i lie there, on the foreign couch, thinking of everything i long for. and all i wish i had. through all the silence, save the air conditioner. useless. i wonder if i could have them or not. but after all the thoughts have cycled, when they have reverted back to the first, after i have teared up slightly, over everything i've lost, i still know. i cannot go back. i cannot go back. i think of happier times. and know, i cannot go back. there must be blindness.

i woke late because it was my day off. slept until ten am. we were supposed to drive to jackson. visit a friend in the hospital. sixteen with a brain tumor. her parents are crackheads. she works days on end to pay her own medical bills. drinks a fifth a day. she is giving up now. but we didn't drive to jackson, she was already back. she drove herself to the hospital last night. a three hour drive to fix the feeling she had lost in the right side of her body. so we stayed home. talked about molestation. homosexuality. abortion. tarot cards. she asked me to go to her mom's house. she can't stand her mom. where is your dad. oh, she's not my maternal mom, or my stepmom. they both live somewhere else. this lady is just someone i know, and since i don't talk to my real family anymore, i call her mom. i can't stand her. but she has no one else. oh. i was confused. we drive to the trailer, which sports two large "beware of dog" signs. she tells me i will smell of dog by the time we leave. i had seven dogs once. i was bitten by a dog. it ripped my face off. look. see the scars? they're all around my left eye. entering the yard, and to my left is a tiny grave, surrounded by miniature plastic fencing, shoved into the ground. that was the chiwahwah. it was poisoned by the neighbor. upon opening the door, two giant dogs jump to greet us, barking and clawing. i like dogs, but not these dogs. they draw blood from my right arm. and keep jumping on me. no one does anything. we sit and talk. the mother apparently loves dolphins and santa. both are scattered all around the house. i picture her, in the store. out of the corner of her eye she sees it, a gaudy knick-knack incorporating a dolphin or santa. something she doesn't own. something so tacky and tasteless, she can't live without it. on her forearm is a tattoo. the most glorious tattoo i have ever laid eyes on. a dolphin, trailing a rainbow, holding a football. this woman is the most racist person i have ever met in my life. and the first to admit just how racist she truly is. we speak of a mutual friend who is white, dating a black man. the retort from mother, she oughta have er throat cut. you gotta sleep with yer own kind. ain't that right, megan. oh, but you already know that, cuz yer a yankee, and they don't do that up north. i sit, too baffled to even think of how to respond. my mind fills with a million reasons why that is false. she continues, i hate niggers first. no, wait, i hate mexicans first, then the niggers. i didn't used to be this way. they made me this way. thinking they's all high and mighty. better 'n me. but they's the laziest mother fuckers i ever seen. they don't do shit. at this point, i'm just taking it all in. what more can i do. the dogs jump on me, teeth baring tennis balls. the mother grabs a dogs nubby tail. hand touching its anus. the dogs begin humping. i am a sponge. somehow homosexuality comes up again. ain't none a my business what ya'll do in yer bedroom. i don't give a shit. i got queer friends. (now she looks at me) you can do whatever yah want in yer own bedroom. i ain't gonna judge. i realize she's talking to me, not at me. oh, she assumes i'm a lesbian.. maybe because i have such short hair, and am wearing a sports bra. i hate bras. her "daughter" chimes in, she's not gay mom. the mother stutters a bit, and says, i weren't sayin her was. because the grammar is just that great. i'm an ass. we sit for a while and watch old movies with judy garland. talk about katherine hepburn, how she's way better than audrey. sophia lauren. betty davis. ingrid bergman is my favourite. we leave. the mother gives me candy and a pack of cigarettes. i eat a waffle. and we sit in the diner for a few hours, while i give relationship advice to someone seven years my senior. deciding i want whiskey, i leave and travel to the coffee shop to secretly drink, while i write and smoke my free cigarettes. call my grandmother. call my aunt. call my brother. it's dark, so i drive back to her house. do my laundry for the first time in a month. watch tv. i hate tv. realize i am haggard. drink more whiskey. take some darvocet. downed with a swig of tough whiskey. just now kicking in. i feel detached from everything, mostly lonely, but content nonetheless. which may be the darvocets. the time is now 11:26, and i think to myself, that's my birthday. smoke the last cigarette of the day. and go to bed. with my warm body.

sweethearts and scallywags. you bastards. this is where the fine line lives. and i am in the middle-place. bathing foreign babies for working mothers. taking care. wasting time. and my throat is sore. i may be dying. i maybe dying. so why stop now. i make love to my thoughts. feel tremendous guilt when i get home from work, dog tired. and she is lying in my bed wearing silk sheets. eyeballing me, asking silently if i desire her enough. and i say, sorry baby. hitting the proverbial sack. sorry, baby. covering up, shutting my eyes and thinking about times when i won't have to pay my thoughts so much attention. when there's someone else to hold me so tightly that i stagnate, melting out of myself. become a puddle, allow air to gradually take me. that's the love they told me about. but what can i say. these are just the dreams that put me to sleep at night. and i know that forever it's just the two of us. i'm a terrible lover, and yeah, i've handed out some bruises. ruffed her up around the edges. but she still loves me. i say, sorry baby, it just goes to show you how great your life is, that you might have all this turmoil. making you stronger. she knows she's valiant. and says i'm right. we will always work things out.

