NICE THINGS

sometimes only

2011-05-04T10:50:00.001-07:00

There is nothing beautiful to say about you me us this. I wrote you tirelessly for hours. I wrote you into flesh. I wrote down the shallow swoops of your shoulders grown into arms, the smooth plains of your thighs stretched into legs and that dumb face of yours that I can never really remember. I wrote you until you became opaque, as vivid as I could make you out to be. And then you told me I was crazy. You said, why are you so mean? There is nothing pleasant or lovely to say about me this I sorry, be right back, biting my tongue. While I'm at it here is a list of apologies: for my snappy jargon, my loose eyes, my rigid back, the crook of my spine, the in and out of a waist you can't find, this pretend skin on real skin, my dirty thoughts- let me pile them up, again this bad bad bad mouth. My poor friends who tirelessly waddle around me while I tirelessly write them into oblivion, where are you? I'm over here. Call me. Every landmark in us is forgettable. This next one too shall pass.

Candyland

2010-03-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

Primary 1 - Sometime Wannabe (Mess Detective) from Primary 1 on Vimeo.

the simplest things invite a thrill

2010-02-16T00:14:00.000-08:00

if wishes were kisses...

2009-12-07T22:01:00.000-08:00

This is how I felt about you 2 years ago:

2009-11-08T05:44:00.001-08:00

The same funny thing that is worry mixed with fear and a little bit of loneliness

Everything around us is a foggy shade of white. It is night time but we are still out. I feel something stir in my body, like a beast coming out of slumber, and I want to peel off my skin to reveal the woman that has been growing in my chest. If I could slide out of this skin-suit I would, so as to let you see me without the girlish pink of my smile and the curious glimmer of silver in my eyes. To become woman, I will take on the yellow of my melancholy and the blue of our distance and be all right, still, with this new palette. My hand is very small compared to yours and between you and me I can feel the thin film of sweat spreading over our palms. Our hands are tight and clammy and we don’t swing our arms when we walk. Instead we hold our arms straight and parallel, perpendicular to the cement below our feet, our shoulders leaning toward each other like magnets. What is it comes over me everywhere and I know that soon our heads will fall inward together.

We are on a bench. I look out at the road and the cars and then across the road, the boats lined up at the dock and then the ocean and across it, more roads and more cars. Everything I see is blurred in a foggy shade of white. My eyes are cloudy from staying up so late. Staying up so late makes my bones more alert and my throat dry. I tell you things in whispers and you do the same but I hear your voice like a boombox in my ears, bouncing off the walls inside my head are the things that you say to me. You tell me all the things I don’t want to hear but your hands say otherwise. I can sit on your lap like a small child, so I do. Is it all right for you to kiss me? Yes. Will I keep wanting you? Yes. Do I like you? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I say over and over again. To me, you are what my mind has not yet fathomed because you are too right and I was always a little bit afraid of the too good because I didn’t want it closed up inside my head forever. I know about imagination and dreamland 24/7, I know about hearts breaking from being idle and faces falling apart from the too many eyes on them, or the lack thereof. To me you are so much more than everything and everywhere around you drops away to your feet because you are it… for me.

The heat of the city at night pours over me like hot chocolate and at once I feel the dizzy burn of being worn out and the pale lightness of being near you. You tell me some more things. My arms hang limp around your neck. Sweat trickles down my back. My hair is stuck to my forehead and with a crude hand I push it away. You do the same. Your chin finds itself a place on my head; my mouth finds itself a place in the crook of your neck. I feel you like a wet smooth newborn and this is quite appropriate for what is happening is a birth of something unfamiliar that I have been wanting for so long. So we talk some more and I am quiet some more. You tell me about the distance that will sneak itself between you and me and silently we synchronize our thoughts to the same funny thing that is worry mixed with fear and a little bit of loneliness even though we are still so near.

So we rise and leave the cars and the road and how pretty the water looks at night. You take me home and in a daze we walk through the foggy white that is the night time when we are tired but focusing all our attention on our eyelids and keeping them open and being here. Now. We are down of my house; seven floors above us my suitcase sits fat and ugly like a toad waiting to be catered to and fussed over tomorrow in the morning. Or later on today, I mean. My hands always find their way back to your neck; I am so tired of using these words over and over again: neck, back, arms, mouth, close, brow… I put my fingers in your hair so as to touch the skull beneath your skin. I want your brain, really. But I can see it, all of you taking over me and the other way around too. Sometimes this gaze is too much for me so I put my face under your chin instead. We kiss some more. Can I go? No. Okay. You bring me closer to you and really, really, honestly, truly, I don’t know what to do with myself. Don’t be sad, I say. Over and over again like a fucking mantra. I’ll try to convince you while I convince me, too. It’s okay It’s okay It’s okay. Because it will be eventually.

I take the steps two at a time thinking about nothing except how I’m taking the steps two at a time to get away from you faster or to be where I should be already. I cannot think about what just happened because then the dam might break, the fences may fall and Gibraltar will crumble. I am home and the single hallway light left on for me bathes the small apartment in a foggy shade of white. It is late but I need a shower to wash off all this uneasiness and under the water I find some kind of flimsy release so my chest is not so tight. In the mirror is me like a stranger I know through a friend of a friend or someone I’ve heard so much about but only just met. Hi. I am clean and for the rest of the night-morning we speak on the phone like we are making good use of every last minute. We talk and don’t talk and then laugh some more until. I change into my travelling clothes: a uniform of black pants and a plaid work shirt. Pull my hair up into a dirty ponytail. Put my makeup on. It is death staring back at me in the mirror this time, ragged from being up all night. Everyone scuttles around me in a quiet hurry; there is the faint murmur of anticipation and sadness in all the bodies that pass in and out of the room. We take the steps one by one this time, carefully balancing bags full of holiday treasures and hearts half empty and half full. Goodbye seventh floor, goodbye my grandpa with the sleepy eyes, goodbye family I am too much like. From this point on I’m not quite sure what I am doing, but don’t be sad because it’s all really okay.

my favorite poem

2009-11-08T05:41:00.000-08:00

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles betters and nerves more.

i like your body. i like what it does,

i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like,, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh. . . . And eyes big Love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

e e cummings

Turning 20

2009-11-08T05:29:00.000-08:00

The girl sighs heavily as she clears a pile of dishes from the kitchen table and moves them into the sink. There are murky, brown oil stains on her white gas stove and her silverware has been haphazardly swept into a half-closed drawer. If we were to peek into her refrigerator we would see that she has been eating well, despite the dilapidated conditions of her kitchen. Tupperware containers of all colors sit neatly, one of top of the other, their clear parameters exposing their contents: some leftover turkey slices here, two bites of broccoli there. Grocery bags sit smartly beside these containers, their tops rolled down three times to ensure freshness of the products inside; Whole Foods and Farmer’s Market, our girl eats healthy.

After clearing her tabletop of more debris (stray potholders, bills, school newsletters, a tangle of keys a friend forgot three nights ago, two new padlocks for the back and front doors, leftover salad from lunch and a packet of frozen peas that was defrosting), the girl sits down with a pad and pen in front of her.

