The Artist Bio

Notes on an Old Man

2011-11-26T14:51:00.002-05:00

He realized he wasn't Beauty,
but the ravager of beauty:
the dirty old man
rubbing against beauty
pinned in the drunken,
dank doorway.
And he realized he wasn't time,
but was the remnants of time.
He was the one left behind,
languishing
tattered and grey.

On love.

2011-06-12T22:41:00.001-04:00

The easiest part is waking up first,

With my head on their chest, my knees curled up to their legs.

That is the only time I think I have ever believed in love,

On any man’s shoulder with

Some soft morning light filtering in

I always think, “I could stay here forever.”

I always kiss that shoulder, softly

Without looking and

Dig out up my shirt and underwear

And leave.

boots rain and drinking.

2009-08-18T22:56:00.003-04:00

The sky was seismic
cracked open pouring
rolling thunder and electric current
the pavement cool black glass
our boots stomping torrents
on the way to the bar,
the lights drawn out
beneath our feet.

2009-08-16T11:57:00.002-04:00

in order to fall in love again,
you must unlearn all of your old habits.
You must take back the rituals and
stop listening to your ex lover's favorite music.

it's not as easy as it looks,
trying not to make the same mistakes.

((Cicadas))

2009-08-01T20:44:00.004-04:00

sitting on a new future couch,
which is the same orange but a different size,
still exhausted but with rounder edges,
silken cushions that I slide off of invariably
after a long night, or at the beginning of a terribly long day.
the buzzing of the cicadas is reminiscent
of the summer we spent drunkenly
glancing into the fish tank that we had dubbed
"the ci-queda strong hold"
impatiently waiting for the moment the bug would
shed it's skin
so we could snap it up for photographs and sculptures.
We could have used all those moments for something else!
All of the cicadas died,
exoskeleton and all.

liz isn't gia.

2009-07-30T00:44:00.003-04:00

liz isn't gia.
not the tragic destruction,
not the beautiful digression.
I was never the disaster you wanted of me.
I am nothing but the aching disappointment.
I imagine you seeing the piles of bottles.
the fridge full of half empty take out containers
from weeks ago.
liz is not gia.
liz is not the raging forest fire,
any more.
liz is the slow controlled burn.
I feel like the apex (or nadir, choose)
will never arrive.
The lowest point is never as low,
there is always lower.
And that's why.
You can not save me.
I do not need saving!
Not this time, not last time.
Surviving.
Liz is not Gia.

sine qua non

2009-06-23T11:18:00.004-04:00

i jumped aboard your deadlock gaze

and i pushed you with one finger,

to the ground.

i said all the things I've never said,

i said all the most important tiny things:

all the pieces that make up

everything I've ever felt.

it feels as though we have been sorting for decades and

the file folders sit finally,

labeled neatly on our laps

anticipating our next move.

I jumped aboard your deadlock gaze

and I'm digging in my heels this time,

not letting it get away

not letting it wander.

you said,

give me three days.

these lapses are unintentional and

I'm not holding anything against you

because we are both the person

the other will be forgiving forever

in a world full of unforgivables

full of forgettables.

Shark Tank.

2009-06-21T14:11:00.002-04:00

he traced a heart with his finger on my chest

and drew a line from the heart down my arm

like a target for your air pistol.

your indifference took aim and fired.

There are too many unanswered what-ifs

and raw nerves dangling for me to see you anymore.

I sit here wracked with anxiety and running out of oxygen

at the bottom of a shark tank filled with sharks we trained together.

The quiet swooshes of my heart and their tails in unison have become

a dull ache reminder of what could have been.

Decisions.

2009-02-15T11:03:00.002-05:00

I've hit that wall that I'm fucked wall.

I've known for a long time that I'm making this choice to live this life

and that it has its' instantaneous consequences lurking in the background. That one 5 minute interval that changes it all.

And so here I am in that time warp wondering if it's worth it to hold onto it all, or should I just give up?

There is no hidden second option this time, no crazy rescue plan.

It's either in or out.

I've been trying to live directly, with some sort of direct consequence... And thus far I have out run everything.

