Notes on an Old Man

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.

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.

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.

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))

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.