ponder it in passing. Mostly before falling asleep, I attempt to masturbate, realizing yet again that I forgot to look at porn for some new inspiration and get by on what juicy tidbits I’ve cataloged in my brain. And no, I can’t tell you what turns me on, I’m shy to the language involved.

And yet, come the dream, come the subconscious, whether its set in a dusty western town, or down wet New England roads, the same action finds it way, the same feeling, almost a comfort coming as a tickle on the heart, a slip of a grin during a dark moment.

I can rationalize it for you, I can break it down and make it simple. Explain the reoccurrence, the stutter of the mind, the stubborn situation that brings it up. An attempt to make the unknown familiar, an attempt to get closer, to feel closer and a small measure of satisfaction.

At least once a week now, and I can’t tell you I look forward to it happening but on the mornings it does, I try harder to remember…

beat beat beat

Sometimes you wonder if this is it.
He's got feet like a monster.
Turn the pages til you get papercuts.
Beat, beat, beat, there's a rhythm in there somewhere, I'm just not qualified enough to recognize it.

long day

What is this? simply my id being jealous? or something more? I thought these thougts were gone, but no, they were jsut repressed. I still feel like i've always felt. Nothings changed about me except my manners. I wonder if that IS all thats changed. I know I care less for many things, and on the same side I feel more care and compasion for things I once didnt. I sound the same, look the same, i thought I acted the same, but I guess not.

Is it better? I mean to everyone else?

I spent a third of a year telling myself to focus on the me, and less on the once was. I spent 4 months being selfish, and thinking this is allfor me. I should live to the fullest, becaase IM here and no one else. cant have it be wasted no can I?

but thats rubbed off now, and Im here, talking about it, for you and others to read if you'd like.

I need to be more polite methinks. I dont really know if that will help but I dont like that I came back truely different. I thought it would be an enlightening experience but now that I know its happened, I wish it didnt happen. I cant control the world.

I dont believe in solipsism. Existentialism drives me wild.

how can we believe as beings that everything has purpose,

likewise, how can we believe we're completely random?

to believe we're random, I feel its too much to ponder existence then. We shouldnt ponder our life if we're jsut a cosmic accident!

but the flip side, whats the purpose? I see strangers everyday that look unhappy or dull. We all do. We invent stories, and forget them. In our minds eye we swap out the faces with any one can imagine. Its days like these that make me question being an artiest, it makes me feel pointless and angry and afraid to know that Im one of these failed participents on existence. Im part of the same system

how i write in my notebook

odor of vinegar --- i read about five
that always seems --- girls whose lives had
to follow around --- been irrepearably harmed
There was a dog --- by the men who had layd
once named vinegar --- hands upon them and the
because he was short --- words that had caught
and sour like bukowski --- in their throats because
who loved women and --- weakness had betrayed
loved his pecker and --- them. I wonder what
the story of words --- the eyes of their children
that flowed around --- are like. the three yeard old
them one and all. --- clutches a bottle of soda
Huidobro takes about --- half his size. All I
the divine creativity --- can smell is paper and
the revery that takes --- ink. What are the value
the poet and all I --- of these words anyway?
get is the low rage --- moving on to the word
I feel below my --- around me I have left
stomach that I --- the past behind for now
want to pinch off --- except in the context
to keep from polluting --- of colors and silence that
any blood vessels --- have had an influence on
the beating of the --- the the way i take my
heart is a simple --- sucks up and ball them
furious motion in --- in the corner with that
the historical context ---
of things. ---

Windex

The smell of memories. I was so small, so high pitched, so innocent. JKujst excited to spend the day with my dad while at work. Those were my favoirte times during winter snow storems and school cancellations. I was allowed to help my dad clean the store. He let me wash the display cases with windex and a neatly folded paper towel. I would go over the seams over and over where the dried glue was showing. The smell stays with me now. Like

Bagelworks, and its smell of coffee. Hot cocoa and chocolate chip brownies for those winter breakfasts. I lived with those smells and the 123 inch tv and a stack of VHSs. My little lego sets too.

Our brains are our time machines brining us back to the past to an extreme not like the original. TImes bubble up and flash memory is always apparent. I remember Joe Tore telling me baout Christina and I under the couch in 4th grade. A flash of PCC, lost connecting memory there. Somehow flash to the cute and flirty asian girl at the museum of science. Oh right, Christina and I went there once. Our only date. Dates outside Dating.

Its all dead now, just more memories. more dissolving time travel. Jy dog. I had a dog. Her name was Saffron, Saffy for short. She died 3 days before my 13th birthday. ti cam over to console me. I remeber I was worried once that my mom got into a car accident on my 10th brithday. the day papa and I rearranged the furninture in my room for the first time. And now. in the present its so empty. Devoid of spectacular spectacular detail. only memories here now. and it fels like a very different place. Ive never had sex in this room but I have. I once had a Knex armada in the corner where my bed used to be/my dexk sued to be/where my closet used to be/where my camera trunk is. The carpet was pale in comparison to the child colors. my carpet shines comfortable now, and I wish I could take it with me now. Every inceh, even the tack holes: my memories. Flash bulbing and windexing my life.

Windexing my life.

Oct 6

A group of us had a plan.  We needed to feed

We would cut the power to the house, at the box in the basement.  

Chris would have NO CHOICE but to come down to turn the power back on.  Even if he brought his nerf pistol, the pitch blackness would force blindness.

I was going to pounce.

So the time draws near, and the stunned brethren join me in the basement for the spectacle.  

We cut the power.

He opens the basement door, but the hall light is still on, he would be able to see us as he turned the corner.  

How was the power still on for that light?!

He begins to descend anyway, and the brethren start to giggle in anticipation for my impending kill.

He hears the giggling. Dammit.

He runs back upstairs, and I chase after him.  I've got nothing to lose now.

He shoots me in the head, the nerf dart pricks me with the same "HA-HA" feeling Mr. Church was giving me with his eyes as he waited for me to ascend the stairs.

I wake up

the three tan bags

a trio like every other.

but its mine.

decaydelay

in the basement building the father with his son
who sleeps touches his cheek adjusts the strand
of hair on his frehead and proceeds
to tell him his future as he dreams how he will grow old
and his bones will be dust but fulfilleda nd how
there will be statues and also how he
will fall in love and how the palpitations
will dictate a course -- also he will speak
of sunsets the sun sleeping in the ocean and he will
speak of the future in uncertain terms because this a world of earthquakes and he will talk about the love between men and how tht isn't to be neglected for the way
best friends will drop off cliffs--hetells his son all of the lesson
he learned watching his father cast stones into the water counting the times they skipped. when the boy woke his father had gone.
this sort of thing always ends in death
love
sex
etc.
et etera

but in the city after is has rained there is amist
that mornign adn the rain is caught by the sun
and surrounding my head is a million tiny
glass pieces and prisms and i wonder if the poetics
of the situation are appropriate because if i had
an apartment it would be a basement and if
i met another peot in a coffe shop i would call
him a fool because he gave up love for a muse
and what is a muse anyway but something
that a junky wants and who can give youthese
sort of answers anyway.

the real question fo fate lies in the decision to
swallow one's gut. to enfold in on oneself.
to engulf ed in a black hole. the city itself.

180

one second playing, the next hurt

one minute searching, the next giving up

one hour happy, the next agitated

one year wishing, the next regretting?

when you finally get what you want, wouldnt you want to keep it as close as possible to ensure that nothing threatens it?  Not even itself?

Things Are Heavier When Damp

There is a movement, a shifting of days and a collapsing of hours. The trees’ branches pull the sap back to the core and leaves lacking nutrients turn rusty red and fall to the ground. Their decomposition lets off a sweet smell, the soil moist beneath our feet.

I want to lose something and be indifferent to its loss.

I went on a walk by myself so I could imagine you at my side. Every step felt like a quake and crumbled the structure of my legs, weakened the strength of my mind and I knew they’d find me somewhere, only a pile a rubble.

I wish there were stars to stare up at but it’s been overcast for days. And maybe we don’t pay homage to our birthplace near enough. The little dipper hides out on my right forearm but the rest of my constellations are yet to be mapped. No celebrations, no sacrifices, empty temple bowls, unattended idols. A pile of rubble.

