this antidote: asian noodles and the revision of love letters

There's a storm about to crack open the sky. A proper one filled with the loud growling roar of thunder; disjointed bright flashes of light. Heavy warm storms remind me of coming home. Of making love. The bedroom window thrown open. Hair still wet from running the short distance from the car into the apartment. Rain pounding on the window like slow steady taps. Fingers against a spine. The tension of our love like the pressure of a word still caught in my throat. Necessary and inaudible.

Under this expansively graying sky, I want to hide with you under the blankets of our bed. Feel the weight of your hand against the side of my face. Your hot breath in my eyes. I want to tell stories that we've forgotten to tell. About how my grandfather always smelled of sawdust and tobacco and how he used to hold me on his lap, sometimes, the way you do. Watching television, with his arms wrapped around me for some protection I hadn't yet imagined needing. I'd trace the outlines of the veins running along the spotted backsides of his hands. Realizing I'd never seen him this affectionate with anyone else. Knowing these moments in the chair when we didn't talk--but he'd occasionally squeeze me tighter and I could feel the burn against my check from his rough unshaven jaw--might have been the best most intimate moments of my life.

I think about you. Today. Sitting in some café or another in some glorious ancient place. Whilst I'm here dreaming about the sour smells of childhood--frozen thawing fish and the salty acrid overripe scent of kimchee--and wishing I were there with you. Drinking hot strong coffee and stealing glances at each other over the corners of books.

what do you do when the person who makes the living of life tolerable is suddenly gone?

i'll probably get exceedingly drunk and eat an entire bag of crisps

realizing that what you know is fuck all to begin with

maybe what i needed to hear over the crowded din of a loud bar the junky juke box heroes was the truth
stained and red faced and eyes full up with tears
to make me understand the i don't understand anything at all
and that even at my best moments
i only hurt everyone
i only inflict damage when what i want most of all
is exactly the opposite

i don't deserve love
to give
or to receive
because i know what it is to be the one who doesn't get it
getting kicked when your down
getting fucked around
i've got it all
mapped out in scars across my back
my arms
the upper right part of my skull
the insides where no one will ever see
i've got it written on a map across my body that reads:
danger
damaged goods
crazy
fucked-up
no good
toxic

if you always cause pain in the people you most love, then you're only just a plague looking for victims
i am the plague
plagues equal murder
i am violence
maybe i should be quarantined

maybe i'm not fit for public contamination

after your before the storm

i can't get michael stipe's voice singing the lines
i need this
from "Country Feedback" out of my head

rewriting things with a more thursday perspective

Would the laws of motion suddenly catch it up? Deliver it back over to something unremarkable. Turn the perfection into a long forgotten arsenal ticket. Balled up and found just behind the radiator?

tautological liar

everything after intacto
is a little hazy

Already Wednesday. Already the trains on rails keep running. And no manner of French films I watch or bottles of red wine I consume. Reduce the crushing folds of the sheets that tangle me up at night. Remove the strange constricting notion, now a foreign gesture, of sleeping with clothes on. The stain of my love. Red ribbons and long distance phone calls. When an affair of love is so perfect. So sweet that it becomes a dream you almost thought you might have once tried to live. Like realizing you are better than who you are. Can the everything continue? Or in order for it to remain perfect, does it have to end? Would the laws of motion suddenly catch it up? Deliver it back over to something unremarkable. Turn the perfection into a white athletic sock. Balled up and found, unmatched, behind the radiator?

what you already know

you and i are experts at this—
these short intervals
moments when life lets us match our movements against one another
like layering transparencies
two separate whole functioning units
enhanced through combination
still me
still you
still somehow changed
now our mornings are simply yours
my mornings – turned into your afternoons
we’re experts at this—
you and i
the way i always never start sobbing uncontrollably again between passing through security until flying over greenland
the ways to now navigate a house filled with too many silences
and the ghosts of us, you, starkly and unpredictable
everywhere

post-worthy-moments o’ the day

1. this is the first time i’ve been in an airport bar (unescorted) and no one has offered to buy me a drink.

2. this is the 2nd time i’ve been in this U.S. international airport and had a man follow me in order to talk – at the risk of missing his own flight.

