the car crashed through the living
room, i saw lights wash over behind
mom, standing in front of me, in diet,
telling me about how it all hurts, how
it all hurts on herself, i saw it coming
and i thought how lucky, mom,
the hurt to end all hurts is coming,
just for us, God's Christmas gift,
how good, the hate to end all hate
is love, salvation, planned accidents.
as slow as snails go
mother can't handle
the truth, that awful
glide of the knife across
the perfect package
only humans will grind
perfect beans into dirt
cook the raw
water it down
jesus christ, mom
he faulted once, twice,
jesus christ, he'll do it again
how good the morning coffee
smells, how sour in the mouth
mother can't handle
no cream, no sugar
mother can't handle real
coffee, the way it tastes
and the way it goes down,
as slow as snails go.
the truth, that awful
glide of the knife across
the perfect package
only humans will grind
perfect beans into dirt
cook the raw
water it down
jesus christ, mom
he faulted once, twice,
jesus christ, he'll do it again
how good the morning coffee
smells, how sour in the mouth
mother can't handle
no cream, no sugar
mother can't handle real
coffee, the way it tastes
and the way it goes down,
as slow as snails go.
before the world ended, on the subway
The man is shouting ROCKETS OUT OF YOUR EYEBALLS and i think
the apocalypse.
People try to move away from him, and he does too, fingers trying to pry
open the train car's window. I think he might jump. I think I'll look away
if he does, rockets out of my eyeballs.
the apocalypse.
People try to move away from him, and he does too, fingers trying to pry
open the train car's window. I think he might jump. I think I'll look away
if he does, rockets out of my eyeballs.
if i keep knocking
where the shock hits me i stand.
there is no running, i have no need.
i take the music of the slap and punch
in me. the sun cooks the water on soil.
i thank God for this and cry with gratitude
and pain. there is always pain.
even the oldest bruises
resist the fade.
God has found me here, so i must be dead.
amazing soul.
there is no running, i have no need.
i take the music of the slap and punch
in me. the sun cooks the water on soil.
i thank God for this and cry with gratitude
and pain. there is always pain.
even the oldest bruises
resist the fade.
God has found me here, so i must be dead.
amazing soul.
neruda 51, my love eulogy
gleams of your teeth ornament the christmas trees.
beauty is your mouth opening wide, ready to bite.
you eat all the trees. they fall, one long moaning,
'tis the season, the season, 'tis the season.
you laugh. you laugh like it costs nothing to laugh,
it is all fun, it is all fun for you, like white snow.
like the white snow will always be white, forever,
like the bride you will always be, forever.
you come to me with light like the morning sun,
slink and press your light up on me in bed,
refuse me sleep. you are always white.
my bride. you come to me, laughing.
you scare the birds and they abandon me,
and i am alone with your mouth, opening wide.
beauty is your mouth opening wide, ready to bite.
you eat all the trees. they fall, one long moaning,
'tis the season, the season, 'tis the season.
you laugh. you laugh like it costs nothing to laugh,
it is all fun, it is all fun for you, like white snow.
like the white snow will always be white, forever,
like the bride you will always be, forever.
you come to me with light like the morning sun,
slink and press your light up on me in bed,
refuse me sleep. you are always white.
my bride. you come to me, laughing.
you scare the birds and they abandon me,
and i am alone with your mouth, opening wide.
half and half
what hurts the most is when people think they are trying to save a drowning body. i have found my comfort here, again, in the water. i'm sinking and i'm sunk and there are no words for the white noise packing into my ears. it feels like sometimes i don't need air. and it is fine to be born a fish, as it is fine to be born a human, but it is harder to be born half fish, half human because there i am, half and half and nothing at all recognizable. there are others like me and we all hide, because we are not like the mermaids in the fairy tales, we are ugly and we are unsightly and we don't like upsetting the fish and the humans. and we are separated because we don't like upsetting each other. we are lonely, but on good days we play, shaking our tail and waving our hand out at the swimmers to keep their fantastical mermaid dreams alive. on the good days they go home thinking they are lucky. what a wonder, to see the beginning of a dream, and what good fortune, to not have to stay for the nightmare that follows.
neruda 53, personalized
here are the necessities for life:
the man, the woman, their bread,
their wine, their table, their house.
a common scene, peacefully lit.
but tonight my parents spoke again
of divorce and all i could hear was
the silence of their words passing
in the basement, two floors below.
what of this love song, neruda,
and where are your dancers now?
my dancers are fighting late into the night,
every night, and both have become injured.
blood combined can separate and attack:
the body stands a tender witness
to the running violence of rejection.
this is the simple and the endless.
the man, the woman, their bread,
their wine, their table, their house.
a common scene, peacefully lit.
but tonight my parents spoke again
of divorce and all i could hear was
the silence of their words passing
in the basement, two floors below.
what of this love song, neruda,
and where are your dancers now?
my dancers are fighting late into the night,
every night, and both have become injured.
blood combined can separate and attack:
the body stands a tender witness
to the running violence of rejection.
this is the simple and the endless.
neruda 54, it's too late and i'm too tired to make this make sense
good delirious afternoon! my mind
is a clusterfuck of shit and cum,
the devil and his city grime
splay open my solitude:
is something about doves, and fire,
and food, and fucking honor
then shall you and i ascend to heaven,
nude against reason and bathed in life,
dreaming furiously, hammered in the river.
we're drunk, is that it? we fed each other
certain bitters, cracked our glasses.
we read the horoscopes for gemini: rosy
future looks with love, flies on two wings...
but you're a pisces, and i a libra.
is a clusterfuck of shit and cum,
the devil and his city grime
splay open my solitude:
is something about doves, and fire,
and food, and fucking honor
then shall you and i ascend to heaven,
nude against reason and bathed in life,
dreaming furiously, hammered in the river.
we're drunk, is that it? we fed each other
certain bitters, cracked our glasses.
we read the horoscopes for gemini: rosy
future looks with love, flies on two wings...
but you're a pisces, and i a libra.
neruda 55, fraction of a child's cry, mama take me back to where you woke me
in these briar prisons built in war
a plague spreads like spoiled honey,
the sick and dying bound by ivy,
low on sleep and running on empty
here, daily dreams of the fatigued:
spoons of painkillers of various colors.
a bed for the night, a destination for the day.
legs to walk on, or hands to crawl with.
eyes closed now to conjure a body
apart from this one drowning...
what a folly do i make of resistance!
river river flow flow
along with you i will go
take my body and my soul
a plague spreads like spoiled honey,
the sick and dying bound by ivy,
low on sleep and running on empty
here, daily dreams of the fatigued:
spoons of painkillers of various colors.
a bed for the night, a destination for the day.
legs to walk on, or hands to crawl with.
eyes closed now to conjure a body
apart from this one drowning...
what a folly do i make of resistance!
river river flow flow
along with you i will go
take my body and my soul
neruda 56, stripped and redressed
behind me the shadow waves sailed,
storming out from your angry hands,
and i felt my sea turning underneath,
frozen crystalline. so sank your ship
and all its captains, hungry roars and cries
drowned one by one by that silent magnanimity.
i broke the ice to retrieve you, breathing life into you
with gentle syllables of my love, and resuscitated you.
i carried you to shore and laid you under
the sun, and saw the sky flowering blue
in your kindling newborn eyes
and we lay there on land, quietly alive,
my fingers harvesting by day and night
the windblown wheatfield atop your head.
storming out from your angry hands,
and i felt my sea turning underneath,
frozen crystalline. so sank your ship
and all its captains, hungry roars and cries
drowned one by one by that silent magnanimity.
i broke the ice to retrieve you, breathing life into you
with gentle syllables of my love, and resuscitated you.
i carried you to shore and laid you under
the sun, and saw the sky flowering blue
in your kindling newborn eyes
and we lay there on land, quietly alive,
my fingers harvesting by day and night
the windblown wheatfield atop your head.
neruda 57
have i lost the moon, stranded in the desert?
for i know that is what you had heard
spat out by cold-blooded oracles
waiting on the demise of our universe.
i will not sing the sweet siren song.
tonight you have no one to sing to,
they say, their hands tearing me
apart from my guitar, my oblivion.
i stare after them with only our love in mind,
and in mind ran to chase after you, following
the scent of jasmine flowers you left behind.
i fell missing the sight of your eyes. in the morning
when i woke, i awakened with the light owed
to a blind man, starving in his darkness.