Her name is L, as we shall learn from the birthday card tacked up on the fridge that reads:

“L– Happy 20^th Birthday! Sorry we can’t be there with you, but we are thinking of you always. Dad is busy with his toys. He got himself this gadget that lets him watch movies, listen to music AND store his photographs. I’ve been walking the dogs and watching my diet. The doctor’s cut out more food from my list! You won’t believe all the stuff I can’t eat anymore! Anyway, give us a ring when you’re not busy. We miss you. Love, Mom and Dad XXXXX P.S. I read your article on parasitic twins on your school website the other day! It was fascinating! Keep up the good work!”

The stark white color of the paper glares at her as she furiously taps her pen on it. She breathes in and then breathes out. She stands up and pours herself a glass of water that she doesn’t drink. She leaves the kitchen for a minute and comes back in with socks on. She stretches her back and cracks her neck. “Okay…. Okay,” she says out loud to no one. “Dear Mom,” she writes, “Thank you for your card. I know you were probably fretting about it getting here on time and I’m glad to be able to tell you that it came right on my birthday. After walking home from school and slipping twice on wet ice, it was nice to come home to something from you and dad. I miss you both very much. Sorry I haven’t called. You’re right, I’ve been busy with school and work. That’s right, I got a job! Two jobs, actually. I’m a shopgirl at a really nice store called Aviary and on Tuesday and Thursday mornings I walk this nice lady’s dog for $10 an hour. They are big Labradors, one yellow and one brown. They’re crazy little guys, every time they see me they jump all over me and give me big, sloppy kisses. I guess I’m not much different than I was when I was still at home—I still have dog hair all over my clothes all the time! Haha!”

L pauses for a moment, looking up as if she hears some small, quiet sound from far away. Her eyes pass over the countertops around her. “Tomorrow,” she says, again, out loud, to no one. She stands up and leaves the kitchen. If we were to follow her, we would see that she is walking the twenty-odd steps it takes from her kitchen to the bathroom and turning on the taps to wash her hands. She brushes her teeth, wipes her mouth dry with a plain white towel and then returns it to its place on the novelty hook; an elephant with a pair of tusks that protrudes from its face, clean and white, extending themselves eagerly as if they knew their sole purpose after sacrificing themselves to become ivory chopsticks for traditional Chinese families was to be holders of their owners' pink bra straps, cartoon underwear and, yes, white fluffy towels. The towel hangs by its label which has Japanese characters and the amounts “80%” and “20%” printed on it in blue ink.

She puts a hand on the side of the sink and leans against it, lightly suspending her butt cheeks inches above the white ceramic, standing on the balls of her feet. L has small patches of Eczema on the insides of her elbows and the backs of her knees. She doesn’t know this yet, but there is a small, pale pink dot forming under her chin, too. In another week or so it will have spread across her neck down to her absent cleavage. She kneels down on the cold floor and begins to empty out the clothes from her dirty laundry basket into a laundry bag. Tomorrow is Thursday and after walking Porkchop and Teddy, going to class and working her 3 hour shift at Aviary, she will go down to the Laundromat and wash her dark clothes (as it is winter and all she wears are navys and blacks).

L is not a clean girl, nor is she a dirty girl. Almost exactly half of the tiles in her shower are spotless. The other half has funny crust growing in between them. There is a scrubbing brush and a bottle of cleaner beside the toilet. Shampoo and conditioner bottles are jammed into a shelf hanging from some kind of rope off yet another novelty hook. This one of Jesus and his arms wide open. The rug adjacent to the shower is pink and made of terrycloth. It has ‘Welcome Home’ written in block letters across the middle. L looks up again, that same faded look on her face. The phone is ringing. She pushes herself up from the floor with the palms of her hands and walks back out into her living room-slash-bedroom, slightly tripping over a pair of black boots on her way out.

“Hello? Oh, hi Legs. What? Really? She didn’t tell me about that. Is it still themed? Because you know how I am with themed parties. It’s what? Dress-up? How old are we, Legs, five? No I’m sure the costumes will be a little different than when we were little, but do you want to bet there are gonna be at least ten playboy bunnies and twenty hot nurses? No, Legs. No. What? But I…. All right then. Well we can make it at mine tomorrow if you like–”

Let’s take a look around the apartment while our girl is on the phone. Her bed stands like a monument under the window. Its covers are a deep purple and sitting on top of it are four white pillows like clouds. There are at least four outfits on her bed and a large binder open to a page with a poem written in the worst of penmanship. Beside her bed is a small sofa that sits slumped, off to one side of the room. There is a not-so-low coffee table in the middle and five, plush cushions around it. By the front door, next to the shoe rack, we see a new, silver, dog bowl and upon further inspection, a leash and collar hang on the hooks beside three, thick coats behind the door. Is our girl getting herself a dog?

She is off the phone now. She walks back into the kitchen and takes her seat before the unfinished letter. She continues:

“I got the messages you left on my machine. Don’t worry, mom. I’ve been keeping the place clean and tidy. And yes, I still remember how to get the dirt out from between the tiles. It’s a little difficult for me to keep order in the kitchen since I'm always running in and out of the house, but I try. School’s school, but I love it. I’m thinking of taking scent classes next month if I can fit it into my schedule. You know, like, mixing perfumes and all the different notes and things. How is dad, by the way? Tell him I got the software he sent me and I’ve been using it to edit my photos. I moved some of the stuff around and put my bed by the window cuz I like to watch the people on the street when before I sleep. I don’t think it’ll throw my Feng Shui off-balance, mom. But if it does, I’ll move it back to the wall facing the west… but if I do that I’ll have to move the couch someplace else cuz, yeah, I moved some of the stuff around. Also, did I tell you I’m getting a puppy? Teddy, the brown Lab, gave birth two weeks ago, we are all waiting for the puppies to get old enough to leave their mommy so they can go off to their new owners. I bought a feeding bowl and everything. It will be nice to have someone to come home to at the end of the day. Don’t worry, he will not starve to death. And no, he will not rip up all my furniture or pee on my bed. I’ll train him, I promise. I have to go now, it’s almost midnight and I have to get up early to walk P and T! Oh and I know you are excited about coming down to see me, but please make sure you call before you do. I want to make sure I’m around when you come, so you guys won’t have to wait around outside for hours for me if I’m at work! I miss you. Love, L xx”

The paper cries out noisily as L rips it out of the pad. She folds it three times and then walks over to a drawer and magically pulls out an envelope from the sea of post-it notes and stray grocery lists inside. She puts her letter into the envelope, seals it by licking her middle finger and tracing it across the glue on the flap, turns the envelope over and scribbles a barely legible name and address on the front and tosses the letter on the countertop… on top of a stray potholder, bills, school newsletters, a tangle of keys a friend forgot three nights ago and two new padlocks for the back and front doors.

Tomorrow it is Thursday and sometime in between walking Porkchop and Teddy, going to class, working her three hour shift at Aviary, going to the Laundromat and making matching native American costumes for her and her friend Legs for a previously mentioned costume party, L is going to mail a letter.

i just want to love/fuck you

2009-09-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

2009-04-21T04:32:00.000-07:00

Every time I'm meant to be acting sensible you drift into my head and turn me into a crumbling fool.

the beautiful thing about treasure is that it exists

2009-03-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

2009-01-24T04:13:00.000-08:00

"I guess my heart has grown so fond of you..."