I went for a walk and it was cold.

skip it, please

twirling and spinning alongside so many other people.  we are our own audience.  eveyone swirling and turning around together make nothing.  but memories are the only connection many of us have left.  I dont know my friends from high school anymore, and they dont know me.  But I remember them vividly.  I know that I had conversations with her, but I dont remember what we actually talked about ever, or what the conversations sounded like.  I know the people I live with now, but I have no clue as to what will happen when the next few months roll by.  I may end up hating some of the people I know now.  I may have new friends with which I'll run these same cycles with.  And whats worse, I know Im not the only one

Every person in this building, this campus, this town, this state country continent planet has these same exact memories, these same EXACT stories.  Same shit different day like.  In all this chaos its no wonder people go crazy.  Its no wonder we do art. Not just artists mind you, but all of us, doing art.  We try to be unique.  We try to positively stand out.  if we cant do that, we want to give off the impression we're TRYING to keep a low profile.  We try to look mysterious, not out of place, not reclusive, not alone.  We want so much to be epic and grand that we delude ourselves into thinking we ARE unique.  Even now, writing this, Im not unique.  Thousands of people write as i write.  They too are just sitting in bed on a mac, slapping away at a fly that wont quit, festering in self absorption.  And the fact that I have figured that out? not unique at all.  Im no smarter for figuring it out than any other person.  Hell, there isnt even THAT much to figure out.  We all share these thoughts, and we all feel the need to broadcast it.  Even me, who could say "nonono, im doing this only for me, this blog entry is for my benefit alone" is full of shit.  This post is for anyone whos had the patience to read on and on and on this far.  But I doubt any of you have. I would have given up a long time ago I admit.  I would if I were you, have given up at the paragraph break and skipped down to the last line.  Because admittedly, this stuff really isnt worth reading and i hold no grudges to anyone who doesnt care to read it all.  

so I suppose I've lost my steam at this point, maybe.  We all have work to do, so that means me as well.  I guess I'll keep writing this stuff tomorrow mayhaps.

the origin and elucidation of a microcosm, and how the two souls twirled together caught as one, you'd wonder that they weren't the same person after-

-all, and so the two minds as one could offer only empty platitudes, apoloplies about injuctice:

o, how this countenance becomes you and i.

sept 27

She was shaking, rolling back and forth with an upset look on her face. I couldnt wake her up but I knew what was going on. Finally she awoke but refused to tell me about the dream. I soon got her talking of a tale involving her sister, brainwashing and brazil. Her rolling back and forth was her looking between the evil headmistress and her sister being ritualized towards an unknown fate.

so Im writing this uquick and alone, because Im waiting for my "friends" to show up for breakfast.  I dont know sometimes shy I call them friends, maybe it was because I DID once have good friends in the group, ut they all have abandoned the cause.  Now we're just 2 dichotomies that are still hanging out.  ANd I write this quick because I dont want any of them to see what I ahve to say.  does that mean I care?  

I truly miss previous years here.  The frollicking and the not caring about what people care about you.  But the past year and half has been differnt.  Evertying is personal, even the small things until the pressure builds and releases violently.  I cant let the pressure build, and neither can you.

We only have so long left before the cycle will start again in adulthood and I'm eager to wait.

Life wont be as simple as waking up, attending a lecture, then playing computer games.  

I'll have to worry about rent, bills, taxes, and keeping ANY money that I make.  I'll have to worry about the pressure of staying in tune with work, friends, stress and family.

Eager to wait.

Theyre coming, 

I gtg

of deserts and strawberries

so they bought these strawberries at a roadside stand because they wanted to taste the earth around them. they kept the strawberries, a little overripe and soft, in a plastic bag in the back of the car as they drove through the desert. joshua trees, sun, white-burned rocks, roads with crackles and peeling paint. they ate the berries in the sun and the juice dripped at their feet sort of like blood but mostly like love. they wanted to stay in the desert but arrived in vegas anyway and by that time, the strawberries had gone bad and they left them rotten and brown on the hotel sink the next morning.

Half the Story

A new season, new thoughts, new feelings greeting one when they walk out the door and breathe in deep, the air that chills in the morning and chills more at night. And walking once the sun is down I still look wearily at the edge of the woods, and feel my heart within my chest. I’ve always been afraid of the dark, but more afraid of the monsters created in my mind that lurk in it. I recognize the burning in the fear, the speed of the heart, the quickening of the breath. I know the tensing of my muscles is similar… I can’t help but notice. Wet lips, widen eyes, run away and then laugh deep from your belly.

Take off your clothes and crawl into bed beneath an open window, watching the wind move the treetops from a second story perch. Last night a chill sunk deep down into my body, until I quaked and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to protect my tongue from my teeth and praying for it to end. There was no rationalizing with muscles as they shook, breath and sense would not have them. Then as suddenly as it struck, it ended.

tease

it was the hipsy curve
of the [type of window] that
attracted her or that voice across mouth
from behind her navel the stomach
pit the city is awash and
someone mentioned mardi gras/s/
she tries to remember how many
steps down to the lobby because
its three digits and the combination
for the lock box with the pistol
in it across the way two
lovers fold into each other like
/night/ and underneath the box
is a child and his cheeks
are frosty...

scattered dream of sept 22

Im a ninja

I've entered an old house filled with guards and civilians.  Its night time.

I stalk from room to room, slowly and quickly taking out every person in my path.  For no reason.

I leap out a 3rd story window, someone has heard me, I need to get out.

I sprint down the yard behind some discarded furniture or something and observe the house.

My roomie, Mr Antico, walks out the door to see whats all the ruckus.  He's holding a Nerf gun.

He knows its me.

My sword is now a nerf sword.

I begin to stalk him in the yard,

Im right behind him ready to pounce,

I wake up.

Sap from the trees

I miss you when you are away, like a small ache, like a cureless pain. I try to relieve it with activities, with other people. I try distraction and intrigue, I act badly, I push myself further with muscles tense and body yearning. It is a poor replacement. I feel selfish and foolish, lucky and loved. I sway through the days, stroking the present, planning the future, pushing through and imagining a child up on your shoulders, as we walk through the orchard; you lift them higher to reach the brightest apple on the tree and I smile, holding our bounty in my rounded arms.

from the past: a puerto rico post

"There are two days left,
and lets be honest, you
can't see the stars through
the clouds; they occupy
as an engulfing monstrosity
like the gutwrench and the
bilious slurs. We should con-
sider the implications of
a Puerto Rico -- what
if we consider the idea
of paradise in the mountain
valleys or as a salt water
pool islandbound welling up
from brackish rivers that
trickle beneath the surface
of things: deserts of congestion
indigestion and alimony. But
its good to have friends
and its good to know balance.
Its good to teeter on edges
and send yourself careening
over a valley a hundred
feet below screaming your
head off because at the bottom
you're safe and in the
end you have a home
to return to.

The idea of mermaids.

I have read that
the atlantic ocean
is particularly cold,
that the warmest currents
veer southward and
that if you close your
eyes and inhale under
water than you'll wake
up sunbleached in Puerto
Rico. Who has the
first and last word?"

Puerto Rico 6/06/09

I just gottta survive the day. one cay.

full of survivers adreneline. Can hardly stand still , its like 12 cups of coffee and three monsters inside me. Almost died today. almost joined some friends. No idea things would get soo intense in less than one day. only consolation was interupted by the horde once again..

I just got word that its not just paranoia. Everyone really IS out to get me.

I'd like to document as a social and self experiment how the days will roll by. Shoot nerf and film during the day's travels. Keep a journal. like this one. but maybe leave it somewhere for someone else to find one day after the turmoil has passed. If you dont hear back from me, its because I've lost my voice. Its rotted away.

Wish me luck,

Jarpoer

SAlert:
everyone I know is dead. Bravo is Zero plus one, Alpha will soon be maybe 2 of infinity. I need to go to class, but how can I when the ONLY peopl;e I share classes with who are also playing are dead and rotting!?!
I cant stand being alone. We are soon gonna be 10 of 25 still human. If this is how the world ends nerf style, Im gonna hate if it happens for real.
Consider this my last contact on this regard. The internet is infected now too, and I wont like being tracked like an animal.
A wolf in overdrive goes mad.
Yours till my dying day,
Harper

at least 1:35 in the morning

crying loreal, return from walkings and bitches being bitches.  Creepy and annoying and stupid lady  just being a bitch.  CAnt stand it anymore, surprised Im writing this down, for all to see.  moving on please!!!!

scared but goodnights are long overdue and life can get happier.  Please everyone sleep!  no more BFF talk, no more fiction, no more gossip.  Cant we ALL just get along?!  No more no more no more no more.d  just in case this is the end of the post, Im sorry for the immaturity.  And im sorry for the louzy repetative language.  Im not that articulate.  obviously.

noes goes.  

SO GO

GOGOGOGOGO you crazy crazy person!

how do I tolerate everyone here when I cant stand being with them 80 percent of the time!?

Screen just got far better, sicknesses are leaving the body in phlegm form.  This cant be a bad sign.. I'll just be pretend the past few paragraphs arent real.  Join me. its 1:40

repeated dream

Im 5

We start a race, me and the infamous we.