neruda 58
all we do anymore is fight?
i concede. i sail on by
deserted waters, singing.
because it is all i can do.
i pluck a melody across all keys,
rain a storm of unstable notes.
i become slow and wild as nature,
chained with a grounded heart.
they bite my exposed skin,
but i walk on. i sang.
i heard the wind singing too.
my time is fogged in your smell.
in our walks in the deep woods,
in the rain of my childhood.
i concede. i sail on by
deserted waters, singing.
because it is all i can do.
i pluck a melody across all keys,
rain a storm of unstable notes.
i become slow and wild as nature,
chained with a grounded heart.
they bite my exposed skin,
but i walk on. i sang.
i heard the wind singing too.
my time is fogged in your smell.
in our walks in the deep woods,
in the rain of my childhood.
neruda 59
they who were hunted by life and tagged by death,
who never had time to breathe, are haunted now
as they wither in their caskets, trapped under
the celebration of their funeral march.
they lie in mute darkness behind the arrogance
of pompous asses trotting in show, eternally enslaved
in restless sleep, buried by the chaotic weight of oral vanity:
a brutal cacophony for the quiet and humbly broken.
the living live to feast upon the dead and a banquet of miseries
is laid upon the stage with the corpses: birds who flew,
pigs, and other creatures who lived to speak.
at last! they had long awaited this moment of death,
now disguise their schadenfreude with mocking songs:
they have the most beautiful voice, now that he cannot sing.
who never had time to breathe, are haunted now
as they wither in their caskets, trapped under
the celebration of their funeral march.
they lie in mute darkness behind the arrogance
of pompous asses trotting in show, eternally enslaved
in restless sleep, buried by the chaotic weight of oral vanity:
a brutal cacophony for the quiet and humbly broken.
the living live to feast upon the dead and a banquet of miseries
is laid upon the stage with the corpses: birds who flew,
pigs, and other creatures who lived to speak.
at last! they had long awaited this moment of death,
now disguise their schadenfreude with mocking songs:
they have the most beautiful voice, now that he cannot sing.
neruda 60, butchered
someone always hurts someone:
poisonous blows from me to you,
the venom travels through my limbs
to unmake you with cruel insomnia.
your moonlit face is darkened by the hatred
trailing me: i cannot help you against the shadow,
i cannot stop your dreams violently embedded
with a rusty crown of knives chasing you.
i step past you to find a horror in the river: a face
staining the calm water with ripples of an orgy
of jealousy, laughs of a sadistic slut, mine.
but it is that shadow that life has granted me.
i drag my limp and my sagging dress, for
they suit me well: I, the scarecrow who smiles in blood.
poisonous blows from me to you,
the venom travels through my limbs
to unmake you with cruel insomnia.
your moonlit face is darkened by the hatred
trailing me: i cannot help you against the shadow,
i cannot stop your dreams violently embedded
with a rusty crown of knives chasing you.
i step past you to find a horror in the river: a face
staining the calm water with ripples of an orgy
of jealousy, laughs of a sadistic slut, mine.
but it is that shadow that life has granted me.
i drag my limp and my sagging dress, for
they suit me well: I, the scarecrow who smiles in blood.
neruda sixty-one
he came dragging his line of pain, love.
we opened our eyes to watch this
stunning skeleton of blades and saw
the gashes that would appear on us.
you cry for a crime you did not commit:
your feet follow a trail of drying blood,
virginal hands stained grazing the blades,
led to where your honey turns to bile.
love is that heroic wave made villainous.
it carried us to the rocks with a single crash,
knotted our bodies into a single corpse.
face slapped, pain swallowed, we linger
with devotion in the deserted station, waiting
for the blessed bitch who comes in spring.
we opened our eyes to watch this
stunning skeleton of blades and saw
the gashes that would appear on us.
you cry for a crime you did not commit:
your feet follow a trail of drying blood,
virginal hands stained grazing the blades,
led to where your honey turns to bile.
love is that heroic wave made villainous.
it carried us to the rocks with a single crash,
knotted our bodies into a single corpse.
face slapped, pain swallowed, we linger
with devotion in the deserted station, waiting
for the blessed bitch who comes in spring.
neruda sixty-two.
hard is this love of me and of us.
we wanted to love, so we loved,
and on a bed of pain we two lay,
rendering ourselves wounded,
wanting for our bread, the kiss,
secretly and fully consumed. it was all
we would eat, simply and eternally
till our window was broken with hate,
hurled through by the poor who hungered,
having neither this nor an other love,
an empty chair in an abandoned room.
we waited as their hostility retreated
behind those tired eyes of ash,
as the sun returned into the earth.
we wanted to love, so we loved,
and on a bed of pain we two lay,
rendering ourselves wounded,
wanting for our bread, the kiss,
secretly and fully consumed. it was all
we would eat, simply and eternally
till our window was broken with hate,
hurled through by the poor who hungered,
having neither this nor an other love,
an empty chair in an abandoned room.
we waited as their hostility retreated
behind those tired eyes of ash,
as the sun returned into the earth.
neruda sixty-three, butchered
i walked the wastelands, lived on lonely salt rocks,
the only rose i saw was buried by the sea.
bitter: riverbanks, snow,
my high-wire walks across:
ensnared by a lover's whispers, who had abandoned me,
still her kiss imprisons me, my tongue caught on chains,
and yet! the bird must set himself free, thrashing off
into flight with a cry, fly by the loss of his feathers.
the skin poisoned and branded by copper hues, bent
under the weight of salt statues and drifting snow;
i wait for cherries to grow on spring branches.
i will be the black pit inside, stationed in this
home of thirst, quenched by the light of fall
that fosters sour grapes on vines that tower
atop the metallic landscape of snow.
the only rose i saw was buried by the sea.
bitter: riverbanks, snow,
my high-wire walks across:
ensnared by a lover's whispers, who had abandoned me,
still her kiss imprisons me, my tongue caught on chains,
and yet! the bird must set himself free, thrashing off
into flight with a cry, fly by the loss of his feathers.
the skin poisoned and branded by copper hues, bent
under the weight of salt statues and drifting snow;
i wait for cherries to grow on spring branches.
i will be the black pit inside, stationed in this
home of thirst, quenched by the light of fall
that fosters sour grapes on vines that tower
atop the metallic landscape of snow.
colgate and crest
after dinner i'd brushed my teeth but the oil was still on my lips, languid. i giggled because i was drunk and you took a picture covered by hands, colorless and warm inside between my front and back. i was the space heater and the open window and you were ignoring the laundry, the courteous knocks on the door, how the fraying blanket was draping the floor. you wore yourself against me and i don't remember what i wore.
sarah says it's a wild beast
it's got fat limbs and teeth blood.
some nights you hear it howling,
taking its bath in the sand, rustling.
shortly after, it dies in bed, clean,
tormented by its unwashed sheets.
every morning or afternoon it returns.
by the way it bumbles inside you would think
it's a baby bird trying to find its way out of the dark,
untrained and orphaned overnight,
timidly clawing through the cotton.
some nights you hear it howling,
taking its bath in the sand, rustling.
shortly after, it dies in bed, clean,
tormented by its unwashed sheets.
every morning or afternoon it returns.
by the way it bumbles inside you would think
it's a baby bird trying to find its way out of the dark,
untrained and orphaned overnight,
timidly clawing through the cotton.
neruda sixty-four, altered
with life and love stained in violets crushed,
i flew as a bird and blind, set in its way,
arriving at your window, friend:
you heard the heart being broken
when, rising from the dark to your breast,
into the field of tall wheat i unconsciously fell
and began my life in between your hands,
come joyously to you from the ocean's drowning.
no one may count out my debt to you, it's clear
what i owe you, love, and as an infant root
to AraucanÃa, i owe to you, beloved.
my debt is as faithful as the stars,
as deep as the well in the wild,
struck by lightning, kept in time.
i flew as a bird and blind, set in its way,
arriving at your window, friend:
you heard the heart being broken
when, rising from the dark to your breast,
into the field of tall wheat i unconsciously fell
and began my life in between your hands,
come joyously to you from the ocean's drowning.
no one may count out my debt to you, it's clear
what i owe you, love, and as an infant root
to AraucanÃa, i owe to you, beloved.
my debt is as faithful as the stars,
as deep as the well in the wild,
struck by lightning, kept in time.
lusting for that piece of shoulder, peace of mind
i make the God whom i love man
so that i may take my turn
caring for man, mighty and complete.