the lonely washingmachine.

righteously doing nothing.[chorus]

did i tell you i loved you before i left. i know i did. but it's truer to me now. and i think of it often when i talk to myself at dawn when i'm sitting staring tongue at rest. when i'm listening to the world happening around me. resenting it with raw amazement. sad for this. i am anxious and lonely for it. disappointment and less for it. more because i treat it wisely. but everywhere love goes i cannot follow. and everywhere they say they love me i cannot concede. for the sake of righteousness. and when they mean it (look me in eye with meaning i know you i see it in the beautifully deep set look sparking faintly far beyond the brain cells and synapses and chemicals i know your words i see it i see it i know it's there and feel the longing which is hidden deep within myself crying out to be released in secret getting louder while i gaze back casually smile and say i know it is true let us be good people beyond it while i ache and love still. i thought i knew these things before and didn't. within myself, a fool.) i believe them, but can do nothing. we are such good friends, aren't we now. i will love to death. as in my own, and never allow myself the capacity. let me explain that goodness (pining over goodness while i see darker parts telling me what love is i sleep and dream of bodies unproductively shut up stop it is not beneficial it is fruitless evil in my head and i can't close my eyes to eradicate it when i am dreaming i am not a good friend i am not a good person i see through clothes and know i am beautiful so love me please when i am lonely you will love me within myself i look and know love is there and make it mine but only within myself questioning whether this is evil it has potential i will love within myself and undress within myself and bathe within my dreams wash my back while i lie awake in blankets dreaming of fingertips moving hands up the spine and love me for all i am it comforts me i will make you do it and make this mine and only for me. only within myself, a fool.) it is the action of clarity and understanding. and i love what i have in others. but have they any idea what this is like. this sacrificial lamb. it seems i've been made to love and die with nothing to show for it. that's a lie. i have these friends. and this love. myself at dawn. inside this head is a loudness now. and within myself these darker parts will lie awake loudly in secret screaming. i cannot calm them. did i tell you we are equal before i left. i know i did not.

everything has a diabolical cause behind it. the man washing the interior of his car. doing laundry. simply walking around the parking lot. all these men, washing away their nasty deeds, walking away their guilt. hunting me down. closing in. their teeth are clenched shut for now, in a dastardly grin. waiting to gnash down on all that is vulnerable. trying to be less evident to the world. impossible to blend in. the burning of my belly tells me there is trouble. the lump on the side of my neck has no rhyme or reason. and i wish it would go away and leave me in peace. my body itches from innumerable insect bites. my skin is hot with fever from dehydration. do i have sickness or not. i'd like to sleep any suspicions away. laugh away fear with friends. have my mother hold me in her healing arms. instead i'm smoking, as a medication. and everyone is evil. i wish i didn't feel this way. i wish i weren't so terrified all the time. felt so unknowingly observed. i want to love, but this world doesn't make for trusting.

becoming clearer. there isn't much to do for now and i sit waiting for nothing but time to pass. keeping myself busy with forced tasks and daydreaming, never truly a part of anything, while skin becomes darker from the sun, my hair whiter. i begin to think of how i wish they could see through my eyes for three days. then realize how truly boring it would be. seeing my reflection, a twelve-year old boy is standing there and i begin to remember what that was like. memories that aren't mine pour into me like good spirits. vivid summer days and swimming in lakes, running without a shortness of breath. at the grocery, a handsome black man called me "baby-doll." sheepishly, i smiled, swirving slightly to one side, while looking at him. placing my hand upon my head, realizing i am ugly now. oh well, okay. i am an ugly woman in waiting. just passing time. i met two young men, and asked them what they do around here. they told me they didn't do anything, but one man gave me his number and said if i was bored to call. i might do that since there's no one else to talk to. but the point is, i know what to do. it's all becoming clear. i don't know why i am here, or why i decided to come here. but this is the present landing ground. and now all i have is time to waste and money to make. and one of these days, i'll take one of those planes that pass over me everyday and night, and go somewhere else.

+

the electric current flowing through the large cables, suspended by giant steal beams, like articicial birch tree trunks, hums loudly in the heavy moisture filled air. they rattle and hiss, a hundred wires traveling in each direction, going somewhere. just as they did in the midwest for years. the outskirts of that city, from the window outside my bedroom window. the two telephone wires. an eerie, deadly sound. a slight vibration. and under the cables fat white men, once strapping, take their boys to the local :hooters: to eat steak and play catch. looking on, they smoke in ball caps and quirky bright t-shirts, chatting about the :good ol' days: under yellow lights. i walk through dripping hotel corridors, where old black men whistle, ask me where i'm headed. to wash my face. in a night club, attatched to a hotel, with ashtrays above the toilets. the air is rich with the fragrance of what men wished they smelled like. lacking hair, looking weird, i wait to be harassed by the middle-aged men in cowboy hats and striped shirts, but nothing happens. the man at the counter is clean cut, wearing a blue tie. trying to look like i'm supposed to be there, i smile politely. the hotel across the way already told me i'm not allowed to use their bathroom anymore. or drink their coffee. i understand. i'm not staying at either hotel. just right between them in my car. they watch me curiously by day. at night the lot is full, and lying in the backseat i hear people coming and going. planes landing overhead. during the day children play in the hotel pool, over the fence, in front of my car. while i eat pears.

