she keeps the wolves to keep her warm: a thank you letter

look. i've watched the film ultraviolet 5 times in the last 48 hours. perched on the precipice of my knees in bed. the holiday 7 times. in the in-between. apparently, this, instead, is what it feels like to not delete my personal history into oblivion. or to be a suspect human being. this is what i say. when i say. that nothing you can say is going to make me feel any better.

listen. i am not going to be in one more fucking relationship where i have to demean myself into taking photos perched in window-sills or on request or for petty mind-games and all. i am not going to be there when you've had enough and you're going to teach me all about how i am the shittiest person you've ever met until you're done enough to feel better about yourself and it's all been splayed and laid on the table. i am tired of eating lies.

because, in the end, they're both really shitty films. and i am already really quite good at fooling myself. and, besides, i could never be as good as you or your honest resolve.

force flexing

the guy riding a unicycle down the street where i live. stopped short and screamed through my mesh and bones:

you need fucking redemption

i knelt. and threw up. twice. onto the floor of the porch.

i am stupid. and wrong. and small. and awful. and always the same mistake i've been for decades too long.

i am vomit on the floorboards of the front porch.

if i'm being honest.

conversations between close friends

i'm not sure i know the word 'importunate.' no, i know i don't know it.
i think sending emails to ex-boyfriends who dumped me and broke my heart makes my writing even more complicated.

maybe i should just change it to obligatory.
um, yeah. good idea.

the (potentially imagined/exagerrated) geo-political atrocities of my livingroom

this is the second time in four of five months i've been convinced my television feed has stopped working. only to figure out days or weeks later that i'd accidentally switched the station on the set and interrupted the signal from the receiver box. i sat on the hardwood floor in my socks and underwear the other night pulling and plugging the cords coming out of the back. screaming obscenities at the plastic case with no arms or ears or face. text messaging my best friend about the fallibility of human kindness and coaxial cable. now, with the black box spilling pictures and sound into the confines of this small dark room. i've realized there's nothing on. these strange universal reminders that we're not missing anything. and nothing is missing us.

status

i want to mourn you

like pound-shop corkscrews. and memories like spite. like bad hair cuts. and most of my familiar fantasies.          like wanting to be undeniably necessary in your world.      like oxygen. or the honest way my mouth can't hide the way i love you in kisses.     like the way your eyes are exactly the same not-color as mine.

possibly maybe

i used to listen to you. i believed. on the angry-porch. in the stark light of this city in which i used to hate to live. alone. loving some strange version of small lines of strangers posing as men. i didn't know weren't you. when i never knew you were. something. to imagine. some song that had nothing to do with coffee shops. or words. or fantasies. or the cappuccino memory of your voice. sneaked into the folds of my spangled red scarf. into the inside bend of your thighs. into the safe spaces of the collar of your jacket. on the tube. between stations. or lifetimes. of snapshots and ticket prices. and all of those stupid silly moments when i fell so. when i couldn't have ever. when i never even knew.

on resetting the furnace with my domestic partner

only one full day in and we're already on the rocks. broken up. sick with the sickness that is love and isn't. continents away. i've already moved in with someone else. making plans for dinners out and stalking the floors of this apartment that was hers and isn't ours and never will be. as she talks on the phone in the other room to her partner who has another partner. who isn't me or you or hers. either. none of this feels real. she says. i've taken to smoking all-white cigarettes. constantly confused into putting the bad end between my teeth. to drag. the taste of macerated tomatoes and onion. garlic. the way films flick their light of the memories of you, still, into the folds of this living room. or the fact that i'm losing the scent of you. on my clothes.

to consenting adults

there's something about the perversion of meaning in flirting. for a few long moments. the 247 MB of this life that keeps running. through the cracks between fingers. and bed sheets. and the rings between keys. these pixels. plotted. some remnant of the aftermath of a lie. worth repeating.

reasons to never leave

Paczki
joy
good friends
crisps
mother-in-laws

On using a normal computer

we're talking about geo-policital atrocities and watching films about shakespeare and incarceration. i'm drinking a glass of wine the size of a fish bowl. (filled with white liberal guilt and shame and decadence.) maybe it will be enough to sleep the night.