We start with a sprint down a cement track with a grand water fall to our left.  The water is hitting the cement with no splash or break in texture; so the cement is liquid, which makes it much harder to run.

We take a right around a wall and into a flooded garbage dump.  I grab a discarded water floaty to ease my passing through the dump, but a fellow competitor pops it so I have to wade the rest of my way through this stretch.

We take another right up a hill leading from the garbage dump to a ramshackle old house.  Its not part of the race but we all go through it.  Inside are classic movie monsters.  Frankenstein wolfman dracula the mummy etc.  I get scared and run into a small closet bathroom.  I hide under the sink and the wolfman comes in to look for me.  He looks straight at me and leaves.  I make a run for it.  Out the house I go, I take another right on the track into a fairground of JUST ferris wheels, mostly yellow.  I hope into a basket and enjoy the ride for a bit.  

Now if you've been keeping track, thats 3 rights I've taken.  The last leg of this race is me reaching the end of the fair grounds and finding a cliff that over looks the water fall from the start of the race.  I jump off the cliff and land in the liquid cement.  The starting line IS the finish line.

I wasnt first place, but they gave me the gold medal anyway.

In other versions of this dream, I skip the house altogether because I know now whats in it.  Sometimes the garbage dump isnt flooded or I find I dont need the floaty to make my way through.  Sometimes I bypass the ferris wheels altogether and earn the gold.

I havent had the dream in years, I feel a bit overdue...

apoesis

i wonder if one can be as easily defined as dna,
gttgcaca

and i wonder if there's a poem there. i once looked
into dna as a means of escape and a means of illustrating
narrative, because the most concrete of our notions
is the one there, in our genes, encoded by blood
and sperm; gametes, you know, the sex(y) cells.

look, let's talk it out here, these last few years.
it,life,youknow, was never just a matter of fluid exchange.

the europeans came. they burned down the village and gave me a blanket.

it was sort of like that.
a little more romantic.
a little less breathless.
they call it ethics.
the poetics of ethos/pathos

dream of sept 14

We're running.  Its like a game, HVZ or manhunt, or maybe you just want to hit me with a nerf sword again.  Whatever the reason, we're running.

Its an enormous filled parking lot at night time.

We've both got that dream-induced super speed so we sprint and jump so far beyond what real physics would generally allow.  I've never run so fast, and you were there, right at my heels. 

We're both laughing hysterically as I try to lose you vaulting over parked camper trailers, dodging and weaving between mini vans and pickup trucks. 

Back and forth we go, over and over and over again, I cant gain any distance over you, you're always nipping at my heels ready to tag me out of the game.  Ready to win.

I zig,

I zag,

I slip and as I try to recover you tag me on the shoulder.

youve won. 

And we start to walk back to where the dream began, smiling and panting.

its just been reduced to a playlist

15 days and counting.  5000 different ideas just floating around as the endless ones and zeroes theyve been reduced to.  the rock here, the rap there, the screaming and the beating coming soon.  

my head is shaking with the speed of these disorganized plans.  these thoughtful messages from some of the worlds most creative minds.

Im honestly surprised when my ears dont bleed from the constant ongoing persuasion of these hundreds of other artists.  Every day these people communicate with us, and most are never listened too by their audience.  Hundreds of years have gone by with these people, these rhythmic animals, trying to get us to listen beyond just hearing.  

Our culture today is all noise.

Thats all we want now, is just something in the background, something we can just ignore when we feel like it.  The walls pound with the sounds of electronic stimulation, the "artists" of distractions, the creators of sloth.  

Im tumbling right now, listening to the moans and groans of whats-their-face as they sing and clap to whatever was griping them that day, at that place.  You know the place I mean.  You were there that time werent you?

New song, quiet. Now I can hear my typing, the murmers and groans around me.  And Im in my own private shell.  An invisible pulsating shell of shaking rhythms and beats.

a victim of this shell.  sometimes the claustrophobia is just what we need.  

I heard somewhere that every animal on this earth dies alone.  

does that mean we trap ourselves into this shell to await a sooner death?  To be alone all the time so we're prepared for the final song? Our last dance?

My fingers feel twitchy.  are my ears bleeding yet? Do yours want to?

a day in august

they've got that just-from-the-beach glow, even though it's been a cold day in august.

too much time

not a day goes by when I dont think back to the things that went down.
Every day I see you is another reminder of how I failed you as a friend.
You may think nothing of me any more, or you may still be waiting for an apology. I dont know.
I'd rather assume you think nothing of me anymore, because having something pending like that is only going to intensify the anxiety and discomfort I already feel about us.
Life has moved on to the fullest, and I couldnt be happier with the small group of people around me with whom I truly care about now. It was just a chapter after all. A heavy influence over a good chunk of my, and your, life.

I think I want to dedicate part of my senior project to the John H Whitaker Place assisted living home. If not for that building, I wouldnt be the person i am today. We wouldnt have really met. We wouldnt have found Chester. Who would I be?
Maybe a computer programing major.
Or a receptionist at a nature preserve.
Certainly not an Art major, at least not a proclaimed one.
The friends I have now would never be.
the travels I've adventured would never have past.
These lessons of life and love would not apply to me.
So all in all,
Thank you.

While we were just a chapter, it was (up to date) the most important chapter of my life.
And really, though I was a complete pile of douche ;) I dont regret anything anymore. And I'm glad we're both happy. If you ever read this, or if we ever talk again, I'm sorry. The only thing I dont want is for us to look back and cringe. I dont want your last thought of me to be that of regret or disapointment. And lately I feel that we've succeeded in ensuring peace between us.
It took long enough, but finally, I've moved on.

Better Than Ashes

I had a dream last night that butterflies started to stream into the room and land in my hair. They covered my head and shoulders, all shapes, colors and sizes, and began to mate.

“Stay still,” others informed me, “be careful and let them do what they are doing.”

And I could barely feel their flutter against my forehead, on my neck. Some couples landed on my forearms, tiny and connected they made their butterfly love and I watched, and I sat still and let them.

I don't think science can explain...

Atoms form molecules form DNA form cells form tissue that we call skin.
And by some divine design there are nerves thrown into the fray.
Why is it, then, when two different skins rub together, as atoms and molecules do,
our nerves react, sending electrical and chemical impulses to the
lump of tissue we call a brain?
Well, the true question here is, why do we like it?
Aside from our mental conditioning
Aside from what chemical messages are sent from brain to
limb, limb to brain.
Why. Do. We. Like. It.
More importantly.
Why do we allow ourselves to get
"in trouble"
because of it?

---

Why is touch good?
Why is some touch better than others?
(Even the same kind of touch, but different people.)
There are more important questions that stem from
"What is the meaning of life?"
But how often do we get
"caught up"
in those?

Dream Bed

I sleep on a bed made of white cotton clouds, above me stars made of plastic and paint. I'm enveloped in the darkest of satins, the brightest of silks. My mind wanders slowly through each as my body tosses and turns to find a comfortable hole to fall down and escape the pressures of gravity and reality. Somewhere down the tunnel my body curls, resting between molecules of air and smoke, hoping they are from you slowly exhaling next to me.

matches preliminary

what business
a boy like me has writing
about city streets and projects
when in my blood runs concrete
side walks and manicured lawns
I don't personally
know any bums with claw hands
and donutcups filled silver and
I haven't seen the roaches in the
flour and the sugar and the fridge
all the cupboards -- they're even
in the toilet, goddamn pests --
but my mom(ther) wasn't so lucky
and she sits me down still
sometimes and tells me stories
of the projects: how she
watched a boy coming running
down the hill in flames, and her
grandmother push him to the
ground and with her palms
and her forearms pounded him out
and that was how i learned not
to play with matches she says
and that's how I learned too

one spill later.

Let's talk about bicycles. Let's talk about how legs pump and, in the motion and the speed, and in the distance you cover with your head down, bugs thumping up your nostrils, you can start to taste a little something in the back of your throat that is a memory, and also a desire, and mostly regret because regret is what becomes phlegm.

I remember you in the spokes. the light coming through between them, i mean. like through the cracvks in the boards of the house where i grew up. i remember peeking through and seeing into the room below, and it runed out it wasn't a room in m yhouse at all; it was adifferent place, and I think maybe Norse, perhaps egyptian. I've never been to egypt but I hear its a little dustyhot. I hear that people think about you in ways you couldn't otherwise imagine. or perhaps you could imagine, with a little oomph; a little whiskey shot. maybe hemingway knew what it was all about.

perhaps the way to understand is to start at the end and work your way backwards and around. i once found a maze and discovered its depths, plumbed it out. it had a name, like a woman, but i've forgotten it now.