+

they lied. she never burnt the letters. in fact, she read them many times over. hearing the voice behind them. how he told stories with enourmous gestures and expression. her last thoughts were of him as they stoned her half-clothed body in the supermarket parking lot. she stared up at the blinding sun while they flug giant pieces of cement and garbage that happened to be lying around. beyond the screaming cheers of a noisey crowd, the screeching animal like qualitly of it, the giant man-made debris smashing skin cells and cracking bones, she still thought of everything she was going to do. the plans she had made. and as they lowered her mangled body into the the granite earth, a specific spot the city had chosen, made of the hardest natural materials, beyond the sandstone, she thought of him again. at one point she recognized the earth was very cold farther in, and how this was strange, it seemed it should be hotter. besides this notion he was the main focus of her mind, and she thought of the nice times that were going to happen between them later. wondering what they would laugh about, she pictured the way he throws his head back during honest laughter, when something is particularly funny. she thought of how he doesn't much care for his laugh, the way it sounds. or at least he had said that once. she also thought of how often she would think of him and hated herself for it. so presently she lies in the earth, covered in rocks and is waiting. an ugly woman now. but she waits and ponders in the earth, and thinks about all the plans she has made and all the nice times that will take place.

+

this place depresses the mind. there has been such a detatchment of self. i begin to fear i don't exist anymore. when no one acknowledges you, life doesn't feel like anything. no one calls or writes. maybe this is what i need. to not exist for a time. so it seems the best place to be has to be the very worst place. and i'll spend my time here. self-medicating with music when i can, it cleanses me. i am finely polished.
*
will you let me die so young? and you, please save me. i will always know you can't. i wish to write and be unaware of it. as though it is a bodily function. like eating or breathing. or even a replacement. i am thirsty, let me write.
*
water becomes appreciated. i have known thirst. and that is true and honest desperation. an anxiety nearly driving one to insanity. to be so thirsty, and have no water. i am pushed further into this.
*
you feel like basquiat. i paint people pictures for tips. maybe they like them, but i doubt it. what can i say, it's all i can do. i could write them stories. to be throw away. it's all i have. paintings don't pay the bills. unless they do.

everything is on here now.
read it and enjoy.

[This Exit.Half Truths]



Desperate Man

I am self-reliance. Cars role off the interstate, into the city. Cars role onto the interstate and go somewhere else. And I’m the only one in the smoking section of this dining room. Not even eating, just smoking and drinking coffee. Feeling almost incapable of most things. Almost floundering in all the smoke I’m making. While flecks of ash gather on the table, invading me. And the waitress is probably pissed off, but I’ll leave a nice tip.

He always maintained this subtle sense of desperation, and it followed him everywhere he went. Even when he wasn’t moving, but those where the moments it became most evident, hanging over his head like a fog, needing to be cleared away. It seemed he felt that to be somewhere else, to be moving about or talking loud and long enough would blow all this bad weather away. Bring about its eventual eternal dissipation. But whenever he opened his mouth, he just drew in all the bad air, re-circulating the whole mess. Like living in a grocery store, or an airplane. So it clouded around his head and muffled his thoughts and vision, making all truth less evident. It settled in his lungs and became a sickness he couldn’t rid himself of, he coughed all the time. Spitting out particles of himself, a thick yellowed phlegm. Sick and desperate, sad and desperate about sickness.

A larger portion of me commended him secretly for this ability to always be so anxious about doing. But it never seemed properly placed throughout his days. It didn't make enough sense to be justifiable, his worry. The idea of being uncomfortable, or slightly dissatisfied, and therefore pressing yourself to be more than you are or make yourself who you want to be makes sense in my mind. And I didn’t always follow that idea like I wish I had, but still acknowledged its truth. Anyway, eventually after too much accumulation, his hushed frantic nature, his desires for something unspoken and unrealized got out of hand. This presence, an unrecognized manifestation of self became wrapped around his head and he was boiling over for no reason except the inability to be doing what he was supposed to be doing or being what he was supposed to be. And everyone has an identity crisis at least once. And where and what is life and living. How strange to be anything at all. What responsibility. Desiring to be full of greatness. Or simply be what you are.