3. i’ve been somewhat satisfied with my ability to walk 15 minute miles without much intention, but today i’ve realized that i can do 20 minute pints (whether or not i’m satisfied with that is still under review).

i don't care
if i'm going soon
if soon
all i'll be is a memory
of your fingertips against keys
on a piano
that isn't even yours
these days
nights
hours
moments
fading into seconds until i've got to go again
have been nothing short of everything i've ever imagined
poetry
in a sense that i can't make posts about it
or can't be bothered
to take the time

love is

[yes]

*pictures, pending.

reasons why stv and mrtn would [okay, fair enough, might be] proud of me

finally watched shrek
for the first time
and tonight

also broke stuff
[double italic] but didn't break people
which tonight
lacking sleep
seems a very smart
good
random
lovely
until a few more days
thing to do [/double italic]

bionic legs anyone?

having a great time on my trip/vacation/last-minute-get-away kind of thingy. did loads of walking yesterday, then met up with friends for a few (or more) drinks.

being serenaded now, by something like a one-man-band. he's not doing all that well playing two instruments at the same time at the moment. still, impressive, nonetheless. plus, he's a good kisser.

no more posts (for at least 48 hours)

i'm off tripping for a few days.

and i can't wait.
more soon.

i hate when i have things to blog about

but probably shouldn't.

[already folding clothes. too soon.]

how to go from blue to blue in a couple dozen easy steps

my hair is blue again
it was purple last
before that various shades of red, orange, pinks
[all the colors of the best tasting kool-aides]
not a teal
but a bright vibrant blue*
i'm in love with it
and i'm not just saying that so it'll stay the night

*if i had a hosting program, i'd post pictures.**
**but i don't.

serious revelations

under any circumstances
i don't like
parsnips

what you’re left with if you take away the amazing and the super and the man

I brushed my teeth in the shower this morning. Then spent a long steady delirious period of time standing under the heavy stream of pressure. Turning every inch of my skin over under hands. Evaluating the changes time and gravity have claimed since the last time you saw me in the light of day without my clothes. Cursing the extra weight that’s taken shape where the very flat fair expanse used to start just under my ribs, to the belly button, interrupted only by the harsh rise of the hip bones. In clothes, the illusion of a trim figure can still sometimes be achieved. But between my hands and this water and the opaque shower door—there’s nothing to obscure reality. Steam and air and vanilla scented soaps. The thick dull razor. Dangerous along curves impervious to impatient hands. I notice the redness. Swelling. Too late. Hope that the slow stream of blood is a nick. A simple mistake. During the day I ignore the desire to scratch that spot near the back of the calf of my right leg – slightly an inch above the ankle. Imagine it as an imaginary twitch. Like the way I couldn’t stop yawning all day long. But it’s still there. And tonight. When I shed the second skin of my clothes, which never took me anywhere farther than the path that leads from my couch to the office checking for email messages that weren’t there then back to the couch, I confirmed the fear that took hold the way bad news can – burning the places in the back of the nose that we usually don’t realize are a part of the workings of our bodies – a spider bite. Without question. My body is doing what it does – reacting as bodies do to foreign toxins – I’m dreadfully allergic and it’s growing harder and harder to pretend that the throb taking over the entire of my right leg isn’t actually there.

last night i drank an almost entire bottle of wine and tried to watch barbarella

right now i'm having a conversation about whether or not i need to pack a jacket
i haven't dried my hair and i can feel it
waves heading, now, in all the wrong directions
i'm wearing a skirt
and only one eye covered in shadow
the day is fighting to be a good one
i feel fine

tricks to staying way longer than you ever wanted

i've been meeting with students all day long about their writing projects for the classes i'm teaching. mostly, i've been trying to justify why meeting the minimum requirements really is only fitting of an average grade. but i did everything that you asked for, in my mind, isn't special. it's just average and it deserves a C. i used to feel bad about these things when i first started teaching. now the conversations just make me remember what it felt like to be in the other chair thinking god, this prof is a total ass-hole. i don't feel bad about it anymore. i just realize it's all part of the process.

yesterday, i said to a student regarding his conference time: you aren't going to stand me up are you? and he replied, using my last name only, that of course he would be here and to have more faith in him. it's been about an hour since he was supposed to have shown. i'm only sad about the fact that i wasn't at all surprised. bright kids who can't sort themselves out really do get to me the most. when no manner of cliche i believe in you-s are going to make any bit of difference. it will likely take failing out to convince him, and by then i'll be long gone -- from here and from his memory of people who often told him he could do it.

so, instead of leaving with an enormous stack of papers in tow. i've gone to the coffee house for a latte. hoping that i'll power through the rest of these responses. knowing, at least, that i'll have to stay and work until this drink is gone.

sip. siiippp.