These words all have cobwebs, and I apologize if the dust gets up in your lungs. I haven't been here in ages. I've sort of forgotten how things looked. I should have tidied up before setting the padlock. I should have left a little note for you on the door.

forget august

she says it's too cold for july, but he says it's almost september. there's this hole in time, she says, she just wants to forget august even happened. he says you can't erase time and she says, watch me.

three sorts prelude

three sorts of madness
i know of - repetition
delusion and ... oh, forgetfulness
three is the charming number
and for the magic, three is the way

see the old man standing
near the stairs case
the fellow on the train
off to work - he's forgotten
sundays and sabbaths
the girl te boy
this dark street

oxidation prefab

tell me truthful that
you don't wonder what
goes on behind these
monolith tenements,
these "moloch eyes"
(ginsy nuzzles in my
ear) and all i can
relate is the time
i watched a man dig
through the refuse bin
extracting tiny bits
of gold and consumed
with fear of robots
around him as are
we all, and i tell you
truthful that i watched
the mechanical locusts
descend on him, swarm
swell and that
all I saw left behind
was a hat. but what
kind of narrator am I?
ask the corner stones, they
know more secrets
they remember bodiced women
and crates and shanghaied
the prettiest of the boys
for the clubs over east side
i could tell you these numbers
mean lost in time but its
all the same - see how
sepia'd we've all become?

Summer's Over

Smashing Sunday afternoons driving down to the harbor city. Watching the sun set with our minds and go wandering through the darkness in our heads. Quiet laughter echoing through the empty clouds of smoke and artificial light. One more night of summer.

Rip

I lost him, but more importantly, I let him go. I use to pretend to read his mind and guessing at his secrets was a gift I possessed. He called me mystic, he called me goddess, and he made love to me when he took all those other women. Never knowing me, never once attempting to see or feel… we imagined a cosmos for ourselves, one where touch brought separation, action, reaction; incapable of fear or pain, we were naked there. Only star dust, we drifted. I lost him, but more importantly, I let him go.

note

i truly understand the term "blinded by anger" when your imagination takes hold and vision begins to blur and eyes quiver like newborn chicks in january.

That smile of yours

Pull on those boots and make that smile of yours that we all know so well. Leave the stem of a guitar and wrap those fists tight around so you don't let go. They found a whale under her house, which means we're all underwater. It don't matter if it's just bones now, we're all swimming in this giant ocean and the salt water erodes our lungs but we like it that way. Bug bites and bruises and how else can I alliterate summer?

(this is just a simple text cascade)

i know how it ends. the knight unprecedented for his time perishes. the dream, whether folly or fair perishes with him. what need have we of errantry now? but what of the jounrey?

this is a simple text cascade. i watch it and i can taste it and from my fingertips, this world is ambidextrous. down in the gully, down in the gully, down in the gully comes something rising. simic has been discussing with me through text and time the conception o f ethics and a notation for the modern era, as was borges with me just an hour before. merwin just watches on, a lameduck. no offense, merwin. no offense, my brother.

when it comes t othe matters of the heart, eschew. when it comes to the matters of the soul, rebind. when it comes to us and you and we, abbreviate and assume the absurdities related to adverbage.

this is just a simple text cascade.

I amm currently surrounded. There is Simic. There is Borges. Cervantes (Miguel). Websters. Casio. Huidobro. Steve Jobs. Inescapable, necessary.

What about invisiblity?

some mystical power. apprehend perverts and masterminds.

Backyards and Falling Stars

When the vanity is stripped away and all that's left is the open and honest narration of your life will you be pleased with the intimacies you've shared, or will you regret that you didn't tell all that you meant? That you forgot to say that one last thing to that one special girl who really held your heart. You know the one. That one who was perfect in every way, who had the right shade of lipstick for every day of the week, and it was always the same color but a slightly a different heat depending upon the weather and her mood. Or was that just your imagination, your idealized version of her? Was that what you wanted to take away? That lasting impression like a lip-print on a napkin left in jest when you talked and talked all night about music and bad dates and all that nonsense from eighth grade when you thought life was just about backyards and falling stars.

word flow

the secret is that they built atop it the corpse growing reeds and vines and two steps into the labyrinth we've been misplaced - imagine these buildings towering, this city of canyons and ravines and consider the story of the dragons who fought beneath lake waters and echoed the end of the world the way the norse grew a world tree who budded ragnar or a wormwood revelation at the gilded tower foot-- I've heard talk of alchemy and alembics and I wonder if that metaphor is not improper. this transmutation of rough core iron to ruddy gold like blood, liquid like melted sugar, precious like melted sugar; how many ways to challenge a quid pro quo I need this to get back in but I can't keep up with Huidobro yet though he exposes his secrets and his corpse is lush.

we must concern ourselves with the manufacture of new images
so repeatedly, I see a child on a cloud, yellow boots dangling
but it seems to pale against
Huidobro's "bird perched on a rainbow"

Ivy and buds and refuse.

on a red wine night

it's lost in translation on a red wine night. summer's almost over and he's in japan and she's in the room with the fireplace and i wonder when i'll be in that place that i'm meant to be. i miss them, you know, but what can you do?

and i've got these thoughts about him and her, not the same him and her but another him and her, and me and you, and me and him, and her and you. if i forgot it all, you'd hate me. if i don't forget it, she'll never forgive me.

and i just realized that all my letters are to you. it's all for you.

quijote

don quijote teaches many life lessons: pointybearded lancemen, and what i am supposed to do as an old one, my nose buried in books - the inevitable back break the inevitable fights and beats beatings i can't wait to toss my sowrd and wander the fray step by step leaving this all behind

not much has changes within the world underwater.  Soon the cycle could repeat itself, but I dont think any of us will let it.  Same day, different sh*t.  Feeling less like an artist everyday I dont think of my movie plans.  Artist anxiety at full throttle these past few weeks, worrying that it will fall flat, and people will laugh at me, my family will be ashamed of me, teachers will fail me.  Who gives a rats buttoot if I mourne and complain about the troubles of old, who needs to witness any transformation with me?  why do I have to be on camera, AND film it all?  these problems are mine not just for privacy, but because no one else wants them.  Palaniuk will snap me out of this.  Bukowski will teach me not to care.  But in order for this to work again I need to hate.  I need to feel despair, like theres no point in going on, and only this video can prove to be my release.  But that wont happen, things are going too well lately, and I wont let my self esteem plummet into that whirpool again.  I suppose that will be the true test of the movies quality,  whether or not I can still push the messege across when it no longer eats at my ankles.  I hope you all understand the dilemma.

its good to be back

taking inventory

perfect circle china doll cheeks, sewing machine, peach tea. the tickling hairs of invisible paranoia spiders. sticky keyboards (paint and honey). swedish crooners calling bluebirds home, killing all my old lovers.
this week's favorite colors: humming & electric.

Incoherent remiscence of a lost friend

White wine and thunderstorms. I'm here, you know. I'm back home where I belong, but I've got so many homes now. I've got love here and there and sure it's great, but really, it's easier to be alone. If I didn't have to decide between this world or that world, I'd know where to be. I'm drunk, maybe, sad, maybe, missing the people I never wanted to let go. She's home now but we know it'll never be the same.

Funny how people blame physical distance for the strain in relationships, but really, it has nothing to do with it. People change and if you don't change together, you lose the thing that tied you together. She'd changed, he's changed, I've changed, you've changed, and we're all here together now, trying to remember what normal felt like.

Take another drink and find another world. Maybe it's just time to move on.

/ Tangeant

epiphones galore. The summer goes and it goes quietly. Severed all contacts for the most part in hopes of figuring it all out. different than previous summers, this one goes by casually, with few plans for future. Screw money, screw concern for the future. We are all here merely to observe, and observe i shall. Anyone can tell you a story, but no one listening will be able to live it with you, so why bother share? But then what is Art? nonono, this is thinking along the wrong axis, along a tangeant universe, but it all untangles at the end metaphorically and physically.

So I suppose thats been it. No reason to dabble further on, because again, whats the point?

Forecast

Forecast for tonight: Raindrops dripping through straw colored hair with a chance of sweet sultry dance and song from the black sky below. Mountains will turn into mole hills and smiles will last throughout the day. Highs are UV rays and sea glass. Lows are waiting for your judgment day.

dadaze - copost

Slowly we find the anchor of time dragging the depths
& scarring, scoring the earth.

My fear is engendered in labyrinthine process, that ugly spiral.

Sounding off the shores of regrets, we see the beauty in the
things we were too afraid to swim out to.

Awkward: you need to look in my eyes and move my lips.