even with

a palmful of course ground black pepper
and some chopped ripe tomato
there's no way to save this bland

a letter to romantic evenings out

everything was going so perfectly
until we started to leave the restaurant
and the waiter stopped us with a wink

to give me flowers

a letter to romantic evenings in

everything was going so perfectly
until i realized

we'd forgotten to buy the fire extinguisher

A Letter to Visions

Look. I mean, seriously. I don't know how to tell you this. But for the past couple of days. Fuck. I mean. I've just been raving around my apartment like a lunatic. Like a fucking smack addict with no cash. Insane. Alone. And thinking way too fucking much for the borders of this skin. To break. All I keep thinking is that I can't take one more fucking nightmare moment. I can't watch one more person I love walk out on me for a joke or a lie or self-delusion or even a goddamned fucking place. (or for fucking skiing, for jesus sake.) And wouldn't it be easier to stay here in this world. With 5 doors and wooden floors and my own goddamned music collection? With my own friends. And family. Who wouldn't suddenly vanish from my life like a bad dream at the end of a super fucking disaster, anyway? Wouldn't that be fucking christ easier? To tear all your pictures down and erase you from my answer phone and digital picture albums. Tear all of our memories out of diaries with a pen knife and burn them in the kitchen sink. So I wouldn't have to think about dealing with the poisoned aftermath of trying to let go of them later? When you vanish. Or drive away. Or realize I'm not all-that-you-imagined-I'd-be-cracked-up-to-be. I'm way too good at fucking planning ahead. You see. And I know this story, already. Fall in love. Get happy. Get comfortable. Make plans. Share cell phones and shopping lists and bank accounts and body fluids. And then it all just ends up empty. You see? So, I won't make excuses. About why I've been shit the last couple of days. There's a lot to look forward to. You know? A lot of fucking blank pages and razor blades to get over. If you can fucking see what I mean.

things my new boyfriend has tried to convince me of in the past couple of hours

that it is okay to open the door to my porch, because bats don't come out when it's light.

that i have a sexy nose (or that noses, in general, can even be sexy).

there are things i like my fingers to smell like

raw onion
garlic
vanilla
sex
ash
bleach
your hair
vegetable bullion
salt
vinegar
sweat
black pepper
garam masala
wine
gasoline

and things i don't
cigarettes
cinnamon
cloves
metal
blood
dust
lacquer
lavender
licorice
oregano
perfume

i am

currently making up excuses to see you

i wasn't prepared for this, no

you're no antidote to getting rid of the hiccups
at 11:35 on a Wednesday
(or sleeping straight though the night)

i don't have you
or my mother's vinyl collection
strewn on the living room floor
nothing new or strange

how could you know what that's like?

do you understand what kind of voice this takes
to shout
just
this
hard

overheard phone conversations, on the porch, just now

especially because i accidentally gave him a blow job earlier today.

she was carrying a dozen red roses.

things i need:
1 wire cutter
a pair of pliers
some work gloves
and you

call duration

the other night, i ate an entire frozen pizza
and curled up in the fetal position
on my front porch

Letters to An Unreliable Witness

Dearest Unreliable,

I have decided to mail myself to you.

Please keep an eye out for a medium sized box marked: FRAGILE!

Best,

Imogen

21 Days Ago, you died

I grew up running around with dogs in your Christmas tree farm. I woke up in my apartment looking out at your land and thought I was in love. And thought I wasn't. Then thought I was, again. It's hard, even, to remember now what you look like. I'll miss the way you interrupted everyone, always.

How To

I've been writing you a letter. About the rules for playing Backgammon and the intricacies and benefits of double-stick tape -- the best possible way to get drunk on a Sunday afternoon and how to navigate my apartment with or without the lights. In it, I investigate why the delete key is missing on your laptop. Sometimes it begins with a laundry list of my inefficacies. And sometimes it doesn't.

letters to my mother

I got out today for a walk, and things are fine. I'm a little tired -- listening to too much Bjork and Beck. But you know how I am. Maybe there's always something melancholy about February, yeah? And, just so you know, I'm not drinking myself into oblivion, anymore, these days. Or wishing I was living someone else's life. Or dead. Or, even, walking dead. (God, how I've already spent so many years trying on that life to live like regular people. For sure.) In all these months, really, the biggest thing I'd forgotten is just how bad regular American television is. I haven't had a reason to switch on the set in god knows how long. Or even to feel bad about anything, really. Sure, there are momentary snatch-grab-moments of tease and tears, but mostly everything has been fine. And the weather is brilliant now. How strange the way things change and so quickly. How swift and slow the world rocks and goes. When we give it the time and space.

All my love and even then some.

Your,

Imogen

(iloveyou)