When I left you said, "the house has calmed down, the air is not crackling. The psychic energy has released." After a while I ran into you in a bar and you said, eyes down "They turned your room into a living room. They painted over everything."

Everyone talks to me like the places I've been are graveyards.

And I'm trying to learn how to be unobtrusive and am traveling by foot backwards in time, checking on the status of the bridges, to see which have fallen and which have burned. To see where it is possible to get from here to there.

cell phone memos pt. 1

2009-02-15T10:55:00.003-05:00

pushed away on the outside always

the outside of my own doing the way out gone

he said leap and I interpreted it as go away but maybe it was

just wait like, take your time like, find out what this is first.

Maybe I'm so far away from real life from this idea

that I wanted from the people that love me that any excuse

for pain for that shot of reality for anything really

I will go flying now and I look around with the wind in my ears

sweet body suspended in disbelief or time wondering

how long 'til I hit the ground?

shuddering.

Driving.

2009-02-03T22:13:00.000-05:00

Put on PJ Harvey and sang along silently for 3 songs while my head was out the window, thinking that I'll never crash because I'm driving this car with my mind and my mind creates all of this around me, this whole world and I move like a shock wave, like rings around me like fingers reaching out and because all of this is me I am able to subconsciously anticipate What Happens Next. I will always be a beat ahead. And anyway, even if that weren't true and I did get into an accident it doesn't matter because I can fly. And I watched myself fly up over the blinders on the concrete barrier of the highway, I watched myself lift over that and then my mind went blank. I saw tail lights and heard silence. What?
Wondering if my ears had shut off. iPod says "PJ Harvey - triangle - double bar - triangle - double bar" and then back to triangle. Sound comes suddenly, exactly synched with track in brain. Exactly.

Finally.

2009-01-26T23:43:00.003-05:00

I played my favorite music through your earphones to lure you

to share with you the dull droning,

to show you the potential for clip.

I made you come to me,

and you did: repeatedly.

You lay your sick mouth against mine

and the sad slow moments passed between us

like two tug boats in an empty harbor,

drifting away.

In waiting I tormented myself constantly,

like a deep pond stirs in a storm

churning, thrashing

stretching out luridly

lapping at my own shores

waiting for you as if

you were the lightning strike.

and you were.

You slashed into me deeply, splitting the curtain

and entering

silently, stealthily

crashing to the core.

Illuminating the insides thoroughly

fleetingly

I grasped desperately at the electricity

as it passed between us

and then you were gone again

with my surface still quivering

and all the fish dead.

take it all back

2009-01-10T18:31:00.003-05:00

your red mouth a round circle against my ear

whispering your in-between things during the

dark times

the make believe times.

I always knew the great truth of us,

that we were listening in clip that

it couldn't sustain

but I pushed further.

You asked me to Leap!

and I resisted,

but there is no great sadness,

there are no lessons to be had here.

life is a fragile ever changing arrangement

and you have become a quiet memory

that lurks in misplaced polaroids and

voicemails that were never deleted.

Radio Silence

2008-12-21T11:47:00.003-05:00

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

2008-12-17T10:01:00.004-05:00

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

2008-12-14T22:39:00.002-05:00

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

2008-12-09T09:47:00.003-05:00

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.

2008-12-04T20:56:00.003-05:00

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

2008-12-04T20:22:00.003-05:00

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

2008-12-04T20:20:00.000-05:00

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

2008-12-02T12:31:00.001-05:00

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,

buildings

2008-11-28T18:35:00.002-05:00

the pieces of her life fall around her
crushed cinder block pieces
just edges, no shapes.
she, always looking backwards, down and
away
notices not and uses these found treasures
to build her dreams
undermining with each new addition
the very foundation of her being.
Why didn't anyone tell her before?
she wonders aloud, tripping, always
on the dust and debris.

timing

2008-11-28T18:34:00.000-05:00

the exit doors come faster now
as if I were running
(am I running?)
slamming open and closed
unhinged in the wind
(am I unhinged?)
eventually I will time it wrong
and like a red light on icy roads
it will all come crashing down.

I love you a round circle.