The lip's odes to imperfections become the sweetest sentiment we
can conjure in the cut-out confections of sunday afternoons.

We are all so secret, sow secrets under our fingernails.

Empty choir makes music, sings loudly then screams & makes
known, crawling on wooden knees, the invisible weight upon it.

I grew up with no candlewicks burning smoke in my house.

Large, as if worth more, as if worthy by presence alone while dainty
& fragile was yearned for, the beauty to shatter under the weight of man.

There are those men, top hats corrugated cardboard lined.

Weakening the structure, breath warm & moist, through rib & lung,
he clings & claims that which no one else has the fortitude to tame.

Nero a quantumphysic aburns wile Rome does fiddle.

To call an end to tidal pulse, or cease a people's breath. To murder
calmly the night's illusions & rest in stillness' rest.

Generic tidings as follows: hellogoodbye goodmorning(night)

This is the greatest peace of all, the eyelash in the wind,
uncertainty, no bed to crawl to, the warmth of only skin.

Hurricane Season

The worst went by a long time ago with the May flowers. But now every time I look up, the sky is filled with thunder, the trees are empty.
There's moss growing on my escape route, the stairs creak like rusted hinges, and these clouds don't have a silver lining.

On Saturday

Someone sets fireworks off down the street.
The bangs quicken until they culminate in sync
and all the lights go out.
All the lights go out.
The electrical hum has left me sitting awkwardly with Silence.
I like to think this is like dying,
like letting go of everything that mattered.

Shot through the wall.
Sirens down the street.
I guess they weren’t fireworks.
I can’t hear anyone celebrating.
All my lights go out,
and I think, this must be dying.
This must be.

i want to go

it's that hunger for new places and, baby, i'm going there. like i explore your body i'll touch the whole earth and feel it inside me and that's all i need. i can't count on you, but the world, she'll never leave me.

Utuado: The swarms are climbing posts, heading away from the torrent basin. watch how they crawl, how they drag those black shells.

Three Trees

not writing for weeks makes everything ooze out my pores in the morning, before the birds have even awoken. no bursting or busting or bleeding, just slowly escaping as each butt is burned out in the secret jewelry case ash tray. i wear camels and marlboros on my skin like charm bracelets and diamond rings hidden in perfume. i wonder how they sparkle in the sun when i look away to fake an emotion he'd rather see on the street instead of twirled in pillows and something warm, quietly drifting down curves where rich satins will never touch, but it's okay right because we're artists and all we need is love. and a piece of paper that says i'm good enough to the world. and three trees in our backyard to make it look just right to the neighbors and our family members. and two point five children. and a dog. and a cat. and luxurious fabrics my thighs will never touch.

Vieques: the palms always the sound of rain.

Airlock: It's all about humidity.

Newark - 10:47

smogsmogsmog smogsm smo ogsmog
mogsmogsmogs gsmogsmogsmog mogsmogsmogsmog
smogsmo sm ogsmog mogsmogsmogsmog

i tried to show you haze

Even the early bird doesn't know what 4AM looks like.

preparation:

we have reached the twelve hour countdown, minus forty minutes or so.

in my hand is negra modelo, and this is a beer I fisrt experienced
mixed with tequila at a mexican restaruant in the city across from
the mueseum where the dragon skeletons linger and the old men
with their beards are in glass cases and walk naked hand in hand.

it was probably the worst drink i've ever had. it wasprobably the best
meal i have ever had with th ebest company, the most beautiful woman

mexico has become puerto rico and the bus leaves tomorrow;
we hit the plane; we hit the tarmac; we hit the clouds; we hit
the jungle.

typhoid and dengu fever

company.

channeling hunter s. thompson by doing rumshots.

streaming mobile

for three weeks,
posting on the run
once a day, live
from puerto rico

"A Huge Body Count"

Sex fiend trapped in a bottle yells, give me one chance to make a difference, all I need are pants around ankles and a tree to lean against.
Satiate bent toes and staccato groans, the first time you don’t come home and no one goes looking for you.
Fourhundredandsixtytwo bees regurgitated in my Oregano tea this morning, and I just want to know, how do you like your brown-eyed girl now, Mr. Death? And I just want to know, why did he vomit?
Brown bottles don't break against the edge of the table, never make a weapon worthy of quick thrusts and quicker deaths.
Hanging off your moustache, my neck is longer by the second. I’ll reach the tallest fruit in your tree and pluck it with my mouth.
He had a box of vulvae, none which kept their charm. And over time, he lost his mind and caused himself some harm.
It isn’t as scandalous as she made it out to be, the sudden gasp, the loss of breath, and waiting there to see, if my eyes would show guilt or intrigue with my crime, the ultimate invader, stealing other’s time.
It was good to know that cockiness will almost always lead to punishment. The strutting proud, the highbrow few, who waste and squander life, with wrinkles and disinterest meet a lonely time of strife.
So she cut it short, a skull, a face, chap lips and oily skin, another night with bottle friends and no conversation. She crossed her legs and bowed her head and took to counting freckles. Within each spot, another star, a part of constellations and she a universe to behold, in the lead paint tent she paced in.

Sudden Bravado

Here I am, gearing up:

i am dreaming a story
about a man on one side
with a man on the other
and it ends in death as all
these sort of stories do.

i've heard that this is an
immature way to discover
the world but how else does
one know? these are little things
and well, and well, and well,
i don't konw.

in a field there is a cow
and she is baying and she
is sobbing her eyes out.

sherlock holmes discovered
the hound of the baskervilles
was (spoiler alert) a dog
painted phosphorescent
but he didn't realzie the
love of his life was standing
behind him all along

i cut my finger filling my
car with gasoline, and pumped
myself full; now i feel ready
to explode into flame.

this is all i have to tell you;
you should read into yourself more

On a Day Like Today

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Chamomile company. Brown sleeves and chipped polish. I've got plans for your memory, where you never say no.

earthworm eyebrows

she's got chili-pepper lips and earthworm eyebrows and belongs in in the dirt, her toes like roots and her fingers like vines. she'd have him water her with white wine and she'd be happy down there with the bugs and the core that's sometimes too warm, but mostly it's just right.

he won't put her in the ground 'cause he says it's morbid, like he's burying her. he doesn't like thinking about death and wants her to stay beautiful. death and dirt ain't beautiful. she's not in love with him but instead it's the way he says hello that she can't let go. it's funny 'cause he never asked her to stay she's just got no other place to be.

so she goes and sits in the garden in her white nightgown and sinks her toes into the dirt and pretends she's growing like a weed. it hasn't rained yet, but it will and when it does, she'll be ready. she'll open her mouth and drink it all down and and she'll leave that nightgown behind. she'll leave it all behind and year later when the garden grows there will be these little nightgown plants and she'll remember the rain and think maybe it's time to leave again.

Dis-Ease

What was stranger yet was the sudden silence. A familiar absence that weaved its way into the days, showing no effect on action or consequence, not even daring to elicit a sense of loss, just noticed as an old familiar absence.

Meaningless comes to mind, but then, what is meaning?

Source: It becomes more difficult to express one’s self when what you want to convey cannot be satisfied with written words; when infliction of voice, slowness of breath, the cover of darkness, tactile tenderness, all beg for the limelight.

One cup of tea promises to solve it, and outside the screened windows of my tower, far below on the cracked cement streets, the evening is on fire with the alcoholic breath of all the young people dehydrating their youth with smoke and fermented beverages. Separate and singular, my head bends and my lips gingerly proceed to sip the chamomile that has seeped into the hot water. White ceramic mug radiates heat, making a home from the small comforts we can afford.

If you ever find yourself disorientated in the water, unable to find which way is up, be still and exhale the last of your breath. As you do, feel the bubbles rush by your face, let them lead you to the surface. It seems we are the very thing we need to find our way.

For me, the image of you below the depths, serves to slow you still enough to study. Where hair expresses as much as arms and weightless body finds its true form thus loosing its affection for clothing. I note the expanse of your lungs, the wideness of your toes, suspended by a trust that fish have no use for; time and age cannot own you beneath the rocking tide. With skin slickened beyond the chance of possession, eluding capture and definition, I almost wish the bubbles wouldn’t guide you, would testify falsely to the direction of sun and lead you down to deeper depths, the sunless parts that keep the cold, where my fingers would wrap around your ankles as water weeds and add you to the garden in my sea. Still enough to study.

