found this in a notebook under a bunch of papers in my closet when i was looking for something else; don’t even remember when i wrote it

saying yes to all the wrong questions

there was a time when being at the airport made me happy, but now i know that no matter how many miles i travel – i’ll still be there – i’ll still have myself to deal with. this trip is making me itch, because i can’t wait to be returned to people i love. where there is love and lots of safe spaces.

i call jules from the terminal and he asks me to describe the carpet. straight away. it looks like wild chickens ran through paints of burgundy, blue-green, light and dark tan and were let loose to scatter their footprints on the expanse of the tight looped rug. it’s cheap. i say. carpet tiles. not hypnotic or mesmerizing. but something from which to avert the eyes. i wonder if they ever sell the seats on discount or used – black leather and chrome. he doubts it.

there are a large group of us milling about. nervous cell phone talkers. one man is laughing – he’s just said far too loudly -- i’ve been trying to call for the last 15 minutes. the guy behind me just keeps making calls. real estate. he’s going to seattle.

i get off the phone, because suddenly i feel like a huge idiot.

i said this is actually a word

and i wasn't kidding

latest t-shirted slogan madness [purchased yesterday]

dorks are hot

latest desired slogan on a t-shirt [or: my newest nickname]
irate fat man

mud-duckin'

some things are worth getting soaked to the bone
dotted rain soaked words
whiskey loaded lightning storms

here there is thunder

what i wrote in the margin today all above the statement: i just said: i'm so writing that down

speaker: europe is a sexual place . . . well, except for england.
(lots of laughter from the people in the room)

what i wrote in my notebook after i gave up listening during my seminar on tuesday morning

aside: 9:55am--i've just discovered, and then extracted, a thumb tack from the bottom of my left shoe (near the heel). it's now sitting on my desk -- point side up -- it makes me nervous -- it looks shiny

last two posts are stuff i wrote yesterday, then wasn't able to publish because i was being switched to the new blogger deal, yo. so, now there's that [edit] thing. no, i don't know what to do with it/about it either.

after turning the corner onto 40th street and only on the number 8 line
i always lean at just the right angle
so that whenever we hit a dip in the road i end up smacking my head hard against the thick heavy window
i’ve no idea why
it hurts
i do it everytime

even on days like this one
good things happen

my regular bus driver slowed down then stopped and waved to me when i didn’t make a move to board. i waved back to say – thanks, i see you, just taking a different route today. his friendliness made me smile.

returned a dress that i loved, but likely wouldn’t ever wear, without hassel.

the postal clerk was really cheerful when i went in to retrieve a certified mail envelope. he called me by my first name—twice.

i held the door for a woman who was coming out of the post office right behind me. as we walked off into different directions she sang the words thank you. and. have a great day. in a way that made me feel like i’d just won some special prize.

iced coffee

lifesavers kickerz

no idea
seriously
i've got nothing
not that that's new
it's just that i'm putting it down
typing it up
which is also nothing
not 'no nothing'
which actually means something
to someone specific
i keep trying to write
but then when i see the words on the page
all inky and boxed up
it feels like there's a bunch of cotton that's gotten stuffed between what i thought i meant to say
and what actually got written
like everything comes out muffled
it was something about movements of bodies being like a pirouette--barefooted ballerinas
[see what i mean?]
sometimes i feel like my hands are made from bricks
or that maybe, when i wasn't looking, someone zipped off my fingers and replaced them with much less usable items
like dead fish

driving into the storm

maybe it was the heavy air electricity of the night--
quick sudden bursts of lightning
the beauty like purple cracks revealing an imperfect sky
rain beating steady against windows
drumming the path all the way to the front door:
reminding me that every road doesn't lead home:
making me realize that the mistake doesn't always have to turn out to be me--
that filled me up with a desire to say the words i knew i felt and couldn't

tripping off email messages of fondness

I remember that time we talked in the courtyard between the building in which we worked and the other one where we stalked the halls searching for a place where I might say something—where I might find the movement and keep going on. He sat on a bench. Staring off into nothing. The concreteness of it all. I stood smoking cigarettes and rocking like a steady tick—the way a swing does for long moments after the rider has since been drawn away by some other distraction. It was during those days when my friends sat for long hours listening to me tell the same story with different words. When they daily and nightly loved me in spite of an inability to recognize my own face.

And I told that sometimes I longed to be an Octavio Paz poem.
And he said it’s a brave thing to want to be a poem.

[. . .]

banquo

sometimes the buses’ howling brakes become that space i inhabit without you. the screeching metal against metal grinding it all to a slow piercing stop. to sneak under that flat fair expanse of skin just above where the neck and shoulders intersect. a hard grip like too strong hands without release.

it's funny when

you call someone with the full intention of leaving him a message
but the person is home and answers the phone
and then you've no idea what to say

delirium: strange encounters on the jogging path on deciding to take a long walk after already working out for an hour and a half at the gym

brad: a cross country cyclist asleep on his gear – head in the bushes
three small grey bunny rabbits
one butterfly (which landed on me as i was running and made me stop until it decided to fly again away)

public declarations

tc if you're somewhere out there
and reading this
you are loved

only because there doesn't seem to be anything else
cribbing from late night emails to friends

and i know, instantly, when i sit down to the computer with an empty head
full up with the desire to sleep
but unable
that you
out of everyone that i know
you
would understand this posture
the ever-wake lethargy that will
certainly
leave me feeling like a bag full of bricks tomorrow during normal operating hours

it isn't all the coffee i drank during this previous day's late afternoon dusky hours
couldn't
ever be

raining

sleepy-headed

right now i'm wondering

how i'm going to work up the energy
no, maybe i mean motivation
to walk home rather than jump on the bus
it's the walking that i need
the time and space
that strange dead zone that somehow usually
eventually
empties me up to some place good
and i'm not just talking about deliverance to my front door
but to a world less tangible
where words seem to come clearer
and i find better ways to say the things i hadn't yet imagined

next to you before the storm

I sit on my back porch in the almost dark – the permadusk of evening – watching a cat run curiously, ferociously, through the yard. It – the he or she doesn’t seem to matter – chases a squirrel up a tree. The nails barking and scratching loudly as they climb. And it’s impossible to discern which sounds belong to whom. If it’s the clutching fury of the flight or the crushing advances of the chase or some mixed up combination of both that sounds too much like fear and not enough like answers.

some days you just have to say fcuk it

this afternoon i spent all my grocery money at victoria's secret
who needs food
anyhow

on not wasting good lip gloss (and other voice recorded messages that likely won't sound so chill on the morrow)

sometimes all you can do
after discussing the intricacies and intersections of violence and love and relationships in
the piano
and
true romance
when it's suddenly all 2 am
is the dishes

the danger of waiting for phone calls

by then, i may already be too drunk

. . . notes written on the body . . .

i've got to get back to the gym

tonight i walk the house
to the unexpected tones of your voice
lean into the heavy silences between
as if they all might create you permanent
render these pieces whole
if they were sacred—preternatural
bound infinitely
to nothing
i'd still believe them all
every last word

must write something soon

that's a declaration and a promise

maybe

phenomenalisticly(ish)

best phrase of the day
zero cool

all day long
i've left the bed unmade
and fought off this clamoring desire
to slide back between the sheets
wrap myself in them like the well remembered scent of someone just gone
and lose it all to the undertow

the lack of words

i've been wanting to write
the words spinning and spinning
and yet nothing seems to want to take shape
adequate form
but i'll keep trying
and likely soon
soon
i miss being here