2008-11-25T11:06:00.002-05:00

The ridges in my fingernails from
the trauma of you leaving,
Deep crescents in every nail
as if someone had hit them all
with a hammer,
are finally growing out.
The ridges on the right hand are
deeper than the left,
and I keep telling myself that
when they are finally gone,
when I have clipped and filed them
out of existence,
then so will you go:
On the bathroom floor,
down the drain.

Tom Ward III. The Predictions.

2008-11-17T22:54:00.002-05:00

you guys are great. I'll never have to worry. We all know how we're going to die. Michael, you of course will die of alcoholism. And you, Liz, will overdose, obviously.

For You.

2008-11-17T22:36:00.004-05:00

I read you a love poem that night
through broken teeth.
I was crumpled on the sidewalk
my hair in a halo, sopping up
the blood from my gums.
You looked into my eyes and
through you I could see myself
stripped of my dignity and
pulling against the gravity,
using only the shattered remains
of my incisors
the empty sockets being pulped
against the filthy cement-
trying to reach you.
I was reading you a love poem
that night you left me
defeated
My arms and legs useless
and skewed.
As I inched forward they became
my comet's tail-
just simple waste products,
elements formally of relevance.
She must have found me there later
nose ground down,
jaw forced twisted.

Blood and enamel
inhaled, exhaled.

Two Pieces.

2008-11-17T22:32:00.002-05:00

No pressure from " you can do anything," I can just do what I want.

The sun is starting to come out but I still can't find a way outside of these walls. Behind every door there is another door. Behind that a well lit room at midnight nose pressed up against the glass no curtains no clothing.

***

I can not feel this forever
this constant pressing knowlege of failure
the fact that you are waiting for reprimand
allows it to happen.

You shit head (my mind says)
you ugly motherfucker -
(who will never get it together -
who can not love
who will never be open again)
you stupid cunt.
you should be dead.

Untitled, Twice

2008-11-17T21:56:00.002-05:00

My heart and soul remain in deep conflict now
half of me desperate for stability, for
anything to count on ever.
Knowing full well that nothing
will ever be the same again.

Do you:
give in
straighten up
consolidate your debt
very low interest!
easy monthly installments!
Do you:
trade in your rust box and
sign a lease for Something Shiny?
Pay Your Bills When They Arrive.
Brush Your Teeth With Bleach.
Or do you:
GET OUT NOW.
pack your shit up for your landlord and
throw yourself to the curb.
leave your dog at your boyfriend's with
that spare key he gave you on her collar.

TAKE OFF.
hit the road running
head south and
start a fire without matches.
Build that bungalow with a sod floor and
sleep in hammocks wrapped in
the heavy scent of magnolia.
Roast persimmons with light bulbs
and smear that juice,
that red orange of liberation will just slide down your throat
Like You've Always Dreamed Of, and

no man will ever swing his cock at you
again.
Willl never make you suck your yeast infection
from his foreskin.
Will Never Hurt You.

You will sleep naked,
with no fear of violation.
There is a woods out there where
you can start over.

1920

2008-09-18T17:36:00.002-04:00

Onyx and I in our plantation
on our new stone porch.
each of us enjoying this new thing
in our different ways.
She, in the sun curled up calmly,
observing quietly what she can
of the world.
Some invisible chain holds the two of us together,
which isn't love but could be either the beginning
or the end of love.
A quiet tolerance touched lightly by disdain
or resentment.
I, forever on the other side of
the stone wall, legs curled up quietly
letting the beer warm up
and the food cool down.
Wondering which old wound will fly open next,
which will seep pus through my clothing.

E

2008-09-09T11:51:00.001-04:00

M.

on days like this life falls apart.
neutral milk hotel against
slate grey skies
and I wish I could answer everything you
have ever asked of me including,
What are you doing?

I heard the party line last night
from a person I trust for no reason
I’ve noticed that people who want to keep me
to themselves
are the ones who tell me this the most.

“Everyone has told me that you are
really crazy.”

I will one day build
the architecture of the world
using only my words.

And this crazy will eat you
alive.

Girls like us are always just
biding our time.

