this is the way things go

i'm sick
and tired of this day
and of myself and all the usless machinations that i use to cycle first against and then away
from all the things that seem undeserved
maybe i mean unrealistic
i was trying to write a post about a stevie wonder song i heard the other day at the airport
while i was waiting for a cab home
but it sounded more trivial than i intended
too pat
i said fuck this out loud and to the silent stillness of the room
and deleted the whole stupid jumbled mess

i should have been in bed hours ago

seeing double?

i think that mistake/occurance speaks for itself

no wonder i'm acting like such an imbecile today

low-medium grade fever
damn

no wonder i'm acting like such an imbecile today

low-medium grade fever
damn

reflections on always looking down the wrong street way

maybe i need to knock this kind of shit off

when there isn't enough tissue to dry the edges of eyes

back again in this familiar, yet disembodied place
of tiredness and late night phone calls from far away much longed for voices
somehow the phrase
i miss you
has lost dimension or adequate proportion
the breadth of the words not nearly close to enough
there are too many places i want to be
too many hands i want to hold and bodies to cling to
friends, lovers
the strangely complex space that somehow springs up
between and through the two
home again
and not quite home at all

side note: the poetry reading went astonishingly well -- and i have those of you out there who read these things and who've kept me feeling like these words really aren't wasted or completely trivial to thank for that. posting here has given me a certain level of confidence and i'm glad i was able to transcend into the physical realness of the words -- if even for a moment. it felt good to stand up in front of other people and to say without apology or fear -- this is who i am -- even if it is just sometimes.

test

things noted, but not notable

it seems strange to feel so alien and uncomfortable
staying with someone i've known intimately for at least a decade

the inability of the cold ice touching
--written in an airport somewhere in middle america/early evening/highly intoxicated/unedited

there’s just enough time to get
drunk on vodka
in the airport lounge
before take off
and i’d like to be able to tell you
about how i accepted a drink
from a strange woman
and even afterward
flirted with her
in my common unabashed shameless style
until he showed up
already drunk and full of
vigorous contempt
all car keys and the salty residue of tears
i don’t want you to go
he said as we embraced as mostly
drunk people do in front of the
terminal building
but he isn’t the one i want to hear
say so and i don’t feel sad
as i leave him and pass through
security
although i cherish the way this
liquor smoothes out the movements
how it licks this particular
memory into a place that feels
like cool satiation
but this longing remains –
for the way your lips could
replace any false sense of
elevation brought on by wild flower bouquets
and other incandescent means
i want to go home i say to the rain slashing against the tinted windows
as i walk on and sit at the gate waiting to leave
this for that but not for the
place i actually want to be –
which is anywhere that might feel like it does to see your eyes
like a soul’s liquid miracle

breaking up

i ring jay from my office
it's been ages since we've spoken
and those moments used to fill me with an ache
as if i'd misplaced my own name
but those days seem to be over
or at least fading
i've just called to say i love you, i'm sleepy and unsolicited
he makes a noise into the phone
like an exhalation that isn’t quite sure it meant to be one
what’s going on?, i ask, knowing full well where this is going.
where’ve you been? he says each word in quiet hurt anger.
nowhere, i lie and he knows it.
the rest of the conversation
a maze of
we can’t keep doing this and
i know
we were holding time
being the light at the end of it all
but there’s no need for us any longer
we’ve got to stop holding on so tightly
strange to feel, afterward, as if we’d broken up with one another
i suppose in some vital emotional destructive ways
we have

the longing of words

your words rise from beneath a pile of circulars and bills
the act of pen against paper
the same violent pink as the sweater i'm wearing
makes me close my eyes tightly
these kinds of words from far away
remind me how love feels
sometimes
thick, tragic, unexpected, gorgeous
all i can do is
smile and press the envelope against my lips
feeling lucky to be loved and alive

resizing

suddenly my house has become uncomfortably quiet
the empty spaces surrounding me in bed--catastrophic proportions
i'm getting out of here for a few days
to find me a chaos or two
and hopefully get into the kind of trouble that doesn't leave irreprerable damage
i'm collecting up some short pieces at the moment
to participate in a poetry reading this weekend
i rarely share my writing with other people
and i'm terrified at the thought of hearing the words fly out of my mouth
to be filtered and chewed like passing coffee house fare
fuck it--nobody will care
[selfishly, i'm thinking of reading this
just because i can]
but right now, i think i should go to bed
and stop thinking about all these crazy notions