2008-12-05T01:55:00.000-08:00

rwanda

babies, hey where do you belong

ripping wombs, did you see?

see the limb severed and the head rolling

down the deep concave of rolling hills
where did my house go

bringing disease into the home

they came through quick and easy

no after-thought just happen like

heavy, heated sleep you can't wake from

bones, why do you tremble and legs,

run faster, stretch the muscle- we don't

want to be part of these miles and
miles of rotting skin, take me out of here

sky, so many cried, raising eyes and fists

arms outstreched they reached :

come on big bad world come save us

slice here, cut there,
pick at that bone until it's
nothing but dust like everything
else beneath our feet

can't keep that head on
can't keep your womb warm
pulling you out still temporary and unfinished
there were no more wholes and no one wants
a bare body for a relic

river, you taste like iron
did they cut through you too?
they hardly bothered after and everyone

gathered at your bank, one on top of the other

heaps of arms, piles of legs

did my mother seep into you

did my father shrink into this bubbling brook

babies, where did you come from and

where are you going to?

2008-12-02T00:05:00.000-08:00

in the afternoons
i put on your sweater
i wore your shoes
i ran my hand down your back
buried myself in these thick blankets and
set fire to the bed

outside in the sunny pink taste of day
the birds hid in my hair and
we looked over our shoulders
i pinned you to a wall
i made you look at me straight
we kissed and swapped secrets then
spread our filth across the grass

later night wrapped around like a stream
we didn't have enough money
counted time on our fingers
you hid your head in my lap
you rang over and over in my ears
you lay me on the floor and
drilled my body into a void

tender is the night

2008-11-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

"...isn't it funny and lonely being together? no place to go except close. shall we just love and love? ah, but i love the most, and i can tell when you're away from me, even a little. i think it's wonderful to be just like everybody else, to reach out and find you all warm beside me in the bed."

funny how the blood comes only after

2008-11-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

just like this, it's been
precisely, exactly then seemingly this way
you were here and then gone.
like a dream you were
all of it
every second, every sigh, every touch,

here you are -- fuzzy and out of focus
here you are wringing the soap out of the clothes
here you are perspiring in the late afternoon heat
here you are, closer now, between my thighs.

i couldn't see the shape of you
but i heard your sounds
deep and quiet and you were so close then,
so close
that i knew right then that i
always would want how you make
me feel when you are
close and fuzzy and out of focus.

dream -----
you are not here anymore.
i looked for you in the spaces between my teeth,
the cracks of my elbows,
the webs of my fingers but
you are gone.
like a dream for awhile
it was like sleeping for days
and i was warm
for a long long time.

there was blood.
lots of it.
it came gushing out like a river
i felt it slide out but there was
no pain
funny how the blood comes only after.

there was an electric shock.
it ran up everywhere
numbed my legs so my knees sat
parallel like poles
and you were close to me then

and i loved you.

time's up

2008-07-31T05:42:00.000-07:00

ready to quit

by hiding you're not worth a thing

2008-04-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

it's up to you

2008-03-03T05:49:00.000-08:00

been reading lots of blogs
i enjoy the ones with the wooden houses and lots of snow
big big letters in trees celebrating l-o-v-e
costumes
animal faces
zoo girl
skaterboaders still
chains of gold
things like that

and been churning out paper after paper
paper makin machinneee i go nonstop
being like a fish too, which was nice
i will make it a regular too
so many things to do...... by saturday

he thinks im so crazy but it's okay
sometimes i frustrate and i do it like its my job

but i try, really - i try

BUT i keep dreaming about empty rooms now
and in my dreams i talk about how im dreaming and will wake up soon

my letter was read but it doesn't matter.

note to self:

2008-02-26T01:27:00.000-08:00

time to toughen up

2008-02-19T01:07:00.001-08:00

love is whatever you make it to be

grit and guts and reckless unrestraint

2008-02-16T06:09:00.000-08:00

you should've shoved her face away
pushed her into a corner
and stacked chairs on top of her

completely serious: i h8 girls

and m thinks my priest is a faggot. he's not really mine, but i agreed of course.

have story concept idea thing in my mind. it's all a little slushy right now but im getting it across: she/i find/s my/herself sleeping all the time, dream sees obj of aff, what? is real. what? is not, some funny confusion maybe and then killing maybe in dream and then wake up and obj of aff may or may not be dead. everything is still quite unsure.

but

i read my old old old writing from months ago and i really like it
sooooo might expand on that, expouuuund, stretch it till it brayx n aches
rmb legs and leah? i like them, might bring them back

boots have arrived. as have my father and his humor.
i like that now it will take me less time to dress in the morning
simply becuz i have my bootz.

also:

a made me cry on v day, but really i made myself cry cause im like that
gotta exorcise all my demons before i put myself to bed or else
we all know i'll be up all night

2007-11-11T03:47:00.000-08:00

I.

i see it all between here and where you are / like a swarm of fireflies / the exact shade of a ripe peach / almost like warning signs / maybe like distress signals / like vicious forest fires / i am relentless still / for i want only to be back / in the feeling of rain like a surprise on my eyelids / or a wet sesame seed on my tongue.

II.

over the mountains is you / you are past the stretch of this funny muted blue white gray / walking your legs everywhere without me / eating each day like a cloud / my greedy hands want everything of you / to be inside of me / and i ache for the feeling of being split wide open / i am here but not really and on the hard cold ground / i find some relief that my arms are still at my sides and my eyes still weep.

On writing and then not and then writing again

2007-11-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

For a long time I was fearless. I woke up each day and went about my routines without the slightest glimpse of hesitation. I walked, I talked, I sat in taxis, I wrote in notebooks, I sent out letters; I did everything I had to do with a certain sense of steady calm in the gut of me, rocking back and forth like a tiny boat in the largest ocean. I had chats and democracies, friendships and morals came up and out of me like candy from a pinata and I watched as mouths moved from smirks to smiles and then teeth came out to bite on lips in confusion or repulsion. All the while I kept putting on my pants and sitting in front of the television, cultivating these funny ideas about life and love and triump and tragedy that I had no time to think properly or clearly. No time at all for funny business --the funny business of growing up.

Then it came to me one day. Not out of the blue, I know. It had been creeping over and I had seen it, watching it slip in through the corner of my eye; I watched it sit on my kitchen counter, eating an apple and mocking me. I saw it stretch out on my couch. I even smelled it in bed with me one night and I was terrified to move an inch from night till morning. Terror had held me captive, finally. I knew then that I was its vessel, for terror is a chronic voyeur, getting off on my immobility and the silent thumping of my heart.

And still I went: walking, talking, sitting in taxis. But I no longer wrote. At all. I couldn't figure it out. At a most crucial time like this one when I had to write to live, when it was my chance to prove that this funny tingling in my hands and sudden loss of control of my brain and heart was something I was actually good at... and it wasn't coming. The one thing that was supposed to lift me up or push me down, nourish me or make me crave to live, it wasn't coming out. Terror smiled and wrapped a slimey arm around my shoulders, it ran its greasy fingers through my hair and told me I could reconsider. Reconsider what I wake and sleep for, reconsider what I breathe and then die for, what I knew only to cry, laugh and then explode for. I couldn't do it.

Sometime in between then and now there was a release. It came out from the gaps of my hands then and it is coming out of me now. There are images of phoenixes rising from the flames but it isn't all so triumphant for terror was never a tragedy. Now is a good time and I can take from the inside, take the legs I like, the hands I long for, some looks to linger; go back to thinking dirty to fall asleep at night, doing all of this because I want to and because it comes, just like that, on its own.