2008-09-04T21:22:00.001-04:00

one call from you always changes everything

unintentionally

2008-09-04T20:33:00.001-04:00

I. in a city far away
your ping has finally answered my ping
and the two sounds lay softly together
vibrating
dissipating.
I’m wondering if I can’t write anymore
because I’m out of things to say to you.

II. she used to watch over me
with her deep brown eyes.
I used to lay down with her and inhale.
cry into her.
I waited too long
and it was the most painful betrayal.

III. you may have brought up an excellent point.
how many bottles of vodka HAVE I gone through this week??

IV. you are too much work,
you have been killing me.
“I thought there was something different about you,
you are not being weighed down anymore…”

V. you, me and her.
and then in the morning, you were still there.
and here we are.
making faces in the dark.

The Performance (reprise)

2008-03-20T16:03:00.001-04:00

giving up on love.
fuck love!
spending my emotions
like a credit card,
too quickly.
without thought.
representationally.

when you go.

2008-03-20T15:56:00.000-04:00

use math to paint the picture goodbye.
write a computer program to say I loved you
write over the old memories with random 0111001s
leave me with nothing.

There are things in my life that are secrets.

insistent drip

2008-03-20T15:37:00.000-04:00

why don't you
why won't you just
why can't you just leave
why don't I get to
dictate my own terms
why don't I get to
hold on to the things I want
why do they always
just slip away.

I always make this mistake this
sober feeling things mistake this
horrible hari kari stupid mistake
this shut up and run.

"the answer to each moment must be yes"

I know I just addressed you in a letter, recently
but here I go again (self indulgent)
here I go with the i am not invisible
the insistent drip of
please stop forgetting me the
get out of my heart
or my big empty void thereof
but you just sit there
heavy.

You just stay there, don't move
I'll leave.

Waiting Again

2008-03-20T15:31:00.000-04:00

I am a stranger in a very familiar place right now and it grates on me.
I have lots of promises and nothing kept.
Slow pace no pace going nowhere.
Waiting again and to what end? What's the reward?
Tap tapping on old type writers with no ink.
Dried up tapes.
Flaking.
That's what this feels like, watching you.
blowing up now.
leaving the atmosphere.
dreams are made of this,
this ache searching
going nowhere.

from your lips

2008-03-20T15:29:00.000-04:00

How messy we were
Stealing from someone else
Our secret language lurking
In liner notes.
Peeking through prom dresses.
Getting in with our passports.
Klonipin in back pockets.
Cocaine in purses.
Crushed into the corners.
Under our nails.
You were supposed to be my wife and
I was supposed to be your wife
And there could've been more
Games to play after that.
You were always so demanding
it was so unfair to me
How easily bored you can be.
But, these are our secrets.
I have written you a thousand poems
since you've been gone
And this is the first
I have left for you to find.
And we were just two girls leaning,
One foot up,
Against a brick wall
Smoking the same cigarette.

For Emmaline

2007-06-26T14:08:00.000-04:00

You are like a car crash
and I am a train wreck
and you just for a moment
tried to align our paths, to
crawl onto my tracks and
brace for the impact.
But it will never be that
because I can see the inevitable
from way way back.

Part II

2007-06-22T16:09:00.001-04:00

The Octopus came to you in a dream
and touched you.
He lit you a cigarette. He said:
but you didn't hear him.
His accent was thick,
His words further impaired by
the clacking of His beak,
which you fixated on.
You wanted to listen.
He was telling you the future
which has always interested you.
But you couldn't.
You always have been ungrateful and
it was sinister of him to assume otherwise.
The Octopus queries you.
The musculature around His oily eyes twitch
and you imagine the orbs
rolling without focus.
You wonder, do they move independently?
He could see so much, if he tried.
Do they?
The Octopus eventually tires of you.
He gathers his props and
prepares to leave.
You are saddened.
Even though you don't understand him,
he always seems pleasant enough.
You always enjoy his visits.
As he moves to the door, you
reach your hand out.
You open your mouth.
But he is already gone.

The Octopus.

