i've actually got a friend who makes me feel nervous about using exclamation marks.

perhaps

i am going blind.
my eyes exploding,
seeing more than is there
until they burst into nothing

or going deaf, these sounds
the feathered hum of silence

or going away from my self, the cool
fingers of lace on my skin
the fingers of madness

or perhaps
in the palace of time
our lives are a circular stair
and i am turning
--Lucille Clifton

oh, how quickly things slip away. like time and house keys. the precise weight--the span--of some lost lover's arm. these far too petty days. when even the window shades curl against me. mock my constant strain for discontent. how must we continue to use words when all their sound and sense has been wrenched? when they fall so quickly down--to plunk like false pennies? this mind a stolen space for laundry lists. job letters. schedules. worry in perpetuity. if i could wander. if ever. -- if i could cast this ageless smile in cinder blocks and patience.

i would build us two a house so strong.
even our true-love's force could never destroy it.

i've been thinking too much. about how flightless things with wings. can't fly.

i still don't feel like it's done.

but it is.

and sort of.

i am.

tonight. i need to be. spine down on your floor. in the space of you.

hurt as much.

i love how my mom reacts to these kinds of things. well, that was no big surprise. as if her steadfast and holy belief in my inadequacies somehow makes the things i'm feeling completely inappropriate. and me ever so placeless.

found pair of sexy lace underwear lodged between the wall and the bookshelf next to the television in the living room*

found box of hamburger helper in the pantry (likely left over from days when i cooked for people who ate such things) and subsequently attempted to make vegetarian version using tvp crumbles**

*i suspect these did not end up there as a result of some frantic laundry/clothes folding incident

**hh is just as disgusting with or without the beast meat, but the process of finding and making it -- hilariously worth the effort

it's storm season.

and i need new hair.

that you're screening my thoughts. like phone calls from solicitors and old girlfriends.

last night tore everything elemental.
wrote me into old worn tee shirts and window sills.
to suck skin--
lightening bolts for oxygen.

this is hard. no question. to remember.

i love you more than anything.

i love you. more than enough of anything.

i'm beginning to think that i really am one of those women who pretend to be fascinated by photography and Borges.

this isn't like having foxes for throats. to rend, nothing. but false. orange. the rotation of your fingertips on desktops when you think no one is paying attention. these days feel like damp cardboard packing boxes. your entire hands. wear me like the choking shape of showers. and if i am [] then the world is a pack of lies. wrapped and sealed like cigarettes to cellophane. imagine. the soak of the sound and the smoke. when it's hot. this is the way my heart goes. all napalm. and pips. when the phone rings. and doesn't. and you are there. or you're not. and the wet pavement driveway makes it harder and harder. to stop.

i got stuck in a strange city. last night. many plane hours from home. worn weary calves and balls of feet from two days of heeled boots tramping through hard interview questions. and then a man in the hotel parking lot. not a sick weird crazy mofo with prison eyes. but a regular old normal attractive looking probably-got-tricked-out-here-just-like-i-did guy. said to me as we passed: you are really pretty. and i said, stupidly smiling and agog, thank you. and scurried into my room to peek in the mirror. and it was still the same me who is usually there. so i decided that the only explanation was i'd fallen into another dimension. oh yeah. and dark parking lot lighting. and then other people were extraordinarily nice to me and gave me things i didn't have and didn't have access to getting. a stiff couple of drinks after a very long week. and other thankful compassions. as if i were radiating that feeling. not really love, but the firm and steady belief that we all deserve goodness.

and what could have been a melt-down disaster, ended up a fantastic night.

my baccalaureate graduation killed my grandmother

the master's degree ceremony gave my mother cancer

my Ph.D hooding brings an impending and totally out of-the-blue divorce for my beloved and very heart broken brother

i think my family is glad, and i would agree, that there aren't any more degrees to be had. if anyone offers me a post-doc, i wouldn't even consider it. i feel like i'm trapped in a bad novel plot where any event of my good fortune only comes at the cost of people i love losing chunks of theirs. (and these aren't sneaky events i'm wildly casting together. they really do coincide. it's tiny-baby-in-the-mange' maddening.)

Reverend and Doctor

she says

i am exclusively looking for jobs, now, in the UK.

so if you want me to be around. get on it!