2007-10-20T05:23:00.000-07:00

one two three

how much do you like me

four five six

show me all your tricks

seven eight nine

give me some of your time

ten eleven twelve

we bury ourselves into our bodies

2007-10-20T02:48:00.000-07:00

"Maybe it's the way you touch me" -that's what he said. Those were his exact words when we talked about it and when he said it I almost smiled, quickly biting down on my lip to hide it. I don't like to smile about these things, we keep them serious and compact. He tells me he thinks there is something about the way my hands work, something about my legs. I hold his gaze, not letting down. I like it when it's like this. When we are serious and quiet is when I am gone most. I become too much of myself or too little, whichever it is, is really nice.

It is dead on afternoon and like an arrow on a bull's eye the sun comes shooting in through the window and onto the bed. Everything about this is like us: the tangle of sheets, the pillows askew, maybe some of his clothes, maybe some of mine, my bra, some socks, a shoe. The bowl on the bedside table holds a stray piece of pineapple. There is water in a glass on the dresser. We bury ourselves into our bodies and curl around our love in the middle like the crook of his arm around my waist or the cup of his hand on my bottom. He is so much of everything I enjoy and suprisingly it feels like swimming in a stream or going to sleep when it's storming outside.

There are many things he knows about me and some things that he doesn't. One day when we are walking to the store, eating dinner or sitting in bed naked, he will stop and think to himself, "I have never seen this side of you before" and he will wait a few seconds to see if he likes it and if he loves me still. I imagine a slight numbing feeling in his knees and how it rises up to his thighs and stops: heavy and warm, he decides that he likes it. Or a swelling in his stomach becomes bigger and bigger until he wants to burst into a million tiny pieces of colorful confetti -he likes me still. But if he stops and waits and nothing comes, I think about him standing up and walking out and never coming home again.

Between the two of us, there is nothing. No secrets, no hope, no rules and I don't think anymore and it is just me and him and whatever is outside our window. He slides his hands over my body until it rests in a familiar places and I close my eyes and sleep to his neck and his breathing moving to and from me in the bed. I rub his back and he tells me he likes it, he tells me he likes me. A lot. My fingers fiddle with his hair and his ears, graze his shoulders and then round themselves against the side of his neck. It all feels good like the same feeling I get when I roll a cold, sweet amuse bouche around in my mouth for the very first time.

i don't like this

2007-09-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

afterwards i am quite unlike myself and
all the joints in my body hurt,
everything aches,
all of it that is me trembles, shakes, quakes--
a hand reaches inside of me to all the way down
but
at
my deepest is nothing.

nothing to yield me, for me to yield for
there is no rule no command no testament
no you for me to pour myself into.
i scrape at the bottom of it for a lasting taste
but my fingers come up immaculate.

i don't like this

all of these minutes of every day that i grow into,
all of the seconds i spend half-awake:
let me count on my hands every hour that i miss
you are not here to be what you say you are.
the farthest possible place
is where i will find your face but
no i don't like maps
time
miles
numbers
no.

i don't like any of this

but i like you.

my legs detach and walk away from me,
my eyes close and will not open,
my face is like glass,
but these are not my fingers and no i cannot reach them up to touch.

what is this how you make me?
i feel like it is raining everywhere all around me
it is white fuzz in all directions and the noise is too loud
too wet, too surrounding,
that i can only retreat
but to where? what is not any of me anymore?

it is after this that i feel at my lowest,
i forget what it is that i should be knowing,
where it is that i should be going,
after i only know you--
but here, it cannot be enough.

i don't like this.

(feee e e lings) to help me

2007-09-10T03:23:00.000-07:00

apparently so like red apple cheeks
so lime on my teeth shows the squint in my eyes,
apparently so is my body not white, my body not smooth
my body red in the wrong places, dark and then faded.
is how about your feelings for me?
feelings.
feel.... lings linger around like smoke in the room,
but i don't smoke and i can't appreciate what is the sad way you look at me
and your tendency to desensitize your words

everywhere you are going away
taking not my hands, taking not my feet.
following i drop the lines from me in hopes of maybe
a minute you will stop and l i n g e r (feee e e lings) to help me
get my shit together.

the slow, sloppy music comes to my ears-
my back is a cupped slope that keeps sinking-
okay my head is not here anymore
and with my hand between my thighs
i find myself a place closer to you.

bound in some cheap romance, no thanks.
i go to get what is truer, cleaner, clearer:
your face before the distance,
quiet you your sliding tongue,
this is nice to know but i don't like to remember.

It is you

2007-08-28T01:56:00.000-07:00

It is you.
In the morning when I teeter between
the daylight and what is the night
which I want to sleep in for longer,
draw into the day and
pull closer to my body; is you
that I want always and with the wakefulness
comes a dull aching or something like
a spray of shaking or a
show of hands and it is only you
in the morning-time.

Through long afternoons, you lag,
and between wringing my wrists and
walking my idle legs and my mind like a
red balloon, aimless and floating father away from me
with each passing minute, it is you:
going everywhere without me,
you that I only want now,
you that is what it has come down to,
is you that I am reduced to.

In the evening when it all slows down
and the colors become a muted,
funny, blue grey and white,
it is your face that I dream to speak to
your hands to hold my legs
your voice to calm my neck.
Over and over again is my trembling hand,
my stuttering tongue and
chattering teeth:
me, falling to pieces and losing what I know
only to want to find it all again,
like needing to search and searching for needs,
is me always wanting you.

It is you again when I sleep
and my body is like a bundle of bananas
like thick slushy mud
like a beehive filled with a million honeymakers
and while I dream of you far away
the spiders spin their wet sticky webs
over my eyes and
then there are my hands
only my hands, maybe my arms outstretched
and I am wanting you only always
until I wake again and find myself

a sleep/wake and wanting to kiss

what is your funny smile to my crooked heart.

If you should ask me

2007-08-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

If you should ask me
how is it that i feel for you, I would say:
it is the tumbled moss around our legs,
I find it in the time that passes through me,
the warm night that I swallow whole,
what I keep inside, incubated for days and months
is what is all of you and your falling chest.

In the surf you may scour,
as you unfold wave after wave
you cock a timid ear to the sky. Listen.
The songs that my heart sings are not loud,
for how I feel for you is not that of the caliber
of glistening jewels and rabbit fur coats.
Listen. In the mess of the water at night,
in the low, rumbling echos of solid rock,
sitting still, forever, still,
you search.

Just as I search, too.
My heart sings songs of searching,
some quiet murmering while it remembers.
Laced in the melody is the distance
which my heart wears like a thin shawl.

Do not judge me for the weight of my heart.
Its size so convenient, so easy like a sparrow.
Do not dwell on its girlish pink tint,
for all of those things are not my heart.
My heart is only longing, some worry and then some pride. That is all.

So here it is:
without adornments or anything more
than me stumbling to find the words of
how, why, when, where.
Yours, to wrap your body around
like a serpent and a tree.
Yours, to keep with your teeth
like vultures and a carcass--
is yours, everything of me.