One night I made crepes and invited him to dinner. He ate them up quickly, almost all of them, and I was only left with enough to simply be satisfied. But I had made them for him, so decidedly didn’t mind, and wouldn’t judge. I wouldn’t go hungry, but wasn’t full by any means. He excused himself from the table and went outside to smoke. Adding to the cloud, making more sickness. I cleaned up and washed his socks and sheets. I went to join him in the kitchen where we drink our wine in the dark and talk about other countries. We sat and through the silence he told me he loved me and had to go now because there were things he needed to determine. He had done some things that he never thought he was capable of doing. And now the desperations and desires were rolling in all different directions, not towards me like they had done years ago. He said he didn't want to hurt me anymore. So he left, and I sat in the bath for weeks. He had hurt me something awful. But I can’t hold the facts against him. He didn’t need to do all he had done, but what can I say about distraction and fear. I was still there. I had tried to talk quietly and calmly to him about all the lovely things in life that we could gather up. Life does go where it does. And how can I be so jaded and cold towards this. I want to be a good woman. I want him to be a good man. I have my appreciation for this. I am grateful for it. And it is good. I have forgiven and now must settle the sounds of all this resonating anger and pain and love. I commend the human body for withstanding such destruction of the spirit. It is quite a test to be so broken. There will be the clarity of my own thoughts, and as much as I care about the clarity of his, there’s nothing more I can do. And I don’t have the room for it. I can’t grieve for two. It’s not my responsibility. I want this friend, but not yet. I’m not prepared. And now is the grounding of myself. He is a werewolf to me and he changes at night and he changes at day. Depending on his surroundings. His environment and who he clings to. They change him. He changes himself. And no one will know his pain. And no one will know mine.

Desperate man, you are a desperate man.
And there’s nothing anyone can do to save you.



The Damage You’ve Done


there are the daily attempts.
only so much to be done when broken twice daily.
beautiful organs plucked and i'm trying to digest.
i'm a self-reliant overnight nothing now.
walk down the street and scream nonsense words.
orange juice and a story about collecting stray paper.
falling from pockets. to save the clearer thoughts of someone else.
we sled blind in a snowstorm.
we slept and woke to blizzards.
your father in his underwear.
drinking coffee while he stares out the window.
i was there and put your boots on. wore a blue shirt.
drunk during the holidays.
you slept so i could stroke your side in secret lying awake much longer.
touching all parts of a beautiful back. in love with a structure.
and everything in tune with it. lying there loving.
never again will i pay more attention to breathing as i did.
matching breaths. inhale, and bodies breathing closer.
red shirt. pink earrings. never found.
mutual attractions much younger.
hurt always has a stupid reason.
we shouldn't be so careless. now should we.
so i sat in the theater listening to music blowing smoke at the ceiling.
to be ignored for newfriendssake.
in the car for hours, staring at the moon.
i've found upset is such a simple word.
and there were plenty of cigarettes until i made a way back.
trying to wake a drunken body. the note i still have.
days later everyone was sober.
and they told me i looked sad then.
i said you would do great things, but not for my life.
while weeping in the driveway.
tried to cast you out, leather jacket, like a demon.
you held me. i knew love then.
i was kissed against a car door, to be made happy.
which i denied, which was a lie.
i was so happy.
and i knew my love then.
with a black umbrella while raining we didn't use.
and how you stared and how you were beautiful to me.
i wished to kiss you. but didn’t. i went inside. went to sleep.
unhappy and so loved. alone and so loved.
and i tried my very best talking to unhappiness.
washed those sheets, soup and letters
until there was laughing and eating again.
loving until leaving.
and you felt someone stupidly. with a broken neck. it all ended quickly

it's taking a long time to feel any better.
i hate time for it. and i hate love for it.
constructive speech about how it is what it is
nothing to do
everything is really all right this is how it needs to be.
crying all the time. not knowing what to do.
to stop sleeves from being wet.
not knowing what to do.
what do I do.
i'm asking you now. i'm pleading with all my brokenness and desperation.
to a friend who says he loves me.
look at the damage done. this mess you've made.
i have to clean it up alone.
i'm sitting here missing something.
but there's nothing i can do.


A Good Woman.

I was walking home and found ten dollars. Actually it was twelve. I found the ten, then a one and five feet later another. I looked around, but it was late and no one was there. When I woke the next morning I looked in my wallet and was missing a twenty. I pressed my thumbs against my temples and thought why did I do that. Why has this happened. What did I do wrong.


speaking makes for boiling over
reversing what I said
because i am the desperate one
and you are the anxious one.
desperation for you always.

all decisions make more pain.
and i've been set up like a sucker
someone burnt my house down
someone broke my back
i told them it was okay
right before they turned around
to walk away
no one truly has anyone
i didn't always believe this
but now i know a never-ending ghost.
my dearest friend.
speaking, boiling over with all this grief
i spit at him while i speak.
but it's a concentrated speech. specifically spoken.
i'd like to keep our memories good.
all our children safe.
simple, meaningless stories.
but it hurts to love like I do.
taking all this true and honest love
good love
adulterating it.
fortify the places uninhabitable.
lock my doors shut my windows.
even though i made them sacred spaces.
diluting everything, water it down.
all things i can’t do.
all things i never could have done.
staring love directly in the face,
forcing it out and mourning its absence.
telling these lungs i don’t need them to breath.
and i wish i were as emotional as lungs.
understand what is happening.
understand my speech is me,
but mostly pain.
it's all i have for now.
speaking aimlessly and incoherently
most of the time.
out of necessity.