things to remember

it's funny that when planning trips like this one
i spend only a few minutes sorting out where i'll stay and who'll pick me up at the airport
and all day long trying to sort out the schedule so that i'll be able to hit all of my fav old hangouts
even staying a few nights with the other boy won't be so bad
or at least that's what i'll keep telling myself
and hopefully soon there'll be less impediments and reasons to classify any boy with a word like
other

i'm so tired that i know i'm going to get this all wrong

earlier today i was sitting in a musty airport
i'd just used a few given pounds to wake
the person i'd just left to say things i'd already just said
greedy palpitating words across wires
trying to steal more time to seal the last vestiges of something i'd already sworn wouldn't be this
real
or leave me wondering what kind of vacancy is this
through check points and large steaming cups of coffee
i waited
finally wrote at the top of a blank page in the small almost square notebook i'd been carrying around in my bag all week and hadn't thought for a moment of using:
the worst part is
these past few days have been the happiest . . .
time to stop for the text now
over and across this divide

i've just tried to fall into the useless task of doing my laundry
emptied out all the clothes from my bag onto the floor
every article arrests the memory
a faint scent of
that man no longer in reach of a whisper

closing up the last shutters

this blog-girl is taking a bit of a break
leaving for different places
and real faces
keep me in your thoughts
and i'll be back and posting
before you know it

miss me. miss you.

what the bloody hell?

two days in a row with this nose bleed thing
already
it's gotten old

just from the shower

i'm lounging around the house
comfortable only
in a pink cotton oxford shirt
and drinking tea
all the windows thrown wide
listening to the birds
there's a hum coming off of the lilac sky
i'm locked between sleep and wake
too much anticipation, even, to dream

why i looked
this up
is beyond me.
[i know what to do. and typing with one hand is always a chore.]

emergency room, indeed.
i'll take my chances.
plus, tc* knows what to do with all my important stuff when i die.
and when you've squared that away,
well,
there's not really anything left to worry about.

*yes, everyone else can go screw.

i wish i hadn't been alone

when i watched this film
dealing with the realm of unassuming protest juxtaposed in and between the worlds of poetry, poverty, violence, education, censorship, sexuality, identity, exile and isolation
the cinematography often made poetic statements of its own
this is a film you could watch without sound
but you wouldn't want to
because Arenas' words are sharp and wonderful
and when they take form across the screen
converting the texture of the film into the textuality of its origins
they are crisp, sparse, dirty, necessary
they left me with the urgent need to think about the importance of place
and to read poetry with my eyes closed

7 steps to faking injury (and other things that go bump in the night)*

1. drink way too much
2. close bathroom door, inexplicably
3. go to bed late
4. get up, again, at some point before the light comes/don’t turn on the lights
5. forget you’ve closed the bathroom door
6. walk smack into it and fall on the floor
7. laugh so hard at yourself and the situation that you aren’t even mad at yourself for behaving so stupidly

*none of this actually happened, though. seriously. i swear it.

talking to jay

and he says
fuck girl. fuck.
watch yourself. fucking please just watch yourself.

true enough.
true that.

but, now, more vodka.

long weeks and tired voices

i’m listening to live across a wire
leaning into the words
letting them breathe against
the disappearing places
that i might soon occupy
i want to be the light that burns out your eyes
i want to be the last thing that you hear when you’re falling asleep

i want to be scattered from here in this catapult
everything is just madness
and i don’t mind
if this is crazy, maybe, i should stay awhile
‘cause it sure feels fine to me

the story like sound slipping off a bird’s wings taking flight from the rail on the steep incline of the bridge near my house at dusk

tumbling swiftly down
this terrible naked dance takes
like the dangerous slippery texture
of cold winter rocks
or memory
thrown into the opaque overflow
by these heavy rimed hands
useless like bricks
cupped and cradled in the cusp
the fragility and shape of shells
from the slick levee side
grabbing each frosted orb
fumbled greedy like a recompense
and hurled over the distance between
to crack—scar—break the busted surface
these groundless moments
struck here upon the precipice
to pause
and crumble under the weight of gravity and design

indicators that i've got too much work to do (and other things that don't seem connected, but usually are)

i'm thinking of chopping my hair off again

who cares if they're just undergraduates in a motorized cart

this morning
i thank [viewer's choice] invisible diety
for the fact that i accidentally ran into university security
just rounding the business building
and as i started to seriously fret over the creepy man
who'd been following me since the bus stop
and they escorted me, in their fancy little cart
all the way to where i was going

checkacheckitout

go tell dvd how cool his redesign looks
but just make sure you mean it

things that jules and i have decided: and now it shall be so

you're a fucking man whore
just like baskin 'n' robbins -- servin' it up

[. . .]

