last night, upon drinking heavily for several hours. i busted in on my boyfriend in the shower (he was not drinking heavily. or, at all). with my digital camera. for some reason. i thought that this was terribly hilarious. and kept squealing: let me get a peekchure of your junk. over. and. over. again. (i wish i were kidding.) (he was not compliant). (or, i think, at all amused). on the flash card, hung over this morning, i see that there are more blurry shots of the shower door. and hinges. and my fingers. than there are butt cheeks.

file this under: seriously, now . . . what?, and, aren't you glad i'm not your super-lush emotional wreck dissertating girlfriend?

yesterday, i woke up with a black eye
and a broken finger
my boyfriend wondered where they'd come from
but i didn't know
and they weren't talking

With the street lamps lit, I spent long hours on the porch with Brandi Carlile. The way Ted and I did. Last year. I wanted to tell you thick tongued stories about meeting the love of my life. To fill you up with the mosquitoes that buzz under my skin. Show you the other side of this painted door I fight with. Where I go to talk to Samuel Beckett and wonder about my consciousness of dying. Now I'm finally happy. Just to sit quiet, together, and watch the dark roads shimmer under a changing sky.

i have dreams that sean penn realizes that he's in love with me and proposes. and i believe i am happy. it's just that all unexpectedly i can never get over the way his monotone voice grates on my nerves. and i run away with julia ormond, instead.

There's a photograph peaking out from under a stack of books on my desk. Me and my older brother. A stray coin covers my right eye. Turns me penny pirate strange.

i am so tired of this being me thing

April 20th 2007
is the first official
Pants Day

today. i am totally obsessed with my body.

i am the hollow sound of a cork undone. watching your virtual fish tank.
all night long.

the darkness of the apartment feels like wading blindfolded through cold. even eyelashes. numb. and when i open the door to this room. everything i ever thought i knew about the geography of meaning. the intricacies of respiration. how to change a tire in the rain. fall useless. like broken snow globes. on any night like this one. i pause in the frame. count. red . . . two. and when i stand in the pause of the house. lean into its forgiveness. then. when my grandmother was young she was left abandoned. i imagine her now in the weakest part of my mind. the shrill slant of her eyes. the lap of my childhood unfolding the sharp edges of the world. and wonder if women in my family were just meant for this kind of life. to love. no matter what.

some days, the shaping of young minds really does feel impossible. makes me feel like all the badness in the world could be witnessed upon them and they'd still go on. doing their things. as if the rights of others--their own rights--never mattered a god effing damn. i live my life according to fairly simple ideas.

People pay for what they do,
and still more for what they have
allowed themselves to become.
And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
--James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name

and if you believe in something, you better believe in it fully and well.

how are they missing the point, upon point, upon restless murderous vengeful point, that we are all part of one big story. that the perpetuation of hate begets more hate. and that the same is true of love. that walking thin lines and begging unconsciousness only braids weak ropes bound of excuses. some days, i cannot understand the world. or any mind living in it that can ignore the legacy and daily relevance in the American life of genocide--of the displacement and destruction of an entire culture--of slavery, of gross unjust acts of war meant to scatter the seeds of violence and oppression as far as they can go--so that they can thanklessly sit their asses in plastic seats probably mass produced in some sweat shop by children and believe that they have the right and the privilege to anything. to what they foolishly think is their education.

it occurred to me during a long night of not sleeping and zoning in front of late night re-runs of the first season of American Idol, that we all should really come up with the list of songs that we might have sung had we been contestants. i am quite sure that it will say something key about our personalities.

ps. no, i don't watch the show, now or in the past, either. and no, i don't sing. that doesn't matter. and if not 'american' idol, then whatever it's called where you live.

please.

we've developed a new term around our apartment:

herdez (v): to consume large quantities of Herdez brand salsa.

[we're also quite keen on using this term as a qualifier. ie: I love you more than herdez.]

it appears that i've got to add red wine to the constantly expanding list of foods that my body does not appreciate consuming as much as i do:

meat
potatoes
potato chips
bread
rice
beer (does not include hard cider)
soda
red wine

(pout)

when i open the door. and comb the streets of this city. for any resemblance of you. me. a memory. this eye lash. torn into a wish. anywhere that could have been here. i can't find the canvas that might walk me to you. all those nights i spent constructing love strange and beautiful into the very skin of you. washed away. and i am left with nothing. but lost time. this one regret. for no man. no picture shows or solitary showers deliver me any closer to the you that i knew. than this moment. when i suck lemon juice from a tall clear glass. and listen to the world on the other side. moving. i want to shower you electric. make your ears buzz. your head rock. i want you to wish you had new words for the word fantastic. when i open the door and see you sleeping there. in my bed. that is our bed. that is no-man's-country. i lose my foothold. on the definition of the word: circumscribe. to be with you is like taking all of my worst fears and then wrapping cold tired self in cold restless blankets. i search the caverns of you to find the switch. light the fire. but people aren't so simply bodies electric. and finding the way home on our own terms, it seems, can be cold and lonely, at times.

because i don't know what you are. i open and the window and scream. only nothing comes out. nothing but that sound i make in dreams when i can't say anything. this isn't a dream. this life filled with half-witted internal organs and too many soundless words. nothing goes down easy. the way fist-fulls of caramel flavored pudding might. why are there always so many hands? there's never enough feet. and in an awkward way. i think to god that i just might --

i am going to fill this screen with my head. smash the contents until it breaks and goes away. bring a shovel. this one is going to get messy.