+

some days it doesn’t seem so hard.
the dull, constant ache isn't so life-threatening.
certain music makes it easy in the night.
and i write and drink for hours alone, not alone.
subjecting myself to all i can stand. most is too much.
i know what i can take.
mostly drawn to me, not alone,
just by myself.
so night is night and day is day and both difficult.
night is most grievous and i bask in it like the sun.


Yesterday I saw an overweight man in a jogging suit and old headphones walking with intention. Trying to be better. And I cried at his trying and his attempts. It was eerie. Things like that happen to me often. Like seeing a sixty-something-year old man with a crew cut slowly riding an old, schwinn bicycle down the sidewalk in the summertime. I start crying for no reason about age and life. The same thing happens when I watch airplanes fly at night, and it is completely quiet outside. And I can faintly hear the sound its engines and I watch the flashing red and white lights. Thinking of all the people in that plane, and how they are so high up and I’m tired of being on the ground. she sang

:I want to be a good woman, and I want for you to be a good man. And that's why I will be leaving, and this is why I can't see you no more. I will miss your heart so tender. And I will love this love forever. I don't want to be a bad woman, and I can't stand to see you be a bad man. I will miss your heart so tender. And I will love this love forever. And this is why I am leaving. This is why I can't see you no more. This is why I am lying, when I say I don't love you no more. Cause I want to be a good woman, and I for you to be a good man:

And this concept is the foundation of how I truly feel.

Just like I must make my way through days, I tread through sadness, not wanting it waste it, or learn nothing from it. Maintaining appreciation.

Knowing what now is.





Love Me the Way I Love You

Love me the way I love you.

have i been passionate. i wait for it.
please don't disappoint me anymore.
i'd like to grow and make good love together.
i'm passing so much time trying unproductively.
young age gives such wonderful love
and appreciates like children.
trying not to be a child.
crying like one.
just being human and desiring companionship
without regret but realizing
not to leave love to the misunderstanders
who think in science.
and most things seem to wrong
when life is mistreating
no ones fault. i tried.
i loved and that is true.
gave a continuous wealth
but gold stopped looking glorious.
hope less truthful.
and i've been left with disappointment
when attempts to be fulfilling aren’t enough.
that was all i had and i am sorry
it couldn't have been more.
i did have more.
but why love ungrateful children.
eating before you.
putting them to sleep with soft hands.
you wash them cleaning up blood.
while they overlook your love
when you work all day
to buy them dinner and they just eat it up.
left with dishes.
please grow up and see what i have done.
maybe you won’t.
you will grow old and see what you have done.
or maybe you won’t.



Ir. [to go.]

All the people who tell me they love me and I believe them. I do believe them. I’m leaving soon. It will have been a little over a month and I am going south. I’ve dreamt of this for sometime, since I was very young I’ve dreamt of leaving. And why is just leaving so hard. I don’t want any of this. It does nothing except bring me grief. Everyday I grieve at being here. No one will know and it will be glorious. No one really knows what I do now in my agony, so what difference does it make.

It’s not so hard. I don’t see why more people don’t do it.
[I’m so happy. That you didn’t die.]
I have nothing here. I’m going to be an alcoholic if I stay. A sad drunk.
[I’m not afraid to meet you.]

we will drink our wine the night before, have a tea party.
tell the story of my love, and make you let me kiss you.
resonating throughout darker, more self-involved days.
what can i say? this is all i have. all i have is the absense of everything.
and here goes nothing. nothing is going, look at nothing go somewhere.
like that there is separation. have yours. you have what is you.

i have hope i wish i didn’t. i have thoughts that put me to sleep.
wish i didn’t dream of them. a beauty i want as mine.
maybe it’s just resonating now. it will all go away.
but it seems no matter what i do, there it is throughout my days.
everything i've lost.
i can hold bodies.
i can do anything, but that sense appears within me.
how can i get this haunted blood out of me.
how can i get this haunted blood out of me.
and you will hear us howling.
in secret very far away.
the basement with our bottles.
for love and grief we howl.
and i don't want to love a fool,
as it seems, not knowing what to seek.
and i am a broken woman, not knowing anymore of anything.
it is good to wonder. to be tested when lost.
my discomfort the greatest of trials.
to be what i am truly, hoping the same is found elsewhere
needing no one. drawing closer to actuality.
sleep with who you think will please.
if it helps.
you are no fool.
i will wander like a cripple.
not knowing what i seek.
and you will see throughout your days, the things i have given you.



I Think You’re Both Stupid

You get sad, and think of things being better. Think of loving that same person over again at a different time. It seems you’re forgetting how much pain it was. How you lost lots of sleep and weren’t very happy most of the time. Dissatisfied and sleepy. Hungry quite often, coming from all different parts. But for some reason you still want that later. It won’t be the same thing, no it won’t. No one will be the same thing, no they won’t. The water was boiling I heard it. The pot did call the kettle black, I heard that too. I was there, weren’t you there . I thought that we were both standing, right there, when all of this went down. Into the gutter with the vomit and the panic. I just can’t seem to understand why you decided to go there and lie down like a dead dog. Tear your skin off in the filth and create infection. Made friends with bees and slept with them in cobwebs. You too are a fool, just like so many. I don’t know who is more foolish, or who I take less seriously at this point I think you’re both stupid.