so that i may take my turn
caring for man, mighty and complete.
neruda sixty-five, altered
matilde, where are you?
i noticed, between the above and below
the tie and heart, a certain melancholy
caught on me: the sudden absence of you.
for my light and air, your atmosphere,
had me looking, consuming
hope in the void where i,
your empty house, was standing,
its tragic windows watching,
the quiet ceiling listening:
old feathers, and rain falling,
imprisoned in a leafless season.
and so i await you to be home again,
and leave the windows open.
i noticed, between the above and below
the tie and heart, a certain melancholy
caught on me: the sudden absence of you.
for my light and air, your atmosphere,
had me looking, consuming
hope in the void where i,
your empty house, was standing,
its tragic windows watching,
the quiet ceiling listening:
old feathers, and rain falling,
imprisoned in a leafless season.
and so i await you to be home again,
and leave the windows open.
a check every 5 minutes for this
after which the disappointment
lowers itself to bed, bunched blankets,
the internal pillow of a full stomach,
discomfort in one's own body,
routine constipation in every limb
and in waking, consider if this piece
might belong in maternity clothes,
if only motherhood ever birthed
an answer to anything.
after which the disappointment
lowers itself to bed, bunched blankets,
the internal pillow of a full stomach,
discomfort in one's own body,
routine constipation in every limb
and in waking, consider if this piece
might belong in maternity clothes,
if only motherhood ever birthed
an answer to anything.
balloon animals, the most fulfilled
there is sun in the morning, coming down on our mattress a waning child of light, splitting us down the middle. i am living with you. we have a bed. we watch movies sitting on our floor. when the wood becomes rough on the surface we put down a rag carpet and curl to sleep, puppies in our dogbed, three, four blankets.
we have a kitchen and we eat as we cook. once i slipped on a slightly watery floor and broke a dish. i stripped in the bathroom and soaked the shirt in the sink, the wrists worn, the loose button swimming down to the drain too fast for my eye.
i stayed with you until the ring grew too small on my finger. you are the first to remember when my hands still fit on you.
we have a kitchen and we eat as we cook. once i slipped on a slightly watery floor and broke a dish. i stripped in the bathroom and soaked the shirt in the sink, the wrists worn, the loose button swimming down to the drain too fast for my eye.
i stayed with you until the ring grew too small on my finger. you are the first to remember when my hands still fit on you.
the graduate.
mother tells me how to untrust
a separation
but through the years
i had learned it all
picking up the sliced skins
off the floor after each argument
episodes of reality tv
in ugly high definition
i am defending my dissertation
before a jury of the one who birthed me
have i passed the life test?
can i graduate with honors?
what use for this diploma that had taught me
to think no job will ever be good enough?
a separation
but through the years
i had learned it all
picking up the sliced skins
off the floor after each argument
episodes of reality tv
in ugly high definition
i am defending my dissertation
before a jury of the one who birthed me
have i passed the life test?
can i graduate with honors?
what use for this diploma that had taught me
to think no job will ever be good enough?
nothing
i've begun reading again.
the chest pains have returned, too,
made themselves felt
as i took the last few steps towards the stoop last night,
twice in succession,
fading in,
solidifying,
fading out.
i held my breath, as i used to do,
when such things happened.
it happened again today, sometime around lunch
and i told mom, and i told dad,
and i remembered when my pediatrician told me
"growing pains, don't worry, it's nothing"
the chest pains have returned, too,
made themselves felt
as i took the last few steps towards the stoop last night,
twice in succession,
fading in,
solidifying,
fading out.
i held my breath, as i used to do,
when such things happened.
it happened again today, sometime around lunch
and i told mom, and i told dad,
and i remembered when my pediatrician told me
"growing pains, don't worry, it's nothing"
promises are not broken they are just delayed
the tunnel would take a while to pass
through the noise a bottom for my pit
i love you in moments,
the way a woman becomes pregnant
when she feels her child kicking
i loved you in the subway tonight
rotund, to be deflated every night
and after the loss,
talking to myself
call it blackout therapy,
to pass away the time
today my therapist said:
If the coffee's too bitter
here's the bowl of sugar
help yourself.
wandering limbs seek independence
crashing to the floor with an elevated head
inside all dead and all child, all loss
mere blood mere body
though nothing was scarier than when you woke up with that jelly arm
robotic malfunction
numb and flopped
even you didn't
respond to you
two antagonists who complete each other
who else would?
inside all dead and all child, all loss
mere blood mere body
though nothing was scarier than when you woke up with that jelly arm
robotic malfunction
numb and flopped
even you didn't
respond to you
two antagonists who complete each other
who else would?
a record of my sick days
what a sham
what a shame
i tore my sleeve
the bones are disappearing again
i'll give you what i think you like
glasses made out of mirrors
i wear the bad luck on my eyes
need a new pair every seven years
merry christmas
happy new year
i am thankful
checklist:
have a cookie
hate yourself
have more cookies
assign to everything a meaning
enroute to becoming meaningless
that is why you like stickers so much
and names and patterns and why and response
or no response
checklist:
be so scared
euthanize
apathize
checklist:
stare into space
fear what you see
repeat
checklist:
cry
sleep
eat
repeat
checklist:
fly or drown
grieve on land
repeat
funny i don't think it will last too long
i sit still
her long legs jumping
filling the boat
i know how to swim
but i don't think i will
the wind is strong enough to fly.
**
i fell awake
i fell asleep
how different it is to see
life from a bus
the snow is gone
so last night never happened
hard ice heart burn
slip and bite
her long legs jumping
filling the boat
i know how to swim
but i don't think i will
the wind is strong enough to fly.
**
i fell awake
i fell asleep
how different it is to see
life from a bus
the snow is gone
so last night never happened
hard ice heart burn
slip and bite
delayed
your body i eject
invade a series of bodies
no longer mine
**
this morning i had a dream i'd had before, similar for all but my distinctively insane self-character. in place of fear there was empty fearlessness and laughter.
with my friend i had been on my way to find a beloved, on a train. the train goes underground, and the outer shell of the train car is stripped. in my best clothes i knelt and laid down in the cake pieces of dried animal feces littering the floor of the still-moving floor to avoid my own beheading against the low rusty ceiling, obstacle-course like.
rest break. my friend and i take our time and wait it out in a straw-filled room, not unlike an 18th- or 19th century prison room, but boringly spacious, and equipped with a large white two-door refrigerator.
an ominous feeling then, when you realize you have been in such a dream before. the two men who seek to kill me enter our cell. i find myself with them in their prison, my traveling companion left behind. i do not know if their motive is fueled by a conflict of love interests or for other reasons, but they are determined to stop my travels and to end me.
in their temporary territory i sought nonexistent shelter from their assault.
they have long rifles, old, belonging to the time period of the prison cells. i have nothing. i open the refrigerator and begin to dump its contents on myself. milk, juice, ketchup. i laugh in a mixture of submission, defeat, and hopelessness. this is how insanity begins, when faced with no other choice.
they mock me, laughter is contagious. i make for a forgotten fun on the floor, i take sloppy aims, i shoot, i miss, they shoot at me, i hide. i realize there is more than one bullet left in the gun in my hand. i take a better but still awful aim and shoot, again, again, again.
it goes like that, like a merry go round, refrigerator insanity and poorman's shots with outdated guns and silly round bullets flying out to effect wounds that do not hurt much except to blast off bits of effervescent ego and confidence. in my hands another gun, i shoot, my bullet flies out. it is a combination of a cone-headed steel pipe and the tail of an arrow, bearing semblance to a monstrously fatal tampon. it hits straight through to my strong assassin's body. i shoot more and he is dead. i borner the weaker killer and, after a time now blurred to me, somehow he is dead too.
my friend is nowhere to be seen. i do not continue on my way to find my lover. sometime after, in the prison-like room, my sanity returns, but the emptiness remains. i do not seem to realize that i am covered by milk, juices, and ketchup, maybe blood.
invade a series of bodies
no longer mine
**
this morning i had a dream i'd had before, similar for all but my distinctively insane self-character. in place of fear there was empty fearlessness and laughter.
with my friend i had been on my way to find a beloved, on a train. the train goes underground, and the outer shell of the train car is stripped. in my best clothes i knelt and laid down in the cake pieces of dried animal feces littering the floor of the still-moving floor to avoid my own beheading against the low rusty ceiling, obstacle-course like.