If the night should leave too soon
with its dark glasses and jars of secrets,
then I will hold you closer to my body
and keep everything safe behind my eyes.

i float through being with you and then not

2007-08-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

here you are again
coming in and out like a loose bookmark
and we struggle to find the page we last stopped at
losing what we know in the process
as the words unravel

hello

it is new me with longer hair or
new me with brighter eyes
stronger stance
slimmer limbs
sweeter mouth or
sharper tongue

me with so much of you
too much of what you are like is me
i float through being with you and then not like a cloud on
a blue sky day
i know you from years ago
you know me too the same
but now is lesser looking up
more eye-to-eye
fewer asking, more explaining

new me is a lot like old me
is a lot like what you made me to be
but don't change your wants please
still see everything i try
to be like you and for you to like me effortlessly
for your chest to swell up with pride
because of me

your hands are what i am, working hands i dream to be
be much much more mind and bigger heart
like you i work at myself to construct with high beams
discipline determination knowledge
but i am only a
restless dreaming fool

eyelids down
i see afg lmnop bcdv
and it is like lying down in a bed of alphabet soup

eyelids down
you see $$$ ! ! ! 10,000.50
and it is like running fast to nowhere

for you i am steadfast and i hold tight to this
this that makes me heart beat faster
this that turns me into a rambling rose
this that breaks away all the white fences
this that cuts me down the middle and lays me flat and open

you want so much that is not me
you want so much for me but you dont know how

big bright bird

2007-08-08T22:41:00.000-07:00

He asks me if I need a break. I say I don’t think so. The walls in the room are painted a rich apricot color, I remember because it matched the auburn in his ex-girlfriend’s hair. Yes, he still keeps her pictures up. Yes, I was a little bit put off by that when he wouldn’t take them down when I asked him to. But I know him better now and I know it isn’t about the girl. It isn’t even about her sex, although once, in the beginning of our relationship, he said something about her putting it on him with so much more force than I could ever muster. His friend told me what he said. I knocked him off the bed that night. He woke up with bruises on his knees and shins and wide, red finger marks on the back of his neck.

I never wanted it to be, but it turned significant. And I started to find more ways than one to touch him; I got more than one look from him when he looked my way. I saw them and counted them: one, for when he woke up in the morning and didn’t see me right away (in that moment between sleep and awake, his eyes scanned the room fleetingly and then rested on me and I could see the blur of sleep gradually lift from them); two, for when he talked about his friends; three, for when I talked about mine and my family; four, for when he watched me writing from the living room (he thought he did this secretly, but I saw him every time); five, for when he was angry at me and didn’t know whether to hurt me with his words or let the moment pass; and six, for when we laughed together.

It was only after I had moved all my stuff into his apartment that I realized just how little room was left for my belongings. Almost every inch of space was covered with paintings and photographs; some his own, some belonging to other people. He liked what they stood for. One morning, after scouring the whole apartment for a place to put up a portrait of me that a friend had done and losing the battle with the clutter on the walls, I haughtily asked him what his ex-girlfriend’s pictures stood for. He told me, without looking up from his work, that they all stood for something different. I walked over and took his most recent ex-girlfriend’s picture down (the one with the auburn hair). ‘This one,’ I said, thrusting it under his face, ‘tell me what this one means for you.’ He looked at it for a long time, took it from my hands and then looked up at me and said, ‘in this picture, I see stubbornness… or perseverance, if you rather, but I prefer stubbornness. See the willpower in her eyes? She’d make a great senator, or correction officer, maybe. But not a lover, that’s where she’d fail terribly.” I asked him why. He said something about compromise that I didn’t really listen to. I just liked that he condemned her the way I had hoped he would.

Back to the scenario I started with. I am standing topless in my underwear and he is painting over my breasts. He is almost done and I can finally make out what looks like the tip of a bird’s regal wing spreading over my left breast. He moves to the side to see his work from my eyes. We are both looking at me in the mirror. I have a big, bright bird painted over my whole torso; my navel is its eye, its beak stretches out from just above my crotch, its body of magnificent browns covers the skin above my ribs, its belly is a brilliant shade of red. The wings on my bird extend like a giant ‘V’ from the center of my body up across my breasts; browns, red and oranges, much like her auburn hair. But this time I don’t see her. I see him and the freedom he sees in me; in his eyes I am filled to the brim with opportunity. I feel excited and energized by this. He can keep her pictures up. Mine can settle elsewhere.

chin up, cheer up

2007-08-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

hello dusty sand dunes of my mind
another day passes like a dream
we float face down in the river
holding our chests closed to cheat death
weight of solid rock
brains of indivisible comprehension
fear none, know all

a nod to the treacherous terrain of my heart
here and then gone in the snap of two fingers
we jump over every mishap every misshape so simply
keeping our reservations in tact
flight of a thousand birds
breath of a million sighing
chin up, cheer up

goodnight to the solemn still sky of my longing
fall deeper into a bed soft as clouds to disappear
we piece our bones together to be one-like
sweeping under the covers our disbelief
tears of the monsoon season
length of me here to you there
you win some, you lose some

feed me your none-love i say

2007-08-06T03:50:00.000-07:00

there you are and here i am
can i cross over to the pages that i like
for we are not in love
but we lie together always and we speak
in tones of pink and laugh in shades of yellow
could it be all together another mysteryious letter
postmarked for two months ago that we don't receive until now
you are only something of my passing fancy
and i like what we started
i put my infatuation on like an old chemise
you take your boyish charm out of a box
feed me your none-love i say
we eat our desires from the jar
we spoon our secrets to pass through our lips
between my legs you will find how much i like you
how much i like for you to know me is there
and in your face next to mine like a movie screen
i see just how much none-love you want to give to me

for you to be near me and mine

2007-07-29T20:54:00.000-07:00

for you to be near me and mine
only for your absent smile i should travel
to be where you are is some distance i can count off on my fingers
on maps i draw where you will be
these routes keep you not so far from me

for you to press against me and be tight
these things you can't say to my mouth but to my neck
possibly the backs of my ears are what you want to whisper to
i turn away to hear you better
so when we are farther away it is all right still

for my nose to touch the side of your face
i smell your cheek like mushy musty heavy you
something quite so intriguing and new
if your hands should find new places to dwell
then i will be still and quiet to make something to remember

i see the moon but mostly the sun in my eyes

2007-07-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

How we met won’t matter when we’re in bed together; where we met, even less relevant. When your legs are between mine and my head is buried in your neck, there will be no need for formal introductions because I knew you before you came any closer and you knew before I opened my mouth. Just like so much of what we’ve become now, two people who know each other so well that we are strangers again and every time we touch it’s like pressing my face against cool marble because I don’t know anyway better.

You looked me in the eyes one time and you said, “please, please just don’t say anything” and then I knew you knew too much already. We both hated routine and we hated plans. We tore up our calendars and took down our clocks because we didn’t want to know where we were and how long we’d be here: in the kitchen washing too many dishes, in the sunshine eating fruit, on the floor being near each other. So when you said those words I must admit I was shaken because now you know me too well and you know what my mouth holds and what I hide beneath my gums to strike you with. I can’t let you make me your routine and I don’t want you to know the map of my bones.

If we sit naked on this bed together, I am okay. You can watch me from behind as long as I can’t see you. When we’re both all we’ll ever be but it’s only you facing me, I can speak freely about all the things that I adore and I’ll pretend you like them too. From where I am I see rooftops and cats performing feats of balancing acts, I see the moon but mostly the sun in my eyes and then I let myself see you, nodding, maybe even taking down notes in a journal or on your hands. I talk about all the things I feel that I can’t put into words, it’s like being here but not really, or putting your hand up to touch glass and finding out there is nothing there when your hand falls into what you thought you couldn’t touch. When I look to the side I can see your knees and when I look further, I see your torso but I’m ashamed for looking at you from the back of my head so I look away, all the while feeling the flush rise to my face.