It is a slowing in the heart, a patience patterned by disappointment, where expectations are slaughtered in silence and no one cries for their demise. Schooled in the pursuing of lips, tired of my own touch, I stand as a woman-child, as a dreamer, and offer an infectious smile. Eager enthusiasm is my disease.

apply thus

i consider myself an expert
on all matters perpitudious
an expeditious pernicous sole
of a shoe;

but seriously:

why do you want to know me?
isn't it enough that i work till
the skin peels off callouses and
the wood of the shovel gets stained.
isn't it enough that i haul stones
on my back up hills sisyphused and on
the horizon, bleak notions of
this semblance (the soil has gone
sandy and the sweet corn tastes
like nails) -if i could list myself
for you, would that be enough?

here, i sum myself:
itchy toes
nostril hairs
curly back
dry knuckles


an expert on all things extraneous

declarations of love lost in translation through generations of transistor radios

I wrote this on your back last night when I shouldn't have been focused on the stretch of your skin:


And I think we'll find there's a good reason for hope in all of this.

Precedence comes in the form of nights we know we have to live and loves we can't shake off. This, I feel, breeds a grip strong enough for keeping the important things close at heart, even in gale-force winds going the speed of a feeling sinking to the bottom of what we can't contain.

I gave you an escape hatch & Friday night courage between knobs of your lower vertebrae, so please don't fall and break anything important.

X Marks The Spot

Let me tie up my hair like an inventor and tell you, I found mica in the parking lot. I collected crumbling chunks in my hands and let it shine up my skin. Fists full I walked down to the water and placed small piles of stone shine on each bench. In my mind, I heard the children asking, “What is this?” They’d collect it up in their little hands like treasure and some sensitive guardian would tell them all about mica, searching some ancient memory from high school science class or an episode on the discovery channel.
As a child, I thought it held some value adults were unable to realize, and I’d collect it, catalog it in old ninja turtle lunchboxes, waiting for the day my discovery would be significant.

Lay down in this dead grass for me. I half hope your body will encourage it to green. There is sun now for your face; there is wind now for your lungs. You travel on sparks through gray matter posed and limited in your activities; gifts are strung around your neck and poured over your face as offerings for inspiration and destruction.

I look at what has made us, dirty clothes and winter worn idols. I make dinner and shower with simple products. I’ve got a jeweled crown and pills to take; my bed is unmade and my hair avoids the brush. And from your parallel, resting in your own orbit, what makes you human, warm blood and cold fingers. What marks your skin, dirties your clothes and leaves you smiling like a happy Buddha?

Still shoed, I dangled my feet over the side of a foot bridge.
I smiled at a stranger on the street and they smiled back.
I am almost out of milk in the fridge and it is only Monday.

Could you find me if you wanted to, would you know the path to take?

6:00 AM

there is steam, like spirits, rising off the pond
loons, woodpeckers, robins.
sonofabitch, barking.

No Turtles Yet

We went down to the water where we looked like old age and played like first timers. We found a salamander, then two and contemplated cannibals that snatch beneath decomposing leaves. A water scorpion blended in and didn’t take kindly to the pokes of our dried out sticks. A school of fish eluded us and swam to deeper water as our shadows eclipsed their playground. We circled the pond, looking for bigger life, for something to hold or swordfight. Dead grass clung to our jeans and the skippers skimming the water panicked as we got closer; they skated in manic circles, unaware of the scorpions below the surface, resting and waiting to end the dance. Two salamanders took to mating at the tip of my stick, which I had eased in, to point them out. And every now and then, the wind would obscure our view of the busy world below but we stood on those soggy banks and waited for the water to settle.

Lights out

It's time to turn out the lights and shut everything down and yet I can still hear you breathing. You're hiding under the desk, the one I always look under in case there's a monster, but today, I'll just walk right by. I'll let you live inside this empty building like a crab returning to it's shell and you'll thank me. But in the end, you'll wish you'd left because now you're stuck and it'll take a hell of a lot more than a light switch to entice you out.

Let Down Your Hair

I live three floors above the dryer duct and the smell of warm clothes tumbling, comes through my open window when I work. I welcome the scent, thinking I am a bit warmer, a bit closer to the concept of “home” when it joins me.
Can you imagine me, high up in my tower with dirty fingers and straight lips? My copper hair weaves itself around my face, defying attempts to tame it. Weak backed and wicked minded, it’s been almost two weeks and I’m beginning to stalk him like prey. He leans on moons out of my orbit and tells me he’s tried it all before. He likes to say, “Love is made of greater things.” And with a humble heart, I agree, but the beast within me growls, hungry.
It’s been almost two weeks and I’m beginning to stalk him like prey.

wordform

i've been scrawling stories in less words
than i think with, balking on these condensed
narratives like condensed soup from cans that
i found on the backs of shelves: date 5/5/1915
best before. best before i realize that the words
aren't really worth it; sometimes its hard to try
and reconcile things - what is a writer? what is a
poet? where does this even go?

poetry is the basic creation of a word form.
prose is the expansion of word form.
conversation is the dilation of word form.
thought is the purest word form.
thought is the word form that the men can only see shadows of on the wall.

Night of the living alive.

Something didnt really feel right, and yet nothing was wrong.
He brought us to a bangin restaurant,
We shared a 5 course meal. I was the only one to stomach my entire portion; even the grappa.
BEST STEAK IN THE WORLD
We hung out with the locals for hours.

In the early morning, we went to his place.
He surprised us with a gift from a friend of his.
Soon after, we left.
We embarked on a multiple mile walk back home, but not without detouring to the usual spot.
No cabineri this time.

I didnt sleep last night, so early in the morning I left home in hopes of catching a sunset.
Damn condensation. Freaking fog, rolling over the hills. Clouds everywhere.
It was still nice. Even with Bukowski in front of me, and warm juice in my satchel.
With all of the city asleep and dreaming, the birds got to sing uninterupted.
I think they were extra loud, for me, a once-in-a-while audience.

This couldnt end at a better time.

how is that artist creative?

a string was tying up the inside of his ear.  He said it hurt when he pulled it, but it was affecting his hearing, so he was trying anyway.  I suggested maybe it meant something really deep, like he's got something locked up inside him that needed to be set free, or maybe he's heard something, good or bad, that he will never forget. 

He said "Na, it was probably because I slept on my ear funny and it hurt and affected my dreams"

I said "hmm..."

He Could Never Know I Surfaced

I dreamt last night, that I protected him from the radiation blast by pushing his body deeper under the water and covering him with myself. I knew I had been exposed, but I neglected to tell him as we climbed into the boat. My hair streaked white, I turned to cough and my cupped hand filled with blood. He asked if I was okay. I wiped my mouth, and turned back to him, running my bloody hand until clean across the back of my dress. “I’m fine,” I said and grabbed the chain that was already in his hands. I helped him pull the anchor aboard. I knew I’d never reach the horizon but I just might get him far enough to make it for the both of us.

dragonflies

she's got dragonflies caught in her hair buzzing around and the wings are getting crushed up. it looks beautiful, she says, like fairy dust. he says she's killing dragonflies and tries to pick them out of her hair slowly. it's too late. their wings got holes in them and they'll never fly again.

Confused- That is all

I need to make up my mind. Something that's been bugging me lately. But every time I make up my mind it unravels after awhile and keeps coming back.

God, I don't know people very well do I. I don't know a lot of things.

Emitted in the Dark

There has to be a reason to sink beneath the blankets and force myself to sleep. Otherwise, I float above and daydream impossibilities. There above, my sexual fantasies blur into circus acts and climax with a great and terrible fall. Neuroses crafted conversations brew and filter down, half escaping my lips. I practice for performances no grander than a trip to the coffee shop. Here, without reason to sink deeper, I make love to those I’ve never tasted and remind myself to put milk on the grocery list. Here, I imagine lives for the shadows that migrate across my walls and trace the outline of my body to make sure I’m all there. Without reason to sink deeper and find sleep, I am a woman who looks up at the moon and plans to steal its luminosity; just a dreamer with dark eyes open, waiting for a message from the stars, waiting for a turn in complacency. These echoes and fractions of words leave me insatiable, so I fill the space, the ancient memory of your face and call this conversation.

I wish Camus had taken the train that day

I saw them on the verge of the precipice, it is funny they mentioned Kierkegaard in that respect.

They go on now, to what I wonder? The world is a giant place and though their words are beautiful, I wonder if they will be drowned out by the noise. I hope not, for me, for them, for all that hope to achieve something.

Yet I aknowledge that some people fail, merit, talent, effort, these things cannot guartantee much except that life will be an action based on attempt. I gladly recognize that uncertainty is the one thing that connects all our subjective experiences and yet I see in recent days that it is necissary to find things that hold that uncertainty at bay. Not escapisms, just little boosts that give us the strength to attempt in the belief that it is the only thing we need and not just merely the only thing we can do.

A little sad, but I have hope, since it is all i can have right now. their words and beauty have given it to me.