We Went Dancing.

I know I’ve been alive for at least a little while now. I walk slowly to hear what footsteps sound like. I smoke and drink heavily trying to feel what my organs are doing inside me. Sometimes they’re very loud, and I hear everything churning violently within me. I wait a day for them to settle, and start the process over. At night it’s quiet. I used to listen to music but now I just like to hear the sounds of this house as it’s slowly rupturing from within. I don’t live here anymore. I don’t live anywhere. Every once in a while people will call me and I want to talk but I don’t have it in me to communicate anymore.


There are cameras on me while I sit and I know they aren’t on. But they pose as my only company now and at times I will speak to them quietly. Until they frighten me. I don’t even live here anymore.


I work many hours, never wanting to be there, but realizing I have nowhere else to go. No one to talk to. Which is my fault sort of. I can’t wait to leave my job, but the idea of being freed from obligation is overwhelming and panics me in a subtle life-threatening way. Everything is minute-to-minute, consistently dire. And I wonder what everyone else is doing. How do they spend their days. Where do they sleep at night and with whom. They must be talking to each other about something. They must be laughing somewhere. I haven’t spoken in seventeen days. Not a word. I’ve tried, but whenever I open my mouth people walk away. Some days he will sit with me while I weep. Some nights we drink together and dance and I love him for it. Desires for a companion will be a moot point for quite a while, and this leaves me feeling very sick. I won't have sex for a long time, but I've done it before. What devistates is knowing I have to sleep alone in a large bed and it's terrifying at times. So I don't sleep. I take many baths. But they are painful. I’m like a body with no skin to protect me when I bathe and the water is too hot. The tumors are growing in my neck. And I seem to have pulled out a great deal of hair from the back of my head. Sometimes I’ll go driving and it’s sunny and nice and the fluid motion of travel is soothing. I’ll think about someone loving me and how nice that will feel someday. I’ll think of pianos and other countries. When I was a kid I always thought about how nice it would be to have a large group of lovely girlfriends to laugh with all the time. I don’t think like that anymore.


Tonight we went dancing. I wore my favorite dress, the one that makes me look like something. I decided I looked really beautiful with my makeup on and my hair clean, skin fresh. It was a good night. All of it. There wasn’t a dull moment. We danced for hours and I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. I just don’t think I have ever had such a good time. We made a few friends and had drinks with them. They were very fun and I laughed and crossed my legs at the table. I played with my hair. And everyone was so nice. After dancing we got coffee and talked some more about everything you could ever imagine. I felt like a very interesting person sitting there discussing important things. After that we went to our new friend’s house and drank some more and laughed and had such a good time. And when all was said and done I was so pleased and satisfied with life. That there are such good and fine and interesting people for me to talk to and be around and dance with. And I was so happy. Everything is wonderful and my skin is glowing. Everything is warm and good and I’m so excited about waking up tomorrow to see what great new things will happen to me. I am just so happy.



Sexual Encounters

What did we decide then? That children lack a certain sexual innocence, and the ability to understand, or at least comprehend sexual emotion.

Most of my friends have always been male. Even before I understood gender my friends were boys. I had girl friends, which I was comfortable around, and we did typical girl things. I had quite a collection of dolls and dresses. I was also a tomboy. I liked girl things, but not entirely. My closest friends were boys, I felt attraction towards boys, and I still do. Any sexual encounter I had as a child revolved around girls, and usually by my initiation. Maybe it was a sense of understanding or comfort or affiliation that I found in girls that lead to sexual exploration. I have always initiated since then once I’ve been accepted. When I say sexual encounter, I realize that what I felt was acknowledged, but not understood. When I was alone I would make my dolls have sex, not yet being aware of how sex really worked, but they would kiss and I would make up how I thought sex was preformed. I remember feeling a sense of sexual satisfaction in doing this using my imagination. My first sexual experience with another person was in my backyard. I had to have been between the ages of six and seven. My next-door neighbor and I were sitting on the back apartment porch of our triplex. A lady named Kathy lived there. I always thought she was mentally disabled, but later realized she was just completely socially inept.

I can’t say I remember who initiated this, but there was a mutual dare between the each of us to kiss each other’s adolescent vaginas, through the underwear. In my memory it seems to have lasted for some time, and I don’t recall ever getting in trouble over it. But it was a dare, and I remember doing it.

Another memory occurring during the same period of time also involves the same neighbor. Somehow a game began that involved myself, my neighbor and her brother showing our genitalia to each other. The game being that her brother would stand in the second story window of his house while she and I would stand in the alleyway below. All of us would simultaneously pull our pants down and display our parts. We would then trade places, her and I running up the stairs to the window, and him running down to the alley. And we would do the same thing over and over. Until one of our parents saw us and we were reprimanded. I remember sitting at the blue table that my mother had cut in half to fit into our small kitchen. And feeling very guilty.