We said that time was our friend because it would never end for us; we were eye for eye and tooth for tooth, giving up some things for others, betting too high for thrills. I got my thrills from watching you get yours. When you’re screaming at the TV for fun or breaking plates to divert your anger, I see your eyes light up like Christmas lights, flashing and bright, and I feel myself get dizzy from watching you get your thrills. Time moved slowly for us as we slept our days away, lazing in our underwear. Maybe we will drink cool water from the taps, maybe it will go up our noses, maybe we’ll get sunburned, maybe you’ll be unemployed—we were okay with everything because we knew. Time comes in intervals but the spaces in between give us a chance to take a breather and we renew ourselves and re-evaluate. Hey, do I really still want you?

Fold your clothes and feed the cat, don’t take another minute because there are none left. I don’t like the shape of your hands, I don’t like when you walk too loudly into a room and I especially dislike when you clear your throat while reading. Already I know too much about you and there’s nothing left for me to learn. I like for the people near me to have something for me to look for but I know all about you. The most private things in the world are our thoughts but I see how you think already. You take your boots and your things; I’ll shut the door behind you. Put up these clocks and open the calendars; now apart, I’ll count the days until I meet someone just like you.

sea

2007-07-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

i went to the sea to find some luxury
i went to the sea to find some more you for me
but when i arrived it was water all around me
and i couldnt tell my tears from the ocean
the salt dried out my eyes and then my skin
and i thought about how to hide my wrinkles from you

i went to the sea to clean myself dry
but my mouth wept too much and all i did was bleed
seashells gathered around me like children
telling me to give them my secrets to take far away

i went to the sea to find lightness
i went to buy some sense
as i feel my shoulders rising
as i watch my skin brighten
the waves bump me back to the shore
but i'm clean

faubourg saint-denis

2007-07-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

"... a feeling came over me. it was like remembering something i'd never known before or had always been waiting for, but i didn't know what. maybe it was something i'd forgotten or something i've been missing all my life. all i can say is that i felt at the same time, joy and sadness. but not too much sadness..."

We are sitting in the corner booth farthest away

2007-07-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

We are sitting in the corner booth farthest away from the entrance. From where I am seated, I have a view of the plethora of colors outside; umbrellas of all shapes and sizes drift up and down the sidewalk as if running their own parade. I know that from her seat across from me, she can see the photograph of the lady and her dog hanging about my head. The red, dirty paint is peeling from all four walls of the restaurant. I know that is what she also sees.

I watch her intently as she fumbles with the wires in front of her. Her black, wavy hair falls haphazardly, framing her face like a picture. She pushes it away carelessly and I watch her mouth obscenities as she fidgets with a knot in her headphones. Finally, she raises her eyes to meet mine and a smile spreads across her lips. She pushes her headphones across the table to me. They are large and have thick cushions around the ear pieces. She mouths the word "listen" and then gently guides my fingers over the ear pieces. I can feel it moving and vibrating - it's a crazy, manic, desperate sound. She watches me as I bounce my fingers to the beat.

"Do you like it?" she mouths.

I nod, "yes."

Developing a Character - "Catherine"

2007-07-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

Catherine is a precocious twelve year old playwright who wants to produce her first play before she turns thirteen.

Her shallow, self-conscious fifteen year old sister, Corinne, makes her laugh. In the morning, Corinne goes through at least four outfit changes before deciding on the perfect combination of low-slung jeans and tiny blouse to evoke that certain brand of innocent, teenage sexiness that all the other sophomore girls in her school had already perfected. Puppies sneezing, inspirational quotes (“I was sad because I had no shoes, then I saw a man with no feet and I cried”) and her father and mother dancing in their small living room after dinner also make Catherine laugh; among other things.

Sometimes on her walks home from school, Catherine’s mind wanders and she begins to think about what a tragic thing it would be if she were caught in the crossfire between two rivaling gangs and lost all sense of feeling her in legs. This was not likely to happen though, considering that Catherine and her family lived in one of the safest neighborhoods in her state; rated in the bottom 2% in crime and the top 5% in safety. Another one of Catherine’s fears, this one a little more possible than the last, was of being abducted by a child molester. She knew she was a beautiful girl and that the slope of her neck and the hollowed out shape of her legs made her perfect material for men who liked little girls. She had been complimented more than once by father’s colleagues on her upturned nose and pale skin and she saw the way they watched her as she walked up the stairs to her room.

Many things angered Catherine, for her temper was short and her tongue, sharp. She was quick to snap at her best friend Patrick; an autistic, Chinese boy whose father was a professor at the local state university. His mother gave the kids on her block piano lessons for free and was known to give them fortune cookies as incentives for every piece they mastered. Patrick was a math genius with an IQ above 200, but he couldn’t hug, rarely smiled and didn’t understand the concept of standing up for oneself. Often, he and Catherine would go downtown for Free Ice Cream Tuesdays where they would bump into other kids from their school; filthy, slimy, mean-spirited kids who threw wadded up pieces of tissue at him and called him names like, “girly boy” and “dumbo”. Whenever this happened, Catherine would watch as Patrick sat, stoic and pink as a flamingo, doing nothing to defend himself. She watched until she couldn’t take it anymore and ran over to the other children, fists swinging, demonstrating the shrill in her voice.

Catherine was known to slap Patrick hard across the face whenever they were together: “You stupid idiot! Hold my hand! Hold it! I’m going to write you into my next play. You can be the retard with the crippled dog, okay? Okay? Look at me when I talk to you! Okay?” Often, Patrick would return home from a play date at Catherine’s with flushed cheeks and bite marks on his arms, but his mother didn’t mind for she was happy that he had a friend. Catherine also often got angry with her teachers at school, but she knew better than to lash out at them. Poor Mrs. Halloway and the fine hairs that grew out of her chin hardly knew the difference between acute and obtuse angles and stammered when she taught Catherine’s Honors Math class! Then there was Mr. Tam with the twitching problem who taught her Honors History class. Catherine regularly scoffed to herself at his mispronunciations of the names of famous Greek rulers. The only teacher she liked was Mr. Conner, her Honors English teacher, who she knew liked her too. He lent her books from his personal collection of Hesse and Kundera and spent a particularly long time when he went over her work, dragging a chair up to her desk and sitting beside her, his breath warm and musty in her ear as he pointed out strong points in the development of her character or his delight in her choice of words in describing the lush foliage of a particular garden scene. Sometimes he’d place a cold, clammy hand on Catherine’s thigh and pat it in an awkward, friendly way—much like the way a man hugs hello to his best friend’s wife who he has lustful dreams about and this made Catherine quiver on the inside and she cursed her girlish heart for beating so loudly.