The things we think in homesickness.

train kept a rollin, all semester long. And now a cliff is approaching. A waterfall, with rapids following suit. But its alright, Im safe in my duckboat, and mine can go in reverse. But I wont let it.
So little river left before a familiar plunge, my pockets arent water proof, but as long as I keep the pockets even after their soaked, my shirt should remain as pristine white as I'd like it.
But we'll just have to see if the fish and mermaids will let me keep my pockets. I'll fight em all off with a knife if I have to, I wont be going with that flow any longer.

Seasons

sun shines through clouds made of silver linings. the wind walks through my hair and gives me goose bumps all over from the chill.
I constantly wonder, wandering, if it is pushing me forward or pulling me back. If I should or shouldn't go south to see family and friends, if its cold fingertips are what I need.
I'm tired of the rain and the clouds and the sun and snow and ice and wind pulling me pushing me, spinning out of control. The currents of leaves falling turning rapidly into snow then rain then rays of light.
Away I go into the breeze. Arms outstretched and let it catch me to fall where I finally belong.

We are more than machines

Some who rely purely on reason would claim that our minds, our personality, and our very existence is little more than a biological machine filled with complexities but still inherently cause and effect mechanical.

Not so claims one philosopher. I read his words and I think I understand what he is saying. Were we to make a machine that could translate data at the same way we could, it still would not be human. Even if we give it all the cause and effect that we own within our minds, the machine will still never know metaphor, symbolism and association. It might be able to put a few letters together and associate it with "fire" or "car" but it wouldn't know the meaning we give those things.

F-I-R-E= that ember that has been entered in my databanks

F-I-R-E= heat, light, burns, passion, danger, that time I went camping and we stayed up all night keeping our campfire going.

which one is more human?

seems obvious when you think about it, though I known the debate is far more complex than this. still, i sometimes feel its the closest thing to having vindication of the idea of a soul.

The Visit

There are no pictures to prove it, and I doubt anyone would attest to the fact, but it still seems worth saying, I was there. Some kind of pride, straightening of back, as if I am better for it, stronger or smarter, just a bit sexier, I was there. And what does the tightening of the neck mean, the tensing of the muscles, when I can still reach past my toes, but with a greater sigh, a slower grace. When Tuesday looks like Wednesday, feels like Thursday and my inner ear breaks down with a low hum replacing all other sound. When the electrical storm of an orgasm seems strong enough to be magic, and I’m unsure of how to use it, but I’ve got a few ideas.

Crippled in the dark, a sigh, roll over and wonder if you know, I was there.

seperation food

here under the most dulcet
sweeps the ash from the front
porch swings and sunlight and
fields flattened, gray snow, gray
world condensed into globe,
an epiphany on conventional
wisdom, Virgil's presence in
Inferno made into piano notes,
settles like dust on the ocean's
bed linens strewn across the
room, in the space beneath the
stairs collapse beneath the feet
of brief glimpses of life through a
veil misinterpretation ripped
from the moment he woke
up into the deepest space in sea
where she lost her innocence
under the comet scarred sky
we saw the cautious shreds emerge
and ruined all the little things in
life.

Will You Visit?

She saw a ghost, she tells me, a gray form which moved across my room, while she watched so plainly, so clearly. After, she turned all the lights on in the apartment and kept them on until morning. She asked when I’d come home, I didn’t think much of it. She has said these things before; we have a bathroom light switch that decides when it wants to shine, our hand towels are always on the floor, balls of yarn make trips across the apartment. So I didn’t think much of it, or of how scared she was until I came back and went to pull a sisterly prank, sneaking up on her with one of my masks. (This activity is common, a push and pull of sisterhood, who can terrorize who more.) Instead of the playful leap, the yell of surprise, followed by swears and attack, she screamed in terror, jumping away, and my heart fell deep down in. She was so scared. There was no play, and I realized how shaken up she really was from being here alone and seeing what she thinks she saw.

Come May, I’ll live here alone and while I am use to solitude, work fairly well, very productively in solitude, I rather conversation, I rather someone to share wine with, someone to make food with, to wind down with. I’ve never had many friends and that has never particularly bothered me. I became accustomed to giving all my trust and energy to few and specific people, early in life. Girls were always backstabbers, they’d gossip and make fun of you to other girls and they’d ruin your friendship for a boy and suffer no guilt for it. And boys, they were heartbreakers, friends and never boyfriends. I always strived for their love and they took advantage of that for years.

I remember his mouth behind my ear, and I was reading in bed next to him. His hands fumbled across me and I could feel him growing against me. I told him I wasn’t feeling it, I didn’t want it. He didn’t stop. His hands pushed clothing aside, I struggled against him and repeated. He didn’t stop. Then, violently he moved inside me, holding me to him with hand on my chin and waist. I squeezed my eyes shut, I bit my lips, I cried out, and all it did was hurt. It just hurt. After, he told me that it was my fault and that I shouldn’t have turned him on so much if I didn’t want it. I remember crying on the stairs, waiting for my mum to come pick me up. It was the first time I was ever in love. The first man who said he loved me.

How well removed, how safe and happy I am in this place I call my little home. I have my family and those I would lovingly allow into my family. And that has been the most rewarding part, adding new family members as I’ve aged, people with who I do not share blood but would freely give it. They can not fill this space with me, but they are here, they are thoughtful messages, packages in the mail, holiday dinners. And to see them, to be with them, causes me to come alive beside them.

More and more we separate, with distances and significant others, jobs and debts, tired bones and aching egos, we can’t make it to visit, we don’t try to connect. We settle in the thought that they are there, down some road, across some space, they sit and if we needed them, they would be there. We’d know they’d come. But I’d rather share of cup of coffee and a smile. I rather know faces and see the people who have the ability to make my body hum. Sitting, well removed and safe, in this place I call my little home. Come May, I’ll live here alone.
Will anyone visit?
Will he listen if I say no?
Will I sleep with all the lights on?

Too long for a text message

Speak for me once more. Let the words trace down my neck and smiles etch on our faces. The good old days he says. The days before I abandoned you and hoped you would be waiting n the decrepit roller coaster where you took beautiful pictures and searched for a sign. Something more. Get something out of nothing.

I look from a distance and see how much you've grown. Pinks, reds, orange, yellows. Your hair braided into mine.

Remember the feather narrative? I want that feather. I'd cherish it more than you know.

My first true love, make sure Georgia is good to you. I know he will be. Write soon about amusement parks. Lie in the bath and think of candy striped legs and Dr. Stephen. Take pictures so I know you are alright. Take pictures so I know you aren't.

I'm glad you got out, regardless of how. Let's remember the notes and laugh about our antics.

I always think of your lips when I smell photo developer. Some days, it makes me cry

Missing: The Good Old Days

The last time I ate this heavily I dreamed of clocks and blonde holocausts wolves chasing after my father and the circles of time that plague even my waking moments. I could see inside all of out cells and understand why we stop growing when our knowledge of the world gets too big. If i never knew of taxes I'd be ten feet tall by now. My hair down to my knees and sleeping in driveway puddles. The last time I ate nothing for tree days - half out of laziness and half out of the desire for something better to come along - that time I dreamed of prisms in our foreheads, spectrums of light (until now unseen) reaching through the space between us through the dark and into out skulls glowing warm and green with lust. I dreamed of our parents, somehow connected though unaware of one another. Looking twice as they pass on the highway, in the grocery store. Pangs of kinship rattling through them. Gurgling up in their stomachs like seltzerwater bubbles.

for a friend

every year I've known you this shit has happened to you which you dont deserve.
I dont know what it is about the people we surround ourselves with that makes a person disrespect and dishonor and embarras and take advantage of us, but it sucks, and you my friend deserve better.
I had faith in you 2, in her, Ive never seen you so happy, and what does she do? God if I know, Ive not been around to witness potential decline, Ive not been there to see any problems or conflicts, so I guess that makes me the ignorant one, but from what Ive read already, it sounds like she is at fault, and you left for dead.
Im sorry I cant be there for you, but maybe someone else who reads this will take care of you like in the old days. times have changed and so have we, but please, lets go back to the joy and bliss of our first semester. the best for all of us, before the hills and slopes of maturity crawled upon us.
Please be alright, who am I supposed to live with next if not you?
If nothing else will help, live does move on. We know that better than we thought we would, and
I belive it can make us better.