2007-06-22T16:04:00.000-04:00

You, the octopus.
You with the broken teeth, with
your closed tight jaws of regret.
You, the monster who has only
a past and a future,
because your present is unaccounted for.
You, the octopus,
with your tangled paws of inadequacy.
You, the sea demon
with the rage they speak of in legends.
With the sour beak of hunger and
the slow movements of an untold weight.
You, the octopus.
Terrifying because that is all
they have ever made of you.
A sadistic beast of you,
an unfeeling mass of sinew,
a thoughtless pulpy death machine.
You, the octopus,
you remain silent.

Drug A

2007-06-22T16:01:00.000-04:00

This is a dangerous, illegal substance.
and so we say, "yes."
Give it to us, we
must have it.

Learn everything now.
Learn every piece of it.
Do this in a white room.
Remove all stimuli.
If you don't completely internalize this,
you will pull apart the patterns
all around you. It will be worthless.
You will gain nothing.
Bring someone who always
agree with you.
Discuss everything.
Don't move at all:
there is no reason to.
If you find your head is buzzing,
listen.
Buzz back.

Untitled# 92

2007-06-22T15:54:00.000-04:00

rubbing our bodies against
eachother, pushing
flesh together repeatedly.
to touch
and retouch
and adjust
just checking,
but scared.
we understand fragile.
we play with this in our hands,
this round idea of failure.
to impress you.
we lay together like children
with that childish wild flying trust
a future which is always
secretly holding hands with terror
deep and clinging, something defiant
something a child would never understand
but that we do.
that this is the most natural
to be WITH rather than WITHOUT.
we understand it is not forever
it is not long enough, forever
so we devour
we press harder.

Monday nights.

2007-06-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

when we walk in a pack
we jangle like janitors
our keys swinging with our hips
the sound of defiance.
we are the working class.
the tough guys in the opening sequence
strutting to our next drink
in slow motion like.
we own this town with
our low expectations and
open bar tabs.
our work boots and
dirty t-shirts.
daughters love us and
daddys hate us and
we are drunk and
indifferent

A day alone.

2007-05-21T14:32:00.000-04:00

girl sits, says
nothing. is eating.
boy comes in sits.
also says
nothing.
she says,
something. a dilemma.
boy says nothing. is not
even listening. girl says
it is resolved. thank
you for letting me.
boy looks up calmly, says
I have a consultation fee of $5.
every additional minute you
remain speaking to me is another $2.
I am considering this a consultation, so
five more dollars.
she asks, and then
don't answer!
he speaks to her further, explaining
how the billing would work, saying
for this there will be a surcharge.
she opens her mouth, closes.
he says, that I will not charge you for.
that is your freebie.
the last.
she wants to say
thank you but
that would be another two dollars.
the phone rings.
it was a role playing game.
caller asks, well,
did it start when he asked
why you wanted to kill him?
for this

The Current Date.

2007-05-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

she had asked the sunlight for forgiveness
and he had given it to her.
she received the message.
she reveled.
it wasn't just you,
it was also the unobtrusiveness of you.
the lack of you.
it comes to you so simply and we walked;
moving as one, in
the same direction always.
easy.
and so I love you.
now that I can see everything
and all the math that has eluded me before.
just easy black lines
just totally calm phrases.
totally harmonic, floating drifting
choruses. The refrain.
you took yours to go. and you left.
easily convinced the next wonder
would be even more wondrous than the current.
twice as wonderful as the last.
Getting better all the time.

An Open Letter to Michael Harrington

2007-05-05T15:15:00.000-04:00

Exit, M. Harrington.