When I was at least eleven or twelve my mother would sit for a classmate of mine. Seeing as my grade school class was so small and the families all oriented to the same church, I was a friend of this girl. Her mother was black and her father was white, which gave her skin a soft brown pigment. This all took place before I truly recognized my body and its functions. I feel that my imagination as a child was very vivid. But it’s probably true to say that most children have flamboyant imaginations and mine probably wasn’t much different. Maybe I just think this now because my imagination is still rampant. At our ages it seems, at that time and thinking about it now, we both had not comprehended our sexual feelings, but still recognized desire. We would go to my room and lock the door, I remember this was important, and play house. I’m sure that it started out simple. I was always the man. There was some story we would follow, not husband and wife situations. I recall one pretend story involved me raping her. I’m sure it started out very innocent, but the subconscious recognition was there. I was always the man. I always played a man character. I would dress the part, cover my hair with a ball cap, and she would wear a dress and makeup. I would bring her flowers. A hand over her mouth kiss. I remember it began with hand over the mouth kisses. But it gradually moved on to become more satisfying, because there was a sexual satisfaction in all of this. I remember feeling it in my body and my brain. Only understanding that it was pleasurable and nothing more. It felt like hormones I wish I still had. Maybe I do. The stories became shorter and entirely revolving around our eventual sexual instance. The hand escaped the mouth and she had large soft lips. I remember feeling breasts that weren’t quite breasts yet, but she had developed slightly premature. I lie on top of her and felt her body, and it felt good to me. We did this whenever she came over and I remember checking under the bed and in the closet to make sure no one was in my room spying on me. One time I didn’t, and my brother was under the bed. I was very upset. We always locked the door and kissed and our legs locked. I remember what the pelvic bone against mine felt like. And I knew that what I was doing, we both knew, was somehow incorrect or immoral. I translated this game to other girlfriends of mine and when I would come over that was the game we would play. I did have one friend though whom I would not play this game with. She was more a man than I at the time, and we were close friends for being children. I was standing in my closet and she told me that she had heard of me kissing girls and asked if it was true. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t believe me, so I cried and said it was true. That was one of the times I remember crying most as a child, and for specific reason. I felt guilt for something I didn’t understand yet. I told my mother I had kissed girls and felt sick to my stomach. I just told her that I kissed them. I didn’t say anything more.

I had forgotten about this for many years. I remember a few years after it happened feeling very ashamed. But I think of it now, and believe it’s something that just happens to people. We don’t understand the sexual desire, it’s just inherently there, and so we begin to explore and manage it. As children we recognize it but don’t grasp it. It doesn’t make sense to children. And at times it doesn’t make sense to adults. But I think we dwell to deeply upon it’s meaning in our lives at times. But I'm telling you this because it's a part of who I am.



Some Plans I Have

We’ll cut our arms off over this
And tie eachother’s faces back
With broken glass under blindfolds
You asked for it so here goes nothing
You needed it so here nothing goes
And I’m gone like that
Like I never even was
Anything seems better
When everything is out there
And I’m not doing nothing
Going to go pay the band
And love the little people
Greater than god
I'm lying to myself
I had ideas that wouldn’t have happened anyway
And you’re a pretty big dreamer yourself



Some People Have Been Good to Me

I have people. I need to keep in touch.
We were friends in high school.
And we were kids primarily. But to see it transcend into adulthood it really quite beautiful. To exist in the same time period as someone else. People are good often enough to make me want to remain in this world. I love my family more than anything. More than anything. More than anything. I love my mom and my dad and my brothers. They mean more to me than anyone else. And I am grateful for them everyday. And in that respect I can’t say I have nothing. I have everything within them.


I feel I should be making all these lists. I don’t think that’s necessary.
I like to secretly put booze in my coffee in restaurants.


This plane is definitely crashing
This boat is obviously sinking
This buildings totally burning down
And my heart is slowly dried up



My Bad Perspective

only a few more days of this
purgatory for something someone else did
hope i’m not alone in this
most days.
you seem pretty content
with what you’ve done
don’t regret a minute
nothing quite like having your lover
same destroyer
prance away guninhand.
so many new friends justlikethat.
new and they don’t know you
be whomever you like.
someone who makes you look like goodness.
they prepare your food and bathe you.
make you look pretty.
and i should be happy
something's keeping you from sorrow seeing as
i love you so much
i only have myself a
and all the booze and cigarettes i can afford to buy.
telling myself only a few more days.
but i’m beginning to think
you’re not a good person at all
never really were. except to yourself.
and i'm not a very good person either
due to all this pain.
where have my cigarettes gone.


+


Life is action
Love me I am tired

You say I am tired rolling over.
I stroke your side
And pay more attention to breathing
Then I ever have
As I press myself against you

Of all the actions
Tell me what is wrong

You ask what is wrong rolling over.
Reveal your thoughts and let us teach them
Even separately
I say these things as I wash you
As you press your clean body against another

And you are no philanthropist
I raised you wrong
You bit off my fingertips
When I fed you my milk


This is the part where we cauterize all our old wounds.