Sentience

It’s honey flavored and summer inspired. I’m in love like young kids fall in love: hard, fast, stupid. Pour another drink. Mark it on the calendar. I swear the change in seasons will bring me out and about and my freckles will darken and give birth to little freckle babies, and my hair will get back its golden touch and I will laugh, laugh, laugh for days without pause, (except to say, “oh, it hurts to laugh, its starting to hurt!”)
And that is how it will go, trapped up here in the mountains. Or near the mountains, by the mountains, a short drive from the mountains. Where the snow is stubborn and melts slowly, drizzling down hills, puddling in holes. The sun is the biggest tease in my life and I sleep with the fan on because the sound is soothing. Year round its gentle hum is heard, and in the dead of winter, it makes me creep extra deep under the blanket, fighting goose bumps, while rhythmic fingers search for warmth, until success, success, success! It is found.

These are the common things in my life: a jar full of orange and yellow shells, an open box of sewing pins, a hamper of unfolded clothes, the desire for call and reply. Where are the stars tonight, and what of theories and dreams? What are your common things and when you dream, what dreams are messing up your hair?

I drew my lips red and then left them open to possibilities.

Bloody Nose

I had a dream last night in which I considered the morning, afternoon and night of a bullet as it traveled on the way to its destination.

And it felt as if something small, aquatic was swimming in my eye. My left eye to be exact and no rubbing or blinking of it would exhaust or stop it.

I have this image of you. In it you are outside smoking. Your brow is furrowed from the light and the angle of the sun causes the veins in your forearms to seem mountainous, significant. You speak between the motions of smoking. A few measured words then a drag and hold, smoke circling within your lungs; followed by the exhale and a few more words rise up with the smoke, just as winding, they meander up and away. The cigarette is flicked and you study your fingers’ movement as the ashes fall. The red burn left is a sign.
And I am thinking of the shadowed veins, wondering if they lead to treasure or if they are hard to the touch. Tiny mountains, swollen rivers, risen paths. And there is no cigarette in my hand to buy me time. The only smoke that circles in my lungs has circled within your body first. And as you flick the cigarette I study your fingers’ movement and I am aware, the red burn remaining, is a sign.

I had a dream last night that butterflies started to stream into the room and land in my hair. They covered my head and shoulders, all shapes, colors and sizes, and began to mate. “Stay still,” others informed me, “be careful and let them do what they are doing.” And I could barely feel their flutter against my forehead, on my neck. Some couples landed on my forearms, tiny and connected they made their butterfly love and I watched, and I sat still and let them.

Bullfrogs

My growling aching limbs remind me of the days of crouching in the duck weed and muck searching for the biggest bullfrog in the pond. Careful footsteps through the water so the horrific squeak of a squished frog would never creep out, or the snapping turtle wouldn't catch our toes in her jaws and eat them like saltines.
I never knew how important a mosquito was or when the wrong time was to squish it. She is just feeding a family, just trying to survive. She's trying to feed the frogs, feed the ducks and the lily pads. And I thought it was funny to mush her on my arm.
And I'm trying to survive, but dinner tonight was air and Sunny D mixed with mythical animals who make their homes in little red and white spheres of light. Goldfish danced in my hair and flopped back into the tiny pool of sheets nearby.
Something inside is breaking like eggs cracked on heads, dripping through tresses of hair and down my neck. Taking a shower means letting it win. Letting go of the largest bullfrog in the pond, now in the bucket, looking at me with the wide eyes I adorn every day.

Tip #3 - 50 words

If you're having trouble coming up with something, or you just want to try to challenge yourself, here's something you can do: Write a narrative in exactly 50 words. It must have a beginning, middle and end (whatever that means to you). It must be EXACTLY fifty words.

Of course, you can feel free to fool around with this, but the challenge is in the specifics above.

(Recommended by MaKeR)

Boon Epilogue

Dragged down by my personal puma
By the scar I received from no one.

Leaving the murk, let the mud cake and crack in the sun.
Welcome returns make ears ring with the bells.

ugh

remember the ocean where there are waves and seasalts crusty under your skin - if you float long enough you'll feel the barnacles grow and soon you'll become gray and white and maybe baleen. shrimp dance. cuttlefish dance.

remember the ocean: overwhelming enormity - like the sky but deeper.

response to kenneth anger

they've got masks on, you know. painted like little china dolls dancing around like we care. they've got guns and flowers, kind of like guns n' roses but not the same at all. they were there before guns n' roses, if you want to play the originality game.

there's a little person in a blue forest walking through a fountain and her dress gets wet and the critics say gee, doesn't that fountain look big compared to that little person? and we say, gee, what a beautiful fountain.

warhol was a star-struck little boy but we're supposed to worship him. blasphemy to the art world, maybe, but god we have too many warhols around here. i want to see edie's art, see past the glossy edgy and understand what it is to be the face of a movement. andy's got the name, she's got the face, now all we need is authenticity.

you think you know what's coming but you never do. it's that sweet taste of a reward taken away, the last drop at the bottom of a honey stick. you're supposed to ooh and ahh and appreciate. if it evokes emotion it's working, right? that's what they say at least.

90 lbs of Dead Skin

They are crawling up and out of me, dark little figures with round hands and feet. Deep grins and darker giggles, I see them now, circling and centering over some little particular. They join hands, as well as hand-less oddities can join, and dance around it, as if it were a sacral fire. And their little bodies are in the way of me seeing it, they move too quickly for me to make it out between their forms. And the song they sing gets faster, faster, as I try to will them to slow, and then they are no long individuals, but a black ring circling, growing in width until they are now a black dot, blotting out the point of interest, the thought I was looking to find, the word on the tip of my tongue, the story I wanted to tell. What terrible little creatures.

Salt

He missed his one claim to fame. Wives really will hold you down. And I have to schlump certain people into certain categories so others will know, just what I mean. And what terrible things did these terrible people do to have their names become descriptors for other transgressors. “You know, he’s a real Zach Shields.” And suddenly, it clear, we all know, we can all agree.
Not that I’m a saint. Not that you don’t scowl and hiss when I’m mentioned, when he sings that song or sends that look. Women will tear each other apart, and I just rather fight from afar.
I was trying to break myself down into shapes and hide behind a solid layer of black, brown, pink, gold. My freckles are making a comeback, new sun, new season is calling them out and I’m exotic, animal like, a pattern where others are smooth, one endless color. The North Star has moved its location to my left cheek, find your constellations from that spot on.
He missed his claim to fame and I am glad for it, I rejoice in his small nature and small words and banished situation. I imagine him, cowering in deserts, naked and crying. How sad, how simple, how pathetic. And if I told you, he truly deserved this fate, could you guess to what he had done?

Guess.

I Rather Be Making New Family Traditions Than Mouthing A Stranger Who Called Me Pretty At A Mini-Golf Course

I like girls in ties. She said and she had to pause and re-emphasis when he only shook his head, slightly yes and didn't lift to meet her gaze. She held the like out this time, and put her hand on his knee. I like girls in ties.

She expected it, damn near demanded it, when she placed her left hand on his thigh, he'd say, "hey beautiful." And her world would calm again. She was dramatic, a child, her voice closed down way in her throat and she spoke like she didn't know any better to laugh when she felt like laughing and to cry whenever the feeling took her. She covered his face with her tears and they made soup.

Working quietly together, she knew what he was doing without looking up or asking. She could count on him to do his part as quickly as she did hers. So much so, that she found she only remembered half of recipes. She'd forget to chop the onion before sauteing the greens,or to mix the oil with the flour. How many cups of water she needed. Those were his bits to remember, to do. And she was happy to share.

It seems that simple life isn't made to accommodate crowns, and I can't seem to find a single appropriate place to put mine, besides on my head. My sister keeps asking if I've worn my crown during sex yet. Says, it would have been first on her list if it was hers. Would wear it every time she did it, if she had one. But my head its messy, and the crown is pointy and jeweled. I'm unsure how he'd feel, to see it reflecting colors, in a nest of my hair.

I'm happy to think of marriage. It doesn't seem grand or all ending. Just natural. Just certain. Just something. A why not. A no brainer. A good excuse to change my passport and take a vacation. The only way the PeaceCorps will accept us. A way to end the accidental slips of "husband" that on occasion, escape. Outside the land of rationale, it slows down. No rush. No hurry. I mean, we've got a lifetime, right?
I've got a career to start and seeds to sow. And let's face it, the guy who served the coffee might need a pick me up of his own.
Bored with intrigue, it stops. A joke. An echo to something less. And they don't leave out a single thing on these models, rogue nosehairs, praying for the invention of the tweezers. Frozen flies no longer buzzing but still as pesty.

The point: I'm always cold. He keeps me warm. I can't make soup without him.

hiatus: end; brothers

i will spend a year writing about brothers. i will spend one year writing about notions of the filial, and conceptions and brothers as apples and oranges. we will look at the surface of the ocean from beneath, and the viability of brothers there.