i am sorry for the scales of my feet

2007-07-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

i am sorry for the scales of my feet and the wrinkles in my eyes
though you are not near I hold you closer for if anything
please do not laugh at my shallow words when i am tongue-tied
the robin is out of my bloom and in the leaves to nestle
fear is me when at night I tremble and quiver at thoughts
of little red robin feathers fallen on even redder asphalt

two hundred walls of sentiments
to cross over to your legs is a thought i could do
for your arms to bend around my body
for your mouth to touch me and make intimacy on my neck and back
if for this you cannot allow then
i will retreat to a slumber undisturbed and see you wanting me

my thighs are like vast plains to conquer
for your hands are soldiers to wander and take for the pleasing
so the orbs of my shoulders and the slant of my knees should fit
into yours so precisely to be warm
hold onto things that fall quickly and gather nothings in the crook of my ear
i do not like that which is fleeting

fish on my heels nip at my sorrow

2007-07-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

1
i want to burrow in this distance forever and have
my body laid over the plains to burn
there will be sacrifices and
i will be the first to go
these eyes to be clenched all for the sweet closeness
of a face remembered from times passed
this magic will bring me you and the beetle in my belly
will stop its crying and go to sleep

2
in the water we are shallow people and
our skins are too bright for simple eyes
ordinary sentiments pass down through the fields
but i can only hope for this to go by quickly
the fish on my heels nip at my sorrow
pouring out of me to exhaustion
i fly near you to be like a smile

3
you who came closer are dream like truth
my dirty hair cannot tell its stories anymore
so we lie in the waves until they wrap us up
sunny day warm on my face
inside my mouth it flutters like a moth
my teeth are pearly gates

focused freewriting on 'Locks'

2007-06-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

locks tied down, dead like fishes. golden and shiny, new. holding me inside of what i can't be and keeping everything else outside of me. locks to assert possession, position. treasure and charm, preventing their travel. tarnished and old, black and dirty, but keeping the good in and the bad out are locks on my teeth to hold them in place and make them straight like a watchdog on guard at every word i say. i need locks on my mind, locks on my brain. locks of love, locks of hair to remember me by, like keepsakes of people whose faces are blurred in my mind. locked out of where i want to be, double-bolted security, they make the shy smaller and the bold stronger, to keep the line drawn are these locks. lock inside or out or locked underneath or too far above, for me to pull on, tug, pick at like an itch i can't stop scratching, to fawn over, mesmerized, analyze, ponder are locks that keep me up at night, wide-eyed and confused these locks around me are golden shiny and new.

the funny heart situation that i'm in

2007-06-24T03:40:00.000-07:00

Lately I’ve been noticing changes in my body that I hadn’t seen before. I sense a restlessness inside that I constantly think about letting go of, but every day I find myself holding on tighter because I know this is the way I should be feeling. The restlessness breeds into some funny mix of old teenage hopes, facts and figures from the past to present and a bit of aching for people, places, smells and touches. I don’t quite know how to resolve this issue, because quite frankly, it seems like there is nothing to be done. All I can do is sit and wait; let it pass; and go along with everything that I usually do (or all the things I no longer do) with this peculiar, squishy, nagging feeling in a place inside me that I can’t identify.

I’m content but not happy; or maybe it is the other way round. But actually I think I might be both; or my vocabulary is so strained that I can no longer find the words to describe what I am at the moment. The funny heart situation that I’m in, this mushy, spread out, vast brain growth that I’m experiencing, all of it is so much of who I am now that it almost scares me, almost. Finally, I am open heart, mind and limbs. I am welcoming of every circumstance, every word, every gaze; there is nothing I could want more right now than to run too fast toward something I like too much and then trip and fall and bleed from my elbows down to my wrists, from my knees to the points of my shins.

A friend asked me in the middle of a long-winded conversation about relationships of all kinds and retaining composure; she said, “What are you afraid of?” and I said, “Nothing”.

Truly I ought to have fears. A person needs something to make them shake so hard in their bones, something to keep them up at night, something to make their mind whir until all their thoughts are so loud they burst and they’ve been consumed completely by this thing that they’ve been trying to stay away from. My fears are small and painless. They are marbles; and like marbles, they have something I like on the inside. They are my favorite things enveloped in black armor dressing. I recognize my fears and I take them in my hands and roll them in my palm until they are so tiny I can fit them in my pocket. That is where they stay, jingling and jangling, a slight nagging at my side. My greatest fear is being too afraid.

So here I am: flat on my back, my body split wide open, taking it all in. I believe everything and I want everything. I want to be pain, joy, anticipation, trust, loyalty, respect, anger and love; and what I’ve never been is jealousy or suspicion.

Once this funny feeling passes, I think I will be quite new; and that is something that I am looking forward to.

a sweetie (a po-em)

2007-06-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

These ships are for my pleasure
andI’ll appreciate you very much thank you
My tongue is flat like wet grass
like my breasts
like you leaving me leaving you feeling not so good

Like seal skin I am
walk upright and backwards again
to day three day two day one until
patient are the cushions of my fingers
you can hold your secrets in

How much of this is savory
to the tiny explosions in my mouth like
a sweetie
we tie our love into knots to remember
because we’re too skilled at forgetting

Forget your hand on my leg
Forget your mouth on my shoulder
Which is really

All too much of what I like

Consumed by the spark and the lightness
like dropping into sand and sinking until my
feet become crow-like and I grip aimlessly

What ship do I choose to sail on
a Relationship
a Friendship
a Youandmebutnotweship?

I hide my words in my teeth
to be ready

little leaps of joy scatter throughout my body

2007-06-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

How is it that the way you make me feel is something I have only maybe thought about with passing fancy but never had inside until recently and somehow it is exactly the way I think I should be feeling and I welcome it with limbs fallen at my side, saying no to none of it because I like it so much. The way I feel inside is very much like tumbling aimlessly through the best kind of sleep or watching myself melt into a puddle on the floor because you do so many things to me all at one time that all I know to do is just let it happen.

I am but a mess of tangles; in my hair, my limbs, my thoughts, but you are accepting of me anyway and for once I keep my mouth shut and my mind moves slower because I don’t need to question anything with you, I simply believe. The way that I’ve become is quite new to me and I like it. I like my brain and my heart and my hands on the back of your neck or on the side of your face and sometimes on the small of your back. There are too many things that I like about you that I can’t put a name to; I like the way your eyebrows move close together when you’re nervous or thinking or sad, the way you put your hands around my legs, the way you think about being happy as a choice and the funny fact that, for once, I agree with you.

It would be quite nice if possibly I could continue having this, but I’m too practical and rational and I’ve moved away from my idealistic tendencies. Now I only know how to be here and be open and think about you while I can because in the now I’m a different person and in the now I’m a lot more proper than I was before and will be in the future. If I could I would fold you up really tiny and put you in inside of my heart where all the things I like can stay put and be together, conveniently situated so as to cater to my every need and whim. I would open the little door to my heart whenever I want to and peep in to see you waiting for me and I would feel little leaps of joy scatter throughout my body. But this is something I can’t talk about because I can’t let myself get soft. Soft is what I used to be. Soft is not right for the now.

When you speak to me my eyes become wider and my lips stretch farther apart and I feel myself be so at ease that it’s almost like you’re here or I’m there and things are actually going to be okay. If I miss you, I sit still and I think about you until I don’t because I know better than to push it all away until it’s all too much for me. I bite my lip in the shower so as not to cry and I sing myself to sleep because lying awake is the most dangerous thing for a mind like mine.

This is all brain and thoughts and a little bit of feeling. Or a lot of feeling, but maybe I shouldn’t say so. My heart is locked away inside of my heart because it can do too many things that I don’t want it to. So really I haven’t changed at all. I’m cerebral about you even if I don’t want to be. This is all brain.

knees up to her chest, she could care less

2007-03-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

it's all over now...