dick and chewy should never need to be used in the same sentence

[. . .]

you've got some big fuckin balls (jay re: my current disposition)
you're quite the collage

[note: all of these things were funnier last night . . . when i'd been drinking heavily . . . hmmmm]

pishaws and rickshaws and other things that follow along behind

my deus ex machina:
personal porn
a consecrated perdition

words from paris
a telegram for the damned
choppy accented prose

t- sent news of you [stop]
see me in the summer time? [stop]
i dream to kiss you in this bed [stop]
or anywhere [stop]
see me soon [stop]

full stop.

i'm a sucker

for a good tease

hurry back -- missing the psyt

not just yet

it’s supposed to be unusually warm weather today. so, not to be outdone, i’ve worn a favorite dress to university. and my lighter-weight coat, hat, scarf, gloves. it’s not so warm just yet. wind chill probably hovering close to zero. but i don’t mind. sometimes it’s good to make a change—to feel alive.

conversations like snow blow jobs

yesterday one of my professors caught me in front of the building. hey there, she shouted. and we talked for awhile in that smallish uncomfortable i-don’t-really-know-you-outside-of-the-class-room kind of way. then this happened:

her: You know there’s a rally for gay rights this Friday. You should come by.
me: Oh, yeah? That sounds interesting.
we exchange information about where and when
her: My partner and I are really trying to get a strong community of lesbians together in this area as a form of support.
me: Community really is important. (lots of head nodding)
her: Well, if you’re interested, there is a small group of us that get together sometimes on the weekends.
me: Uh. (feeling unnecessarily awkward having this discussion with my professor) Maria, you know I’m not a lesbian, right?
her: (laughing) I’m not sure how I got that so wrong.
me: But I’ve always been an advocate for gay rights—and I’ll try to make it on Friday.
her: Take care (still laughing). See you Thursday.
me: Yep. You too.

later i tell my office mate about this conversation and that jason asked me to come listen to his band. oh, no she warns, you do not want to go there. i of course want to know why. he’s got no game. really? really. tsk. what a shame. i wasn’t going anyway, nor would i have been interested in checking out that aspect of his *ahem* personality. but we talk, for some time, about boys and certain aspects of them that make falling in love with a woman seem entirely unfathomable. i hate to play into gender stereotypes, i say, but it’s that alpha-male factor that’s so ultimately attractive. oh, god yes, she says. yep.

test post

gosh i really hope my template stops buggin' out

the recompense of insecurity and faulty html coding

in this particular room
under garish pulsating fluorescent lamps
and for no apparent reason or reward
i'm constructing a map that leads
from that stitch just beneath the skin
at the base of your wrist
to all of the other untraceable places
that i think i might want to kiss you

current nonsense resolution

i am never under any circumstances eating again.

realizations that feel more like after the fact justifications for blatant idiocy

Earlier today, I thought that I must have fallen in love with mister x simply because he looks exactly like a young Richard Wright.

i don’t want to be in my office
don’t want to be inside at all
feel like i’ve been plunked into a glass filled with shallow water
it just keeps rising and rising
and i can’t breathe easy
find a fast foothold
amidst all of these words and textures
these pressures and consequences
the wind howls against the building like a pack of wild dogs
so i go out
in search of them
attacked at once by the biting cold
the frozen falling detritus
routine acts at stabbing into clear spaces
but the sky is an upturned white bowl
and i just keep bumping into the boundaries
there’s no jumping off point
captured under the pressure
and unable to breathe
i break
retreat
arrive again inside
where every noise feels like a companion
to the dull ache inside my head

not much to say

nothing, really, at all

move with me to belgium, he says. we’ll go. let’s go. silence. arizona, he moans. and i say, simply, summer. i remember you, his words slide between years of regret and foolish years of being too young. don’t ask me, i can hear my voice like sandpaper saying, because i remember you too. let’s fly away, he sings. and his voice wraps me up in this desire to run far away. fall into arms. close my eyes and forget the world and time and those breakable incendiary things hidden right beneath the skin. i don’t want to fall apart, i whisper. tired and vulnerable and under the haze of too many waking restless hours. and he says, people who really love you, well, they’ll love you even in pieces—each and every one of the pieces—they’ll love you into pieces and then back whole again. and maybe that’s the point. maybe there’s something there to think about. maybe i should have known that already.