Don't you remember, it was weather like this last year that sparked us. There was the same doomy disintegration of inhibitions and the winter months both, when girls wear short shorts and flips irregardless of the temperatures, based only on the sun being out.
It is the time to sit outside, or inside, and read books instead of watching television.
These memories are from before the days you shamed me.
Or, I shamed you.
Whichever happened first.
Isn't time funny? The way it erases everything. Do you even remember the things I'm going to tell you next?
This is when we were still almost sneaking around in secret.
When you would come to my window instead, if you had been invited through the door.
When I would wait quietly for you to wake up, not eating because I couldn't afford it but sucking my nutrients through cheap gin and grapefruit juice.
When men in motorcycles were still whisking me away for hot dogs adventures.
When I still always had the flask. Was always sitting in the driveway. Was always walking to or from somewhere.
This is when we were born, sitting on the porch together, doing things I can't imagine now like discovering each other. Like, making out.
These things in secret, under the cover of darkness or rainclouds.
I remember the time when your voice on the phone was still a sexy surprise. When I knew your schedule perfectly. When watched you through a reflection of your reflection and sat on the stoop outside waiting for you to walk by.
This was me, pursuing you.
Eventually we began touching each other. We used to get breakfast and hold hands. I don't remember who said I Love You first but I get the feeling it was you.
We walked home in the light of the morning. We talked about having two kids together.
Two boys. Tom Ward III wanted to bake our wedding cake for us.
The is when people still accepted me. As yours.
It is hard for me to relearn my place in the summertime, because last summer was my favorite.
These were the times when I was still hanging out with your friends because they were our friends and not because I wanted to sleep with them (or so you say now.)
When you wanted to go place with me all the time. When I was still in awe of you. Afraid of you (in a way that is different from the way I am afraid now.)
When you still acted impressed by my Polaroid skills and we used to nap together on the orange couch.
We had such dreams then. I was going to be a writer and you the photographer. We were going to travel around the world together. Reviewing restaurants.
We were going to own our own book store, with a cafe that I would run and a printing press where we would publish ourselves and other worthy and obscure young people.
This is when we shared dreams and ambitions.
Before you became confused and thought you still loved me when you were just horny.
Before I placated you because I cared more about your mental instability than mine.
This was when we sat in the park and drank a six pack.

The Eulogy, Part I

2007-03-17T13:53:00.000-04:00

Cycles of hope and regret do not apply here.
You were always lonely,but
never desperate enough to trust your own judgement.
You were violently in love,
violently out of love.
You could never escape that sinking feeling
as time passed and you could not.
You watched the mirror, waiting for something new.
The comfort and familiarity came to you
flickering in the glow of the florescent globes
which framed you.
You would not look away,
you were all you had.
You ached for someone who would
litter you with scraps of paper
saved with the hope of importance.
You wanted that spinning clatter,
the beautiful noise of
careless clutter.
But still you decided to run.
Every day you ran.
You just shouldered your way through the interactions,
you soldiered on.
Your tongue was never welcoming,
only inviting.
You punished yourself
for your own shortcomings through them.
At some point you should have laid down arms.
But you strayed,
you walked away.
If reincarnation was real it wouldn't matter.
You keep making the same mistakes,
or you wouldn't be here.

The Eulogy, Part II

2007-03-17T13:45:00.000-04:00

You could look into the world
but there were holes.
Always those strange flashes of no origin-
that sourceless boring brightness.
To blink would had been weak,
to squeeze your eyes closed and
seek out a personal darkness
would have made you an outlaw.
So, you could never see everything.
But you did try.
This was never a world you could trust,
or even believe in.
Everything you thought you knew
just banged around your skull
while everything else lay beyond your reach.
Your memory has omissions.
Secretly you were scared that it had been your choice,
your way to lie and also maintain an innocence.
Standing under a scalding shower
you often wondered what the facts really were.
When you spoke, you were never entirely sure
of what you were saying or even
if we could hear you.
You drank because there had never been
anything before that.
Of course by then you were dying,
but not nearly fast enough.

The Euology, Part III

2007-03-17T13:37:00.000-04:00

You were always so selfish.
You never stopped.
You were found - limp and listless,
at tired copy of what you once were,
an empty shell with no sense or no care to.
Your eyes rolled slowly, side to side
reading whatever message had been
scrawled across your mind.
You imagined a hand on your shoulder,
but only because you had to.
You acted like you wanted to live
but you just didn't want to die alone.
Your body stiffened over time.
Your back arched and your fingers curled.
Your eyes became milky
and stopped their desperate sliding.
Your mouth moved like a fish, gasping
but not breathing.
Something inside of you had changed.
Some parts of you were sick and tired.
Were walking out.
Your head tilted back howling, silently
even after your heart beat abandoned you.
Even after your blood had slowed
to just a memory of movement.
You had pleaded.
You were asking one last time
for that second chance.
But like always,
it never came.