2 weeks and counting, i think? but who's ready? who's waiting?
i'm falling not-asleep at night, making mental lists, being dramatic of course
"i want to die, it's that bad!"

i need to start wearing a bra around the house
stop walking around without my pants on
start getting my shit together
stop sleeping for hours in the afternoon

i love carbs and ice cream, vay cay shun will be so good. i can feel it.
i can feel it shakin in my boneeeez

btw I MISS MY BEST FRIEND!!! especially you with the rapunzel hair
on that note i really really hate growing up
i h8 sensible shoes, nude pantyhose, 9-5s and answering the telephone
unless it's my best friend calling to say hey

we haven't even left and we're already planning our comeback. soooooo weird.

how different you look close-up and how funny it is

2007-03-08T00:28:00.000-08:00

There are some things that I want more than anything, so badly that my hands tremble at the thought of possibly, finally having them near me, close enough to close my eyes and still see their shape, close enough to smell their scent. The way I want them is much like the way my knees sometimes ache for the feeling of wooden floorboards and the way I sometimes hope to see the red come to the surface of my knees and flow down my legs leaving my socks pink with gratification.

I never speak about these things that I want because they are too far and too grand, sometimes too wrong and too far removed from what you want for yourself and what you want for me. When you look at me I know you see the dreams that I see like a hazy fog over my eyes. In them you see us, or maybe just me, sitting on a vanity with my knees open and my skirt too short and you want nothing more than to brush my hair and maybe put your mouth over mine.

It’s when we lie in the sleep that you give me that I feel myself begin to fall further away from everything I have and I start wanting those things more and more. More and more I forget about what I've worked for and what I thought I wanted and all I know is the way you look when we sit in the kitchen and I pull my feet up on the counter and I’m eating a mango seed and the juice is dripping down my arms all the way down to my elbows and you’re trying to write a letter to your parents because you promised them you’d write once a month and I tell you not to include the bit about how I ruined all your clothes in the wash when I mixed whites with brights. When I am lying in that sleep and I have burrowed myself deep into your body the one thing I can’t move away from is knowing how different you look close-up and how funny it is to see everything around so small and your brow so large and vast.

Some days I’m okay and the aching isn’t so bad. I forget all about it in the busy streets I walk on when I go to work and the baby hands and small faces that beam up at me and ask me about how my day is going make me soft on the inside. Other times when the aching gets too much, I sit in bed without any clothes on and cut the coupons out of magazines because the dotted lines calm me down. Then by the time you come home I am better and I can’t feel my knees anymore and this is really quite a good thing if you think about it.

no need to say it

2007-03-07T01:47:00.000-08:00

For the time being I will search for the lines to speak my mind and keep them until it is appropriate for me to speak brazenly about the wrong way I think about you and the wrong way I write about you; how I remember the things that I shouldn’t and pay attention to too much in the foreground, I need to move around. What it’s simmered down to is the way I'm consumed by too much of what isn’t right and I tell my friends about the way you look when it’s too late and we’re still awake or when it’s too late and you’re trying to find the right words to say what I know anyway, how I’ll eventually say, “no need to say it.”

You’re too much with me but we both are too much for this. It’s in the soft, heavy waves all around us, how we bury ourselves into canyons, patient but not waiting for anything really, because we like it here. It’s in how you’re one room right over and I hear you flexing and loving me and it’s so much like the way I feel when I'm walking home from any place in the evening and everyone’s all around me but I'm so removed from it all.

So now you have them—my arms, my legs, my neck, my wrists. All my limbs begin to leave me and crash into you, but we’re still okay and I’m still falling asleep in other places and getting lost just to be found. I like how in the night time before sleep, when I am pacing around the room, tired and restless, you sit in bed and watch me with your quiet eyes and we are both quiet until you say “all right now” and I switch off the light and crawl into bed to find my favorite thing that only sleep can bring me and we never touch when we sleep, but that is how we like it.

It’s nice how in the morning when it’s too sunny we stay in and pull the covers over our heads and coax each other back to sleep. I find my arms somewhere further away from me and your feet too close but I say nothing because my friends say I have to learn and you think I need to learn, even though you never say it, I know. The way I feel in moments like this one is like the feeling I should have seeing myself sit upright in the bathtub and peel my skin away from my body and I look in the mirror and like the white of my bones and the feeling of finally being present. I’ll tell you about how I want to wash my bones and clean out my skull, dry it till it’s shiny and new and you push the hair out of my eyes and agree that yes that would be quite a quiescent experience.

When we push it closer together and I can hear you louder and clearer than I’ve ever heard, it is something quite new and thrilling to me and I try to memorize the way it happens so that I should be able to write it all down and never forget it. I try to keep myself right there, keep my mind here and my hands here and my eyes focused, but every time it happens my eyes close and my hands spread and travel and my mind escapes me so that when it is finished I am left with the remains of something overwhelming and I don’t know what to do with them.

If this is the time being and I’m being like this: wringing my hands, picking up the phone, forgetting my coat, running my mouth; then I imagine that later should be much better.

choose me, choose me, choose me

2007-03-05T05:13:00.000-08:00

I know exactly when you fell in love with me: when you woke up after the first night and saw me folding your clothes from the night before, sitting on the floor with nothing but a sheet wrapped around me. You loved me more after I hadn’t left the house for a couple of days, when I didn’t brush my hair and if I made you coffee. Even though I didn’t know how, you said you appreciated the effort.

Sometimes when I’m walking on the street I forget where I’m going, but I keep walking anyway because I really don’t have any control over body. My legs, my mouth, my hands… I could never help myself. I always helped myself to the best part of you. So picture this, I’m walking aimlessly, worrying about finding my way back later. And then, there you are in front of me! I see you standing at a pedestrian crossing, waiting for the light to turn green. And then, we’re sitting at home watching TV with our dinners on our knees. You move my plate away and put your hand where it was instead. The man on the screen is nervous; if he gets this last question right he’s going home with a brand new Porsche. You make me feel warm like the concrete ground under the sun.

And then, you’re crushed by boxes falling from the ceiling. They’re filled to the brim with all those fucking photographs you used to take of me. I told you to find a place for them.

I’ll stop in front of a window display that intrigues me. The mannequins, with their insincere plastic bodies, contort into the strangest stance. I saw one trying to bemuse the other with his hand on her thigh. I saw one that looked just like you.

One night we got into a big fight and I said some things I wish I had never said. Afterwards, I apologized and tried to get close to you. You wouldn’t touch me. I stayed in the kitchen all night, writing you a letter I wish I had never written. A letter I had to have you read. There was that one line about tragedy and how you could just be it for me, how I’d want you still. You read it to me the next morning. You told me not to expect a reply from you, “I’m can’t romanticize what we have with words.” And then you fucked me against the refrigerator.

This is my favorite habit of yours: when you’re drunk and we do it, you lean in close and whisper frantically into my ear, “I want you to choose me…choose me, choose me, choose me...” And then I wrap my hands around your neck and pull you tighter to my body. I reply with, “you, you, you, you, you…” I think you liked it. I’m pretty sure you did.

Most days, I’m okay. I guess everything depends on how you look at it.

I see it like this: now I have something to do with my hands.