rest break. my friend and i take our time and wait it out in a straw-filled room, not unlike an 18th- or 19th century prison room, but boringly spacious, and equipped with a large white two-door refrigerator.
an ominous feeling then, when you realize you have been in such a dream before. the two men who seek to kill me enter our cell. i find myself with them in their prison, my traveling companion left behind. i do not know if their motive is fueled by a conflict of love interests or for other reasons, but they are determined to stop my travels and to end me.
in their temporary territory i sought nonexistent shelter from their assault.
they have long rifles, old, belonging to the time period of the prison cells. i have nothing. i open the refrigerator and begin to dump its contents on myself. milk, juice, ketchup. i laugh in a mixture of submission, defeat, and hopelessness. this is how insanity begins, when faced with no other choice.
they mock me, laughter is contagious. i make for a forgotten fun on the floor, i take sloppy aims, i shoot, i miss, they shoot at me, i hide. i realize there is more than one bullet left in the gun in my hand. i take a better but still awful aim and shoot, again, again, again.
it goes like that, like a merry go round, refrigerator insanity and poorman's shots with outdated guns and silly round bullets flying out to effect wounds that do not hurt much except to blast off bits of effervescent ego and confidence. in my hands another gun, i shoot, my bullet flies out. it is a combination of a cone-headed steel pipe and the tail of an arrow, bearing semblance to a monstrously fatal tampon. it hits straight through to my strong assassin's body. i shoot more and he is dead. i borner the weaker killer and, after a time now blurred to me, somehow he is dead too.
my friend is nowhere to be seen. i do not continue on my way to find my lover. sometime after, in the prison-like room, my sanity returns, but the emptiness remains. i do not seem to realize that i am covered by milk, juices, and ketchup, maybe blood.
it's really a nightmare you are not in my dream tonight
we would have had all the time of today and the excuse
to do what we always do, nothing, in particular
taking our slow walks between the kitchen and the bedroom
and back in the room a body to anticipate in the bed
after the flush gurgles of the toilet and sink
a reappearance to push open the door
when we had wished for each other to help the boredom
little leaves flapping in the wind like kiwi wings learning to fly
never minding their stationary destinies
but to fly is a boredom in itself alone and scary now
the unthoughtful air sends only one bird where she'd wanted to go
who falls into a city waiting in the storm with sounds of an ocean confused.
to do what we always do, nothing, in particular
taking our slow walks between the kitchen and the bedroom
and back in the room a body to anticipate in the bed
after the flush gurgles of the toilet and sink
a reappearance to push open the door
when we had wished for each other to help the boredom
little leaves flapping in the wind like kiwi wings learning to fly
never minding their stationary destinies
but to fly is a boredom in itself alone and scary now
the unthoughtful air sends only one bird where she'd wanted to go
who falls into a city waiting in the storm with sounds of an ocean confused.
your brand
it's too bad, really
i have two tubes of the same
toothpaste (your brand)
it'll all be the same for a while
all the same kind of bland
taste, look, feel (your brand)
i have two tubes of the same
toothpaste (your brand)
it'll all be the same for a while
all the same kind of bland
taste, look, feel (your brand)
ready them.
they had been wanting to go out since i woke up yesterday
but they wanted patiently for me until today to leave.
i tell each and every one as they leave me,
i love my friends, i love my enemies, and i love you too.
but they wanted patiently for me until today to leave.
i tell each and every one as they leave me,
i love my friends, i love my enemies, and i love you too.
dumping the rainwater
haven't changed at all,
same leaves each fall,
strewn underfoot,
candy,
children,
churches.
children,
churches.
October 23rd 2012
You tried to read a book but your fat belly bulge distracts you with its rolls. For a couple of days, you were doing well. No pb, no starch on its own, yogurt & fruits. But you've run out, like this pen. Full of potential but horrible in execution. You want results too fast, and when you see none, you get discouraged. Or, when you succeed a little, you get overconfident & give yourself a break. Then you fall, like Sisyphus, staring in store windows the reflection of your fat arms, thick thighs, the sad bloating in your face. Your own disappointment is enough to turn everyone's attention to your body, or so you think.
So, this is what a continuously failing diet feels like. Sitting in a park writing in your sad journal with your sad pen, lingering of memories of your sad non relationship. You admit now you have no self-control, that life will be filled with these disappointments, caused by your own lack of will power, forever just so--mediocre in your own self-esteem. In the middle of a park of immigrants with their poor lunch foods you see yourself, eating from a bag of chocolate animal crackers, or pb-filled pretzels, or gluten-free chips bought at the penny store. Everyone gets by in their own unfeeling sadness.
You've started to take up your own guilty-feelings in an attempt to expose yourself and correct yourself--a verbal/visual mirror of sorts to guide you from your cycle of same-but-different mistakes. But here it is--everything you do is temporary, unsustained + by nature unsustainable. You need outside powers to dictate over you, give you a schedule, a diet, a jail. In restrictions you find freedom, and in liberty you find your own prison. The fact is that you were born to be discontent. It simply feels better when you can pin the source of your discontentment on someone else.
It is not your fault, it is your parents' for having birthed you. It is not your fault, it is theirs for having brought you here, for raising you up as a foreigner in both lands, it is the fault of your friend with the eating disorder whom you tried to help, it is unrealistic social ideals & too-high personal expectations bred by the media. But, here, now, it is what it is.
And here, now, seeking shelter from the rain, you ride the subway just to avoid reality. You look at your reflection in the train window and notice your face again, and it makes you look away. You adjust your hair, but it hardly makes a difference. This is what you are. This is who you are. And this is what you display to others: the face of discontent and self-disgust.
It would be better if you can ride the subway on reality continuously--which is what some people do, to varying degrees. But it is hard when the reality you are trying to escape is yourself. This is who you are: You are constant dissatisfaction. You are self-hate. You are seasoned with love in the good breaks in between a long, neverending bad day. It is hard to go to sleep for too long because you constantly worry about how it would feel to wake up again into the day. Rest turns into more time to be occupied by anxiety and dread and sad looks at your reflections. Puffy clouds soothe you momentarily with their peaceful slow and quiet commitment to life, until you are reminded of where you are--on the ground, with cars, people, buildings, your self, all subjects of wear and tear, visible aging, visible injuries, visible time.
It's time to take the other train back to where you started now. The platform is filled with other waiters. You watch them, to escape yourself.
Why do you want to be skinny anyway? For him, for him to love you still, to not disappoint him, to keep him into you, so you can have him and belong to him, to be kept in that warm adoring prison--all subject to change. Over which you have no control. You have no control. You have only the chance to stay in this prison until you are ousted yet again into your own liberation, prison--colder, more alone. You are lucky to have been admitted in, but it is not up to you to stay forever. Try. You can try to stay. But if you can't stay, know that you weren't meant to stay--the system turns, the light changes, the pedestrians walk, even if they've no idea where they're going.
You, in the subway car, going nowhere in the end, but riding from point A to return to point A just to escape the rain for the meantime. You could've sat on a platform bench, too, but you chose to be moved back and forth. To be part of the noise of the train coming in and out of the station rather than observer of the noise. It is more comforting to be inside of chaos and blind to it than to be outside and powerless to stop it. You wonder why you don't do this more often.
You see a picture you want to take but you don't take it. You feel the regret coming but you see already the salvation of forgetfulness. What you might give for complete forgetfulness--and what you wouldn't for repeating your choices. The eternal cycles of defeat by your own hand, the only hand you have.
You tried to read a book but your fat belly bulge distracts you with its rolls. For a couple of days, you were doing well. No pb, no starch on its own, yogurt & fruits. But you've run out, like this pen. Full of potential but horrible in execution. You want results too fast, and when you see none, you get discouraged. Or, when you succeed a little, you get overconfident & give yourself a break. Then you fall, like Sisyphus, staring in store windows the reflection of your fat arms, thick thighs, the sad bloating in your face. Your own disappointment is enough to turn everyone's attention to your body, or so you think.
So, this is what a continuously failing diet feels like. Sitting in a park writing in your sad journal with your sad pen, lingering of memories of your sad non relationship. You admit now you have no self-control, that life will be filled with these disappointments, caused by your own lack of will power, forever just so--mediocre in your own self-esteem. In the middle of a park of immigrants with their poor lunch foods you see yourself, eating from a bag of chocolate animal crackers, or pb-filled pretzels, or gluten-free chips bought at the penny store. Everyone gets by in their own unfeeling sadness.