I brought a shovel and a pail full of the last gritty remnants of snow from a too-long winter. We're going to build a paper sailboat to maroon on the ice so we can watch it slowly capsize amid discussions of Paris through the eyes of a gay black American and one too many wines/tequilas/gins. Spin horrifying tales of passengers' lives and final moments until we're certain there are no survivors. In a glow of burning paper hats, blowing paper noisemakers as if it's New Year's Eve.

world domination has to start somewhere, she said.

we know where you live.

i woke up thinking, it really was the pants.

i still miss you
(like empty plates and stained fingertips carry the memory of red curry just gone)

but, seriously now, am i the only one who takes real-life photographs of herself reenacting andre's doodles?

wants to drink Sauza and suck salted limes with you for the rest of the afternoon.

Sometimes I pretend that you're my next door neighbor.

That way when I have conversations with my walls, it makes me feel less crazy.

remember that time when i accidentally bought margarita mix not premixed margaritas in a bottle? and it was late when we realized. and you went back to the store anyway to bring home the missing alcohol? now that's what i call true love.

i take mine on the rocks. with lots of salt.

i want to know that in the middle of the night. when you are tired, or lonely, or afraid. that only the scent of my hair. makes you feel sane.

Remember the days when I didn't accidentally place orders with you for way more than I'd been planning? Because you stuck me with shipping costs I didn't anticipate, since I didn't realize that one of my items was coming from an outside vendor? And that I wouldn't have even added that item to my cart if I hadn't been trying to increase my purchases in order to . . . wait for it . . . get your G.D. free shipping offer. Or that, in fact, I actually placed my order when I thought I was only reviewing it in preparation to purchase. If I had reviewed the order, as I thought I was in the process of doing, perhaps I would have noticed the shipping costs you stuck me with. You sneaky Amazonian devil. Oh how I remember the old days. When my friends were working in your warehouses and people thought that selling books through the computer was the craziest notion around. Remember that Amazon? When you were a book seller? And you were friendly with me? And I was proud of us for having the same home town?

in the between. i rock green circles on the sole of your best shoes. cover your blank book in blue concentric. stand in the sill. and stare. there are 12 cars in the parking lot. where your car sits unmoving. still. i call the name of the car when it runs. but without the lights. it can't hear me. the wind. goes. the wind purrs my name. in the between. where the cracks of the pane make whispers of ghosts. monumental. and i don't know much about space and time or the way cell phone rings and toasters can make me jump out of my skin. sometimes. but the perfect way the light reflects off the trees in the neighbors yard. across the cement divide. that's between. made my whole world green washed for approximately 6 seconds. not a perfect number day. this. like sandwiches and thin gold rings for fingers. calling. but when the dial tones and breaks to go. only his hollow voice says something about a name and a number. but the tin canned version makes me nervous. and i forget to speak the sounds that are me when i'm put into words.

remember that time we flew kites, and you told me you'd love me forever?

naw. me neither.

i'm so guilty
of falling in love
with men in airports

best paper airplanes

For this to work, I say, you're going to have to be very quiet. But nothing ever really stops. Not the voices. Not the turning of the universe. The Fibonacci sequence rolling like ancient vowels. Like palms at the bends of knees. Not leaves. And if I stood up right this minute and screamed. Wrote you that letter I've been meaning to send in blood and bones about the way life goes funny sometimes. About dying young. When I was little the whole world got pushed into one small dark room. Let me out. I'd like to leave now. These nightmare moments when I'm shaking and you're shaking me awake. No. No. Please, just be quiet. Then roll numbers and vowel sounds into songs without words. Listen. When I am eye. I am not your hybrid construction. I am not a half-life substantiated on synthetics. On medications. I am a real girl. With a name. A sexless purpose. I didn't need you before I met you. This is the dream Aye. The strong worded one who never gets the chill up her spine. Looks over her shoulder. And I don't need you now. She says. But this me hears her and closes one eye. Cocks her head like a puppy transfixed by the sun. Waits. Stop it. No. Please. I am not this girl. Stayed and linked on your chain. I do not run wildly round you like some poorly trained dog. Tricking for your affections. Bow. Wow. Still. I am just one woman. With perfect measurements and a goofy smile. Who isn't quite tall enough to be more than average. Who is too smart for her own good. Eye. Aye. I. There has been trouble. With my days.