My mom fell yesterday. Straight onto the ground. Tripped over nothing. Only a few scrapes and a shattered ego. Reminds me how quickly things can happen and how lots of times, there’s nothing we can do about it at all. Just have to straighten up. Check for witnesses. And be happy when there aren’t any. But this isn’t about falling. This is about those split second moments that change us forever.

ooh, get you?

received an email message from a very dear friend tonight that made me respond quickly and in rare fashion these days. and i've got a crooked wry smile at that thought of days gone by. it's a nice change to my general feeling of terror today. nothing feels right. not my eyes. my lips. the size of my shoes. the color of my hair. i came home expecting the place to be empty. and then everything was still here -- just as i'd left it. i'm not sure where the panic comes from. too much rain and not enough food, perhaps. i watched a movie that made me think about sex. [is that uncommon for me?] called myself a monster [for reasons unrelated to the sex thing] and laughed until i thought i might fall right directly from this chair. pretended i might go to bed at a decent hour. but i pretend a lot.

i told my best friend, the other day, something that i don't like to admit about pretending. we'd been talking about our propensity to lie -- to fool one another into believing things we'd swear were true. and i admitted that when i was quite younger, i started fooling people into believing i was a bad liar, by telling inconsequential lies very badly. this tactic worked almost immediately. because i'd catch myself in conversation and say -- i'm so terrible at lying. and we'd all laugh, as friends do. i'd even convinced my parents. and no one ever thought i'd be able to hide anything. while all the while i'd been tucking things away. there are some people who are still convinced i'd never be able to pull off a lie. when all the while i'd been snowing them for decades. i don't promote it as a way of life. it's actually fairly embarrassing, now, to admit. i'd never think of it these days. i'm lucky to not have to.

it's only 8ish where you are. so what if you're tired.

there are advantages to having friends in different time zones. if you've learned to look at the watch face correctly. and they'll say the things you don't really want them to say. even though they're the things you know they're likely to say. over and over again.

i didn't go to the gym today. and in a week or so, i know i'm going to curse myself for that. but now i only want to go to sleep. some place i'm still not familiar with. some place i'll likely not fall for awhile.

vodka noodle soup: it’s the new moving the date forward
[if you don’t get that, it’s not my fault. you’re just stupid.]

tonight i don’t want anything. i’m not hungry or tired or angry or full up with stories. i just think it’d be nice to tie up some loose ends. it’d be nice to see you and not feel compelled to rush our lives into any direction. or to just enjoy the delicacy of letting moments passed uncounted—unchecked—the way greedy people do without understanding their own fortunes. i wish on something sacred that that’s all we’ll ever need to remember that life is and always will be better having survived this all. that we’ll never argue over burnt pasta or who forgot to make the bed. or other trivial matters. that i’ll never have to confess over plenty of drinks to a friend i’ve known for years that i suspect you are crazy or that better yet i’m afraid that you might try to kill me. these possibilities not even a possibility any more. and i’m just thankful, really, that you’ve somehow decided that you’ll see me through it.

all i wanted was a mt. dew

i don't usually drink pop. it's sticky and sweet to a point that i don't typically enjoy.
but there are times, like now, when i am tired and i need something to keep me awake.
and somehow, someway, neither coffee or tea sound good.
so, i scrounged up my change, of which i also rarely have any
and went to the machine
plink
plink
plink
i'm paying in dimes and nickles only
and the sounds of dropping in the coins is enough to drive me crazy
either the machine doesn't register my change
or i've counted out the only scraps of cents on my person
5 cents short
i hit the coin return
and end up with 25 cents less than i started out with
annoyed i start back to work
still tired
my hands carrying that smell of coins held for too long