Radio Silence

you used to tell me truths of all sizes
and I believed you and listened.
I held them in my hands like delicate glass balls
of swirling colors and flakes of mica
of silver and gold dust.
I've packed them away now, gently for later
waiting in a sense for the prodigal return.
All of those hopes and dreams they held
burried in the crumpled re-used tissue,
the tired paper
of years gone by,
of wrapping and un-wrapping,
of the sad tradition.
It is that time again,
when I hold them up to the light,
to inspect the imperfections
to make sure they are all intact
and some of them I'll polish,
holding them in higher esteem
nestled so closely
to the things that I also believe.
When you come home I will
unpack them happily.
I'll hang them joyously around your neck,
to dress you
in everything that you
have ever said.

simulacrum

last night a restricted number called
while I was sleeping and
when I answered there was only beeping and
I listened for a few minutes pretending it was you.

If I had know this was the answer
I would have stayed here forever
to be with you indefinitely
while you were biding your time.

As it is my heart is breaking at
the idea of my leaving but I can't
wait through another moment of
"you'll be okay either way ."

Your kisses were encouragement
to step away from the malnourishment
that I have been holding myself up against
all of this time.

And in this way I am thankful for 

this false courtship you have forced me through
And these silly scraps of affection
you have been throwing my way.

So, for the next few days I'll step away
from these feelings of abandonment
inadequacy and ineptitude
that inevitably accompany the dissolution of
the thing you once believed would be
that nightmare you called love.

And I'm walking away slowly pulling
the string I've caught between my teeth
pulling slowly up my throat the pill
in which I had swallowed all my pride

and that briny taste that vomit makes
will linger on my tongue beyond this 

endless day of nothingness
this waiting for the meaning of
all the things that have passed between.

documentation

having trouble writing because
I've been wanting to express myself physically
and am being held back in all regards
the re bar bumper
bump bumping the future
backwards, back towards
that once upon a time panic that
not this time sharp glare
further
grocery lists and collections notices
debt consolidation companies
trips to the vet
alternate in notebooks sideways
flat against
tax evasion
trips to sea
secret gardens
and you ask
who's going to read it?
no one it's just to document
the dragging
and you think I don't know who I am
but I do and it's these pieces
I drag through new phone numbers
and fake forwarding addresses
people say that
"They will find you anywhere"
and I say well, fine
but you won't.

testing, one two

Angry at feeling like the mistress,
always waiting for the divorce.
Be patient, be patient.
If I could have some solid ground to stand on,
it would make waiting on queue
easier. feasible.
testing, one two.


Words to remember:
I revile the moment! The moment forces me into the next and the next as if I were stuck marching in this relentless band formation. How do I escape the moment? How to reverse one's fortune when one moment begets the next?
This is the impossible task at hand.
I plan and create "mind trajectories" for myself, convinced that if I believe that is the direction, that will be the direction.
So far this theory has met with failure. Betrayal in this sense is my anti-hero, the force driving against me. Failure is the aftermath.
Moments beget moments and I ruminate on this as I tend my garden. This is the most liberating experience I can generate in my life right now. I, with my own labor, have generated enough food to feed my limited community. I learned and am learning everything I could. I pressed forward without hesitation. I applied my theory to the dirt. I had failures and successes. I modified my behaviors to suit the results I was seeing. I have carried water in buckets to nourish and have kneeled in the dirt to weed. Yesterday, we tasted the first sweet pea of the year.

like it's alive.

With my forehead against your bathroom tiles,
grout tracing time lines against my face
the small hexagons of our neighborhood
black and white and black and white
flow by like the city lights.
Every once in a while I can hear lines
from the movie you are watching in the other room
I listen a little
as if it were you,
speaking to me.
That night lurks in the memory,
a griding implication of all the
not good enough I have been
the whole time.
I feel like I'll be following you forever,
you the closest idea to perfection
the first conversation over plastic wine glasses
that never stopped.

the iso-alpha acid experience

there are no rules here.
no manners.
we are all just mashing habits together
and calling it "life."
just walking into each others houses and
letting pieces of us fall to the floor. To see what
the others would pick up.
What of me is of value to you?
Do I really have any emotions to spare?
Are they appropriate?
And so we bang away.
Pressing harder into each other,
trying not to be afraid.
trying to know who we are.

***
The difference between finding oneself and losing oneself
becomes indistinguishable sometimes,
at times like these when nothing stays the same.
In a state of constant flux, spinning
pieces come in and out constantly
before you can ever know what you're gaining
or letting go.
Perhaps there are times to press harder,
times to hold on tighter.
I haven't found them yet.
Love is a great betrayal
that you play on yourself,
to put out the tentacles
to reach out further.

past

life has become a series of laying in bed and avoiding.
Welcome, pillbox, to next-to-my-computer.
Welcome, enablers.
Welcome, social butterflies.
I will tell you when to go.
I will not tell you to go.
I will say, through drunken veils, through strange i-miss-you-but-don't-care-about-you-anymore conversations.
Syracuse, my humiliation follows me everywhere in you.
Syracuse, I do not belong here or anywhere,
but especially not here.

Unsent Letters, December 2007

oh, just go away.

Here it is the truth.
No one picked me up but me.
No one fixes you if you say no. No one fixes you if you say yes.
It just happens you just have to make it happen.
I'm finding that i really don't know anything, that I have to go back and re-read all the books. That I remember everything but it's so jumbled. There are big holes. Sometimes I say things and they are just wrong. But I can't tell because for years I've just been taking this stuff in and just shoving it in there, like, thinking that that was going to be okay. Like I would remember your name AND your face, together at the same time. It's like I have Alzheimers now. Like, sometimes it's just blackness and sometimes it's still 1941. Sometimes my sentences have all the correct words but none of the correct syntax.
Dear Miss D, I'm wondering if you have found the same thing.
People say when you stop, you go directly back to where you started. Which i guess is true, but I was never there. I was a child, and I have all the experience now. I say, "when I was doing xxx" and people look at me like, how old are you really?
Have I aged? I look the same. Less sallow. Plumped up. Not so grey, less smeared make up. Doesn't cry violently but it seeps out now. Like, I'm leaking.
Miss D do you find it all leaks out?
I take dayquill and it hurts. I eat too much sugar and it hurts. I get the shakes, the fear.
Like, if I go back I'll die for sure.
It's an erasing time. It's the reckoning.
This next year will be all apologies. Like, everything I can do now is an apology. Like, they will follow me around forever.
So, I'm sorry.
These are my own twelve steps, with 10 removed.
1)There is a problem. It is mine and not yours.
2)I'm very, very sorry.
1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,