You've started to take up your own guilty-feelings in an attempt to expose yourself and correct yourself--a verbal/visual mirror of sorts to guide you from your cycle of same-but-different mistakes. But here it is--everything you do is temporary, unsustained + by nature unsustainable. You need outside powers to dictate over you, give you a schedule, a diet, a jail. In restrictions you find freedom, and in liberty you find your own prison. The fact is that you were born to be discontent. It simply feels better when you can pin the source of your discontentment on someone else.
It is not your fault, it is your parents' for having birthed you. It is not your fault, it is theirs for having brought you here, for raising you up as a foreigner in both lands, it is the fault of your friend with the eating disorder whom you tried to help, it is unrealistic social ideals & too-high personal expectations bred by the media. But, here, now, it is what it is.
And here, now, seeking shelter from the rain, you ride the subway just to avoid reality. You look at your reflection in the train window and notice your face again, and it makes you look away. You adjust your hair, but it hardly makes a difference. This is what you are. This is who you are. And this is what you display to others: the face of discontent and self-disgust.
It would be better if you can ride the subway on reality continuously--which is what some people do, to varying degrees. But it is hard when the reality you are trying to escape is yourself. This is who you are: You are constant dissatisfaction. You are self-hate. You are seasoned with love in the good breaks in between a long, neverending bad day. It is hard to go to sleep for too long because you constantly worry about how it would feel to wake up again into the day. Rest turns into more time to be occupied by anxiety and dread and sad looks at your reflections. Puffy clouds soothe you momentarily with their peaceful slow and quiet commitment to life, until you are reminded of where you are--on the ground, with cars, people, buildings, your self, all subjects of wear and tear, visible aging, visible injuries, visible time.
It's time to take the other train back to where you started now. The platform is filled with other waiters. You watch them, to escape yourself.
Why do you want to be skinny anyway? For him, for him to love you still, to not disappoint him, to keep him into you, so you can have him and belong to him, to be kept in that warm adoring prison--all subject to change. Over which you have no control. You have no control. You have only the chance to stay in this prison until you are ousted yet again into your own liberation, prison--colder, more alone. You are lucky to have been admitted in, but it is not up to you to stay forever. Try. You can try to stay. But if you can't stay, know that you weren't meant to stay--the system turns, the light changes, the pedestrians walk, even if they've no idea where they're going.
You, in the subway car, going nowhere in the end, but riding from point A to return to point A just to escape the rain for the meantime. You could've sat on a platform bench, too, but you chose to be moved back and forth. To be part of the noise of the train coming in and out of the station rather than observer of the noise. It is more comforting to be inside of chaos and blind to it than to be outside and powerless to stop it. You wonder why you don't do this more often.
You see a picture you want to take but you don't take it. You feel the regret coming but you see already the salvation of forgetfulness. What you might give for complete forgetfulness--and what you wouldn't for repeating your choices. The eternal cycles of defeat by your own hand, the only hand you have.
no recipient
When the lights went out in the subway car, everyone was comfortable again.
There are times when anybody else's body would be better than my own.
Why are the alarms so frightening, can't they be friendlier.
Watching a couple text-fight with only one person in sight.
Is it enough just to have pretty hands? I have left myself with nothing else.
They talk. I sit, Waiting with an end in sight, listening with no aim in mind.
Ellen von Unwerthe
At 23, my fait fell out of sync, my waist grew big, and my eyes started to avoid the look of my body in mirror. My muscles grew short and my temper stretched out, an old rubber band about to break.
There are times when anybody else's body would be better than my own.
Why are the alarms so frightening, can't they be friendlier.
Watching a couple text-fight with only one person in sight.
Is it enough just to have pretty hands? I have left myself with nothing else.
They talk. I sit, Waiting with an end in sight, listening with no aim in mind.
Ellen von Unwerthe
At 23, my fait fell out of sync, my waist grew big, and my eyes started to avoid the look of my body in mirror. My muscles grew short and my temper stretched out, an old rubber band about to break.
i sat in the lab morning and night
watched the experimental mice move homes
between one and the other room
small in size and small inside the head
how their bodies slugged against the floor
how their whiskers weighed down their face
running to the other side to find their love
clicking on the left door and finding none
tapping on the right door and given food
and what good is that,
feeding pennies into a slot machine
even after the casino's closed.
watched the experimental mice move homes
between one and the other room
small in size and small inside the head
how their bodies slugged against the floor
how their whiskers weighed down their face
running to the other side to find their love
clicking on the left door and finding none
tapping on the right door and given food
and what good is that,
feeding pennies into a slot machine
even after the casino's closed.
no thimbles on hand.
little loops in the heart
sewn right through
against the hardy fabric. a push
and plummet to the finger's bone:
the pain
and the moment before the pain,
pierces a pretty pattern
on many autumn dresses
taken off in the dark
for sad little fucks.
sewn right through
against the hardy fabric. a push
and plummet to the finger's bone:
the pain
and the moment before the pain,
pierces a pretty pattern
on many autumn dresses
taken off in the dark
for sad little fucks.
birthday thoughts on the bus
Friendship will be the worst thing to have happened to me by then. On the bus I'd wondered through which screen I'd fallen through, and which one I had fallen out of, and which was replacing me in the reflections past midnight. You will meet your past with loved company and I will mine alone. Less than one year halved, a third of which is already gone. By its end the ocean will be bare again with her own tides, the swimmers gone home to their wives and mistresses, a long vacation spent.
withdrawal symptoms.
it is a toothache pain, a useless act of missing what you can't have right now, cradling everything soft in your bed, thinking about how good it was to you when you had it.
there was nothing wrong with the candy. the pain is caused not by the candy, but by the absence of it.
you aren't suicidal. you fill your mouth with other foods, fill yourself until you are sick of food, and then you go to sleep. but you are still hungry, you go to sleep thinking of it, and with your sweet tooth bellowing on empty, you fall unconscious into the longing, cradled in everything soft and fading.
there was nothing wrong with the candy. the pain is caused not by the candy, but by the absence of it.
you aren't suicidal. you fill your mouth with other foods, fill yourself until you are sick of food, and then you go to sleep. but you are still hungry, you go to sleep thinking of it, and with your sweet tooth bellowing on empty, you fall unconscious into the longing, cradled in everything soft and fading.
easy enough, we didn't say too much.
one piece of comfort
rolls on the bed
ration out the smells
recreate the sounds
rolls on the bed
ration out the smells
recreate the sounds
he let go when he saw the carnival grounds,
ran to jump around the strangers and their toddlers
among them, now suddenly more confident of his height,
he seemed taller and no longer mine
his hand was certain of its own movements,
freely flailing of a happy nature
independence is best when it first begins,
the contrast makes everything appear clearer
the blue and the orange each on their own.
the rides are for children only,
i watch from a distance as the planes go overhead.
ran to jump around the strangers and their toddlers
among them, now suddenly more confident of his height,
he seemed taller and no longer mine
his hand was certain of its own movements,
freely flailing of a happy nature
independence is best when it first begins,
the contrast makes everything appear clearer
the blue and the orange each on their own.
the rides are for children only,
i watch from a distance as the planes go overhead.
you have learned
the days are real as a dream.
like parking a car slowly
then remembering
you don't drive.
there are things that come for me
but don't retrieve me.
my parents have never been able to
know what is troubling me.
tonight he heard me
but didn't help me,
so God is dead
and we have killed him.
i have half of my childhood in my hand
and there is nothing but waiting,
eyes stuck wide open for its retreat,
patient with fearful breathing, observed.
what it is is to be trapped
into a regression of myself
dull and useless and later
i become the one who yells,
whom you ignore.
certainly, it is not important.
like parking a car slowly
then remembering
you don't drive.
there are things that come for me
but don't retrieve me.
my parents have never been able to
know what is troubling me.
but didn't help me,
so God is dead
and we have killed him.
i have half of my childhood in my hand
and there is nothing but waiting,
eyes stuck wide open for its retreat,
patient with fearful breathing, observed.
what it is is to be trapped
into a regression of myself
dull and useless and later
i become the one who yells,
whom you ignore.
certainly, it is not important.
space travel, for Ly
you took: a video of our last big gathering,
people, smoke, and thin meats everywhere
the myspace shadow of two cold bodies
on top of a windy mass of hilly curves, old grass
one puppy then two, companions for a happy life,
we'd hoped. i'd hoped the same for you.
odd translations of the noodle man's ghost,
and all the old children in the new room now,
mapping out the day, its destinations in green.
one day, on the train, you gave me a galaxy
and let me control when worlds collided,
but i couldn't take hold of them forever,
things just tend to crash into each other,
obliterate. all the memories you'd worked out
people, smoke, and thin meats everywhere
the myspace shadow of two cold bodies
on top of a windy mass of hilly curves, old grass
one puppy then two, companions for a happy life,
we'd hoped. i'd hoped the same for you.
odd translations of the noodle man's ghost,
and all the old children in the new room now,
trying to read a crazy mumbling of a text,
trying to understand a stranger's call,
mapping out the day, its destinations in green.
saw the apartment before we erased it.
taught us how to play, sex to sitar strings.
spoke for me when i'd last heard his voice,
a long-distance call in three free minutes.
you had new numbers and loved them all,
each one a temporary name and identity.
and let me control when worlds collided,
but i couldn't take hold of them forever,
things just tend to crash into each other,
obliterate. all the memories you'd worked out
linger on in the mind of other temporary stations:
in the end, aren't we all only one moment
in the relay rounds, going in circles, crying
about everything we'd lost while hugging tightly
to the new bodies that have replaced the old?
