sometimes the shape of the universe doesn't. and i don't. as if to patina wasn't a real thing that could happen. that i hadn't read about it in books. the blue green. the green blue. false false. orange. his christ church. my statue. knelt behind cars in the dull-sun shine retching. and your hands. my pockets. warm. dark dirty pennies.

you.

you?

i didn't sleep at all last night. tossed and turned into bed sheets and the heart palpitating comments that i've only allowed myself to read once over again a year later about all the failings of my dissertation. somehow i skated through with both the three letter acronym and my juvenile naivety* still squarely intact. (*I feel inclined to include all of the variant spellings of this word just to prove that I know they exist and to also comment that I chose this particular one for no particular reason. It reminds me, really, of the times I've said the word patronizing in a distinctly American way. Like many other things--having to live life where my job is which means we're far away from people we'd like to not be far away from--being American, strangely, isn't exactly my fault. And besides, it's not like I've ever wanted to live here, anyway.) reading those comments made me feel small. made me remember that i'm not cut out to do what people do with degrees like mine. made me stay up all night wringing my inadequacies as a person, as a scholar, as a thinker, as an activist into unforgiving bedsheets. made me howl and scream and cry hysterically into the middle of morning streets.

i hate everyone.

but not you.

in the mornings, i've replaced my newly acquired husband
(who arrived at the same time as the shiny new coffeemaker gift)
with a corded stainless steel percolator

i love coffee
(and being looked-after)

how many of us begin. if i tell you this story, you mustn't tell anyone else. how many of our lives' best-guess and odds-down moments haunt the corners of our minds? ghost secrets. like bad women. their silence heavy. crucifying. these aren't the dog days. the dumb days. the poisoned drug days of our youths when we could hide in dark rooms. stuck still. and still run with or without witnesses. to pretend. these are the days when treading on sacred ground rips limbs from limb soundly. without effort. where we rock and wail. rock. and wail. the unforgiven. we. and we don't need eyes or ears or lips to see. that what we've not said. oh lord mother have mercy. what we've not said we've seen. oh lord. oh mother. mercy. me.

i'm living life out of photo albums again. not tired at the anticipation of tearing all the pages out. later on. when you've gone. when i've grown tired of the way you always reassure me in those dark moments. to speak the truth about how people never change. i'm not so scared of myself. anymore. tonight i'm smiling from the corners of my eyes again. wondering into porch lamps what i might have ever saw in all those sad septembers.

you know.
a salt water rinse is the best remedy.
for having bitten your own tongue.

yesterday i broke my fingernail down to the quick. woke up wrapped in the lazy english-summer time weather and you. and we murmured morning voices about new shiny coffeemakers and dead fish. we late-morning languish bed-sheet laughed. made shopping lists for toaster bread and baby names. even then, i can't tell anyone how it feels to be so happy. sometimes. i'm no jinx. yesterday i saw a late night low flying bat trapped on the front porch. again.

i used to try to write about you like the color of transparency. how thoughts of the shape of your tongue. days. get stuck in my hair like childless chewing gum. these words get mixed to shreds. dumb and silent. and unsent.

you drive me spiderweb morning mad.

your sick face. that stupid smile. the way the world goes nauseous and miserable when you've gone. only these bare threads. electric blanket wires and the hopefulness of total self-destruction. makes me think that i might wait. might wait until i see her again. not a house with you full in it. but my best friend. and you. with your righteous heart and full on cemetery stare. you jesusfuck. and i miss her. you goddamned sonofagun. this unusual aching all. the whole goddamned world run like fucking roller coasters on rails. e=mc². best day of my life. yeah, right. yeah fucking right.

i'm dying to tell insignificant things. the way your hair smells on a damp summer porch in june. dirty with cigarettes. wet heat. your strange way of sounding insensible in the mornings. the consequence of your eyelashes. spun sugar. lightning. the mad way you're simultaneously surprised and sober every time we meet.