"We kiss. We hug. I tell him, ‘I don’t know what it is.’"
it takes me a while to remember this much:
out of bed
into the other room
they play the morning music outside.
out of bed
into the other room
they play the morning music outside.
prompt: life lessons. hamburger, Grand canyon, xray
a cat lived in the desert. she didn't know how she got there, but there she was.
she was walking along when she found a hamburger on the ground.
she wondered for a moment if she were hungry enough at that point
to eat a random burger on the ground
in the desert
and decided that she was very hungry indeed.
so she ate that hamburger.
after a few minutes of sauntering along in the sand, she found
an odd tattered xray half buried at her paws. she wondered
for a moment if she were curious enough
at that point
to dig out that random xray in the middle of a desert and decided
that she was not. so she walked on.
eventually, she reached the Grand Canyon and it looked beautiful
to her. she did not know
where she was going, but,
in the end,
found where she needed to be.
the end.
she was walking along when she found a hamburger on the ground.
she wondered for a moment if she were hungry enough at that point
to eat a random burger on the ground
in the desert
and decided that she was very hungry indeed.
so she ate that hamburger.
after a few minutes of sauntering along in the sand, she found
an odd tattered xray half buried at her paws. she wondered
for a moment if she were curious enough
at that point
to dig out that random xray in the middle of a desert and decided
that she was not. so she walked on.
eventually, she reached the Grand Canyon and it looked beautiful
to her. she did not know
where she was going, but,
in the end,
found where she needed to be.
the end.
call me again.
i dreamed that you called me.
i picked up a pay phone in central park, and your voice, altered, was there against a background of cars busier than late night new york traffic.
you began to sing, and played the tune from your iPhone or another gadget, and though i couldn't identify the song, it sounded familiar, and i smiled.
i was about to say your name to get you to stop when i started drifting out of the dream.
i worried in that moment that i wouldn't be able to go back into the dream to say goodbye to you on the phone.
holding indefinitely, still singing out of tune.
it's odd. how i can't stay awake late at night and fall asleep on you as you're talking to me, how i can't stay asleep to be with you even in my dreams.
i picked up a pay phone in central park, and your voice, altered, was there against a background of cars busier than late night new york traffic.
you began to sing, and played the tune from your iPhone or another gadget, and though i couldn't identify the song, it sounded familiar, and i smiled.
i was about to say your name to get you to stop when i started drifting out of the dream.
i worried in that moment that i wouldn't be able to go back into the dream to say goodbye to you on the phone.
holding indefinitely, still singing out of tune.
it's odd. how i can't stay awake late at night and fall asleep on you as you're talking to me, how i can't stay asleep to be with you even in my dreams.
happy flying, i love you
before all the shitty things happened, i remember being really happy.
you were standing to my left, checking your iphone, we were on a balcony.
i was nuzzling against your neck. i sensed that happiness, and it felt
more embodied than any emotion i've ever encountered
in dreams before. felt like falling slow-motion
in a big cloud, still a pleasant dream, then like a little light
signaling the presence of a soul, going off in me, blinking, and
conscious.
you were standing to my left, checking your iphone, we were on a balcony.
i was nuzzling against your neck. i sensed that happiness, and it felt
more embodied than any emotion i've ever encountered
in dreams before. felt like falling slow-motion
in a big cloud, still a pleasant dream, then like a little light
signaling the presence of a soul, going off in me, blinking, and
conscious.
custodian.
for everything else there is an apology.
i hold the mop in my hand, its sponge
has gone limp, it is always dirty.
why it is so hard to feel clean in this country.
my skin burns and falls into the place of a thief.
the floor is always flooded and i am the only one
who sees the water and hears it move. i do
fulfill the job of a custodian quite well, wear
and tear through the days to let them live in
relative purity, sanitized, but the bath is still
unholy. i ask God to forgive me. He lets fall
the curtain blinds, i peel them back open,
clip the leaves together. my eyes, refusing
the rest, stand in the interrogation chair.
i cannot deny your accusations any longer.
i become dumb as the thing i have taken.
you will make me pay. that answer
which i would like from myself more
than you would like from me, turns on us,
we breathe it in, and it has been forgotten.
now i clean. i clean the flood you have
let collect. the patient absorption of a sponge.
i cannot fix the leaks from the water machine.
i wait until you are become clean for the night,
when you are asleep. i do it then because it is time.
i clean because it is all i can do. i have been given
this mop with which i do my work.
to rewind the flood is a magician's task.
i hold the mop in my hand, its sponge
has gone limp, it is always dirty.
why it is so hard to feel clean in this country.
my skin burns and falls into the place of a thief.
the floor is always flooded and i am the only one
who sees the water and hears it move. i do
fulfill the job of a custodian quite well, wear
and tear through the days to let them live in
relative purity, sanitized, but the bath is still
unholy. i ask God to forgive me. He lets fall
the curtain blinds, i peel them back open,
clip the leaves together. my eyes, refusing
the rest, stand in the interrogation chair.
i cannot deny your accusations any longer.
i become dumb as the thing i have taken.
you will make me pay. that answer
which i would like from myself more
than you would like from me, turns on us,
we breathe it in, and it has been forgotten.
now i clean. i clean the flood you have
let collect. the patient absorption of a sponge.
i cannot fix the leaks from the water machine.
i wait until you are become clean for the night,
when you are asleep. i do it then because it is time.
i clean because it is all i can do. i have been given
this mop with which i do my work.
to rewind the flood is a magician's task.
easy persuasion cuts like a knife
cake in cake out all about the mouth
feed me through the rough connection
every word is half there half swallowed
remember last year, you missed us so much
come back and save us
you can go to las vegas
last night they said it is nice there
high speed, clean air
i knew this would happen
you are just like me,
come and go
and never turn back
don't make the passage so hard
this is just a story, i'm sorry i think
either way is fine, either way
bumbling hornet comes to me
banging his body against my screen
punch buggy i think he wants to die
cake in cake out all about the mouth
feed me through the rough connection
every word is half there half swallowed
remember last year, you missed us so much
come back and save us
you don't have to stay
you can go to las vegas
last night they said it is nice there
high speed, clean air
i knew this would happen
you are just like me,
come and go
and never turn back
don't make the passage so hard
this is just a story, i'm sorry i think
either way is fine, either way
bumbling hornet comes to me
banging his body against my screen
punch buggy i think he wants to die
totally unsatisfactory.
the medicine does not work,
the headache does not fade,
i cry and run out of toilet paper,
my upper lip leathered raw.
this is not pain, this is nuisance.
there is no pleasure in sleep,
there is pause. when i wake up,
i wait for the entire day to pause again.
finally, at night, i do not have to wait.
the day waits for me now,
to place me on hold while the stinkbugs crawl,
lights on, lights off, all the same.
the medicine does not work,
the headache does not fade,
i cry and run out of toilet paper,
my upper lip leathered raw.
this is not pain, this is nuisance.
there is no pleasure in sleep,
there is pause. when i wake up,
i wait for the entire day to pause again.
finally, at night, i do not have to wait.
the day waits for me now,
to place me on hold while the stinkbugs crawl,
lights on, lights off, all the same.
if dream
the woman and my father are entangled and come
into my mother's room while she is sleeping, one by one
destroy the contents of her life, erasing their reflection in her mirror.
with her finger, her nail painted, she lifts the streaks of exchange:
everything for nothing: my mother's clothes, her desk, her bed
with my stuffed animals hovering for a short while before
they, too, followed. she would take with her index
the books, the laptop, both pairs of glasses.
i, crying, hard, like the air
pressure before a storm, see
my father's hand on her face.
blindfolded, he does not see
the way things disappear.
i cry because my father is gone,
my mother is asleep, and this
strange woman is taking my babies
away from a younger me.
into my mother's room while she is sleeping, one by one
destroy the contents of her life, erasing their reflection in her mirror.
with her finger, her nail painted, she lifts the streaks of exchange:
everything for nothing: my mother's clothes, her desk, her bed
with my stuffed animals hovering for a short while before
they, too, followed. she would take with her index
the books, the laptop, both pairs of glasses.
i, crying, hard, like the air
pressure before a storm, see
my father's hand on her face.
blindfolded, he does not see
the way things disappear.
i cry because my father is gone,
my mother is asleep, and this
strange woman is taking my babies
away from a younger me.
a color of the sky shot and framed
drive along the road, maybe rather quickly, with the wind
and the background blurred with speed, comes his voice
narrating the hills over which his fingers are gliding, hovering
on her skin, small moles that make for the clumps of wood,
her eyes glinting blue and wet from the morning or something happier:
the bright spots of oceans being seen. and with the crush of an allegory
a blackout of the screen.
we begin again with the telephone and its receiver's coils,
tracing the source, this time unseen, and the message, unheard,
we jump-cut it, two times, or three, never a body, always the line
being moved. we'll set up the camera in front of the porch and point it
out across the field, and while he talks about sexual trees, we'll have nothing.
on spring and frailty and skies and baby leaves we place a human,
a small one, but a menacing giant to the blossoms she is tearing up
in the grip of her tiny, chubby hands. track the shot to the raw petal fragments
falling, and remain stationary, watching inexperienced destruction.
i do not know what to do with MEMORY LOVES TIME and vandalism,
the metaphysical highway graffiti. bold and black on white? or ignore it altogether?
there is not enough music in our narrator's voice, so let's not try to revive him and fail, let's drown him,
stream radio noise in the back until he asks us if Time loves Memory back.
to which we white-out, and maybe the residue of the contrast will stay,
let the viewer see what we mean if we mean anything at all.
for the dream and stained sheets i see slow-motioned puncturing, but it's hard
to traipse the line without falling into the grotesque (human flesh) or the comedic
(lemon) or the expected (spilling the wine glass). i want melancholy, simplified.
something mundane and rhythmic, rarely observed, like the imprints on skin
as you take off your knit sweater, pink, worn in, not very young.
close-up on you, your skin. slow-motion the way you feel.
the end, the middle, the brick wall--these will be
filled with the shots of you in bed--and the injustice
is the birthmark on your body, which you've always talked about
but haven't yet shown to me. this, you'll show me.
and everything will be backwards, i've decided, from this point on.
everything will be in reverse, and as the dogwood is losing
your sweater will return to you and your skin, your hair
falls down from your pony, your sheets will have recovered their monotony
as you leave them. the flowers you had torn will be restored to their sky,
and after we leave with our cameras, they will fall
naturally, a peaceful, unobserved death.
we go in the tunnel, and it is black, right, and literal, straight.
the viewer might not know there is an image, but there is,
and it is moving:
and from the radio we come back, out of the noise,
with last summer's song.
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171303]
and the background blurred with speed, comes his voice
narrating the hills over which his fingers are gliding, hovering
on her skin, small moles that make for the clumps of wood,
her eyes glinting blue and wet from the morning or something happier:
the bright spots of oceans being seen. and with the crush of an allegory
a blackout of the screen.
we begin again with the telephone and its receiver's coils,
tracing the source, this time unseen, and the message, unheard,
we jump-cut it, two times, or three, never a body, always the line
being moved. we'll set up the camera in front of the porch and point it
out across the field, and while he talks about sexual trees, we'll have nothing.
on spring and frailty and skies and baby leaves we place a human,
a small one, but a menacing giant to the blossoms she is tearing up
in the grip of her tiny, chubby hands. track the shot to the raw petal fragments
falling, and remain stationary, watching inexperienced destruction.
i do not know what to do with MEMORY LOVES TIME and vandalism,
the metaphysical highway graffiti. bold and black on white? or ignore it altogether?
there is not enough music in our narrator's voice, so let's not try to revive him and fail, let's drown him,
stream radio noise in the back until he asks us if Time loves Memory back.
to which we white-out, and maybe the residue of the contrast will stay,
let the viewer see what we mean if we mean anything at all.
for the dream and stained sheets i see slow-motioned puncturing, but it's hard
to traipse the line without falling into the grotesque (human flesh) or the comedic
(lemon) or the expected (spilling the wine glass). i want melancholy, simplified.
something mundane and rhythmic, rarely observed, like the imprints on skin
as you take off your knit sweater, pink, worn in, not very young.
close-up on you, your skin. slow-motion the way you feel.
the end, the middle, the brick wall--these will be
filled with the shots of you in bed--and the injustice
is the birthmark on your body, which you've always talked about
but haven't yet shown to me. this, you'll show me.
and everything will be backwards, i've decided, from this point on.
everything will be in reverse, and as the dogwood is losing
your sweater will return to you and your skin, your hair
falls down from your pony, your sheets will have recovered their monotony
as you leave them. the flowers you had torn will be restored to their sky,
and after we leave with our cameras, they will fall
naturally, a peaceful, unobserved death.
we go in the tunnel, and it is black, right, and literal, straight.
the viewer might not know there is an image, but there is,
and it is moving:
and from the radio we come back, out of the noise,
with last summer's song.
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171303]
superimposed
last year this time you were
taking pictures of it
hopping across,
a pavement bounce
i'm looking at your history
when you told the others that night,
swimming in the remains of a bad day,
how the stars had been hung, still kicking
and they went to watch it,
the execution as relaxation
you were sick then
and sank into your lungs,
expelled, and drugged
heavily in sugar,
red and liquid
left the house
but didn't bring yourself
you had not prepared for it:
even as he left first it was
the way the leaf fell
and you were the tree
how in the periphery you had managed
to ease yourself out of the looming over, that deadly weight
this time you sense the boot above your head
and what they say will be will be
a crush, a crunch
a certain implosion
and how you will smell
when you are destroyed
to all the kisses you'd imagined
add
broken wings
some nasty blood
your ugly body
and your ugly face
and that entire jar of honey
to preserve you
what have you forgotten
that is so important?
the stars are still hanging alive,
let's go see them tonight.
taking pictures of it
hopping across,
a pavement bounce
i'm looking at your history
when you told the others that night,
swimming in the remains of a bad day,
how the stars had been hung, still kicking
and they went to watch it,
the execution as relaxation
you were sick then
and sank into your lungs,
expelled, and drugged
heavily in sugar,
red and liquid
left the house
but didn't bring yourself
you had not prepared for it:
even as he left first it was
the way the leaf fell
and you were the tree
how in the periphery you had managed
to ease yourself out of the looming over, that deadly weight
this time you sense the boot above your head
and what they say will be will be
a crush, a crunch
a certain implosion
and how you will smell
when you are destroyed
to all the kisses you'd imagined
add
broken wings
some nasty blood
your ugly body
and your ugly face
and that entire jar of honey
to preserve you
what have you forgotten
that is so important?
the stars are still hanging alive,
let's go see them tonight.
we're happy
she tells you all these things to make you happy because it makes you happy.
and when you are happy, you will do things that happy people do.
the things that happy people do, she likes them.
so she says all these things, and you're happy,
and you're doing all these things, and she's happy,
and at the end of the day, it's a little marketplace,
working from sundown to sundown,
even when the rest of them desert you.
even better.
and when you are happy, you will do things that happy people do.
the things that happy people do, she likes them.
so she says all these things, and you're happy,
and you're doing all these things, and she's happy,
and at the end of the day, it's a little marketplace,
working from sundown to sundown,
even when the rest of them desert you.
even better.
the saint overlooks
when you've had a few drinks you'll go over
the halfway point on the couch crossing her legs
touch her arm
make her scream
the halfway point on the couch crossing her legs
touch her arm
make her scream
When you tend to yours and I to mine the tea grows cold and the next door slams
We are wary when you say you are lonely and I'm fine to the friend you'd almost forgotten
until She called you by your name and you were forced to recall hers We are so forgetful
on these walks At night the cars go by you when you cross on red As if you didn't care but
really You just forgot to look or maybe it's become an expectation that the world will Remember you for you
even as you forget yourself in the extra days of the calendar you will always obey Have obeyed since
That afternoon
you cried for the first time choking while the others waited for you to stop and
When you'd finally found your quiet they tucked you away
in a bed Like any other you knew
under all the warm blankets
what it felt like to be dead alive.
We are wary when you say you are lonely and I'm fine to the friend you'd almost forgotten
until She called you by your name and you were forced to recall hers We are so forgetful
on these walks At night the cars go by you when you cross on red As if you didn't care but
really You just forgot to look or maybe it's become an expectation that the world will Remember you for you
even as you forget yourself in the extra days of the calendar you will always obey Have obeyed since
That afternoon
you cried for the first time choking while the others waited for you to stop and
When you'd finally found your quiet they tucked you away
in a bed Like any other you knew
under all the warm blankets
what it felt like to be dead alive.
blasting apart the fireplace
fingers on love
we had
Pinned his location
IF we had fireplace or
chimney it would be
Our House of love misspelled
we'd want to tickle
the body knocking the Door
then one day of earthquake
and we'll watch it blow
if this were The place
we'd have been home today
but when? the earthquake came
we had
Pinned his location
IF we had fireplace or
chimney it would be
Our House of love misspelled
we'd want to tickle
the body knocking the Door
then one day of earthquake
and we'll watch it blow
if this were The place
we'd have been home today
but when? the earthquake came
memories of meat, refleshed.
the journal has been let go, another man
in a series of childhood forgetfulness
unraveling the cotton candy that melts
and glues to the shiny horse's stiffened mane:
sticky on the hand that is too warm, refusing
to bear the cold in the winter but, it eats all
the snow in the kitchen at night
when no one is looking. born stubborn,
they all say about her and the things,
she knows, are truer than her mother's
nipples...though she has never seen
the breasts that fed her infancy, so,
maybe she was never fed
when she cried for someone,
and if that were true, then this hunger is
well explained--blank as ever
as words go, but smeared clear
with fingerprints of those who had
the courage to stay a night or three
before she let go and ate them all.
in a series of childhood forgetfulness
unraveling the cotton candy that melts
and glues to the shiny horse's stiffened mane:
sticky on the hand that is too warm, refusing
to bear the cold in the winter but, it eats all
the snow in the kitchen at night
when no one is looking. born stubborn,
they all say about her and the things,
she knows, are truer than her mother's
nipples...though she has never seen
the breasts that fed her infancy, so,
maybe she was never fed
when she cried for someone,
and if that were true, then this hunger is
well explained--blank as ever
as words go, but smeared clear
with fingerprints of those who had
the courage to stay a night or three
before she let go and ate them all.
lead me to bulimia
he lets the hunger gorge on me
no cross on my mind
and none on my head
give us this day our daily bread
unholy with the weight of grounded flesh
no prickling of the skin i feel
only on me the abscess shaking
heavier and heavier as others ascend
is it too late to repent said the child
yes i answered
he gave me this day
and i asked for another
no cross on my mind
and none on my head
give us this day our daily bread
unholy with the weight of grounded flesh
no prickling of the skin i feel
only on me the abscess shaking
heavier and heavier as others ascend
is it too late to repent said the child
yes i answered
he gave me this day
and i asked for another
i have had two friends. i've known them for a long time. i think we met when i was very little, but i can't remember.
there was this one morning that i think happened, and maybe this was the day i met them.
one got in bed next to me while i was still asleep, and i woke up with him beside me under the covers.
i threw the covers off immediately.
i ran around the apartment. then i ran out of it.
i might have tripped over the other running down the stairs to find the landlady that morning.
i went and demanded to know why i was left alone with a stranger, but i couldn't talk. my mouth was angrily bent, so crammed full of angry questions, angry sounds, and it tore right through my throat and pounded down on that space behind my face.
she looked at me with compassion, i guess. she took me in. she spoke to me, but i don't remember what she said. words, i guess, meant to soften me.
i cried into the bowl of cooling steamed milk as her cat jumped up on the table, her cat tail solitary and distant.
there was this one morning that i think happened, and maybe this was the day i met them.
one got in bed next to me while i was still asleep, and i woke up with him beside me under the covers.
i threw the covers off immediately.
i ran around the apartment. then i ran out of it.
i might have tripped over the other running down the stairs to find the landlady that morning.
i went and demanded to know why i was left alone with a stranger, but i couldn't talk. my mouth was angrily bent, so crammed full of angry questions, angry sounds, and it tore right through my throat and pounded down on that space behind my face.
she looked at me with compassion, i guess. she took me in. she spoke to me, but i don't remember what she said. words, i guess, meant to soften me.
i cried into the bowl of cooling steamed milk as her cat jumped up on the table, her cat tail solitary and distant.
let's talk about; not important
lies: we fuck
and we feel fine
don't wake the head
just use the hand
slap it
and it forgets
tell me what you want
tell me what you know
i don't feel myself
so i can't say myself
show me my options:
where's the menu?
and we feel fine
don't wake the head
just use the hand
slap it
and it forgets
tell me what you want
tell me what you know
i don't feel myself
so i can't say myself
where's the menu?
:-o = so , 0 ?
a man walks into his own birthday surprise party and feels the emptiness of the world; he wonders what would change if everything became nothing?
the rag on his chest:
i clean the aftermath,
i wash him fresh,
i calm him down.
i am a good mother.
today i woke up
and did the dishes
and kept my quiet.
i have words,
i do not say them.
i have thoughts.
i keep them warm.
i bring them to my bed.
i lay their heads soft,
water their mouths,
cover them with arms.
for them i am available.
for my children i am
awake as they sleep
until morning. i remain.
i bring them to my bed.
i lay their heads soft,
water their mouths,
cover them with arms.
for them i am available.
for my children i am
awake as they sleep
until morning. i remain.
departure time.
my child is getting ready to leave today. he walks around
the room in the afternoon, the sun is bare, the clouds now vapors,
the city is walked on.
the woman in the morning has died by eveningtime, the luggage unclaimed feeling
the winter's embrace sitting besides the bench,
the bus is late again.
the bridge stands waiting, the metal winds straining. the cars
honk, then crash. the pedestrians cradle wilted
groceries in their crisscrossed arms.
the stoplights are red and yellow and green at once,
and everyone goes in the cold,
everyone goes all at once.
the room in the afternoon, the sun is bare, the clouds now vapors,
the city is walked on.
the woman in the morning has died by eveningtime, the luggage unclaimed feeling
the winter's embrace sitting besides the bench,
the bus is late again.
the bridge stands waiting, the metal winds straining. the cars
honk, then crash. the pedestrians cradle wilted
groceries in their crisscrossed arms.
the stoplights are red and yellow and green at once,
and everyone goes in the cold,
everyone goes all at once.
eighteen years later
in a different country
as a different person
lost again
when she turned her back
no terror, just embarrassment
still from the same feeling
of abandonment
detached from the hand
this time
played out like normal
the event did not dilate
i'd already turned and left
there was no mother to find,
nor crowds to break through.
there were rows and rows,
ordered and static
awaiting their days of consumption,
i passed through them all, exited,
took my scarf off, slung it over,
and went upstairs to find you.
as a different person
lost again
when she turned her back
no terror, just embarrassment
still from the same feeling
of abandonment
detached from the hand
this time
played out like normal
the event did not dilate
i'd already turned and left
there was no mother to find,
nor crowds to break through.
there were rows and rows,
ordered and static
awaiting their days of consumption,
i passed through them all, exited,
took my scarf off, slung it over,
and went upstairs to find you.
brazil nuts.
she says as i force the wrench down
do you know people can go crazy
thinking about someone, thinking
my aunt waited for her daughter
every day at the train station
for a train that never came
how easy transportation is these days
i'd walked from dawn to midnight
now there are hundreds of readymade lines
and there are more underground
do you know people can go crazy
thinking about someone, thinking
my aunt waited for her daughter
every day at the train station
for a train that never came
how easy transportation is these days
i'd walked from dawn to midnight
now there are hundreds of readymade lines
and there are more underground
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