And I am so glad.



A Stupid Thing I'll Make You Read.Either Way I’m Leaving.

so i have nothing to fear really.
truthfully things haven’t changed so much,
love hasn’t changed so much.
resonating like it did.
and it's hard to believe. it's difficult to accept.
as i chew on the inside of my mouth
where flesh is already missing.
where old parts of me used to be.
what am i to think then.
when you say you still love like you did.
how am i to put anything to rest. when it's supposed to be the same.
i lack the understanding.
either way. i’m leaving.



Bodies Breathing Closer

i never did pay such attention to breathing as when i lie with you. i would quit smoking right now for such a feeling. when you were already fast asleep and drunk, and i lie awake with my arm around your waste. eyes open. breath in as you did, to press bodies closer to feel warmth and pressure. we would exhale the same.



You Live Farther Than I Thought.

seeing as i speak so little, i've taken to counting my words. and gauging their importance. today i said somewhere around forty-seven. the importance of today's words was extreme. probably not to those receiving it, and probably rarely is. i have yet to come up with a solid way of efficiently communicating the importance of what i say. the sad truth also being that i probably won't ever achieve this goal. seldom does anyone truly listen. i said, :good luck finding a job: which i meant truly. when asked how i was, i replied, "i am." which is a very simple and honest statement. jesus christ said it. and i also asked a friend to spend time with me on wednesday evening. these were the things that i said. oh, also i told the waitress at the restaurant that i was fine when she asked if i needed more coffee. id had enough. but i suppose i could have phrased that differently. but i also suppose that she was only referring to my need for more drink, and not how i was in general. what does she care. she would leave and when no one was looking i would lower my mug under the table correcting the situation with some whiskey. and all was well. i wrote for hours. came home to make a drink, and didn't have enough orange juice, so i topped off the vodka with sunny D. what needed to be done was done. i wrote for hours. until i ran out of cigarettes and then it was down to the gas station. where they also sell malt liquor. i purchased my forty ounce and my twenty smokes, which will barely last the rest of the night, and went home. along the way calling my friend and asking him about wednesday. i've sorted out the material things i have and put them into either small piles or trash bags so all of this is beginning and taking place. an actuality instead of a fleeting thought. here it is. here goes nothing. can't you see it, nothing, going. nothing is going. and it doesn't fucking matter.



now.



settle all these resonating sounds.

the last thing i did was pay two parking tickets. thirty-nine cigarettes and two hundred forty-two dollars and eighty-nine cents. i now have nineteen cigarettes. a dollar-nine went to burnt gas station coffee and some other amount to a new air filter. there were large cube-like businesses along the way. very bland and hard. lights shown ominously upon the grey building fronts through bushes in the dark, making them look like giant mossoliums for dead businessmen. i imagined every man or woman who wears a suit everyday burried in these giant cement block cemetaries. story after story of dead bodies clutching briefcases. further down, huge piles of steam and smoke escape their equally enormous steal structures. just giant mounds of metal producing gases, one after the other. surrounded by thousands of tiny white lights. an artificial, light polluted starry landscape along the interstate. one after the other they regurgitate this billowing grey and shapeless gas. everything muted. driving past i portray my own miniature version. smoking cigarette after cigarette.

i am hungry. too scared to leave my car. worried most of the time. but the sun is coming up i can tell. and i am nowhere. march is just a month, officially about to begin. and the hum of semi-trucks and other morning drivers are my bedtime lullabye.

i told him to be a good man. and as i drove through that city for what felt like the last time there he was walking. going home from the bar with friends. seeming like such an embodiment of that small town. and now i am in a new town. in which i'm sure are desperate children craving it's absence. or their's to it. but he was there on the familiar sidewalk. and my heart burnt inside my chest while smoke filled the cab. i saw him then and when i affectionately held him last he told me not to be confused. not believing me when my cheek and closed left eye touched his neck and assured him i wasn't. i just wanted to secretly say goodbye.

and i'm not running away.
there is no ease in this absence.
life won't change love.
so i will live with it.
recognizing the presence in my blood.
doing what needs to be done
avoid the distraction, at least try.
and i am very cold.
it's very cold out here alone in the dark.

last night the idea was to make it out of ohio. slept in the backseat of my car at the kentucky welcoming center wrapped in a pile of blankets with all my clothes on listening to KID A. many times i awoke to the sounds of voices outside my car. the sun came upand sweat brought me to life. i took off my coat and sweaters and shoes and leg warmers, attempted sprawling out, cracking windows, which made it considerably harder to sleep with all the sounds of day around me. occasionally opening my eyes, looking out the backseat window, there would be some stranger standing, walking past, getting in or out of a car.

at times this seems like such a grand happening.
at others, like a really aimless attempt.

finally there is a diner to smoke and drink coffee. a waffle house in kentucky. and a cute waitress with freckles and puffy lips telling the same work stories i told during my diner days. dirty silverwear. her youth is beautiful. she has a sweet way of speaking, calling me ma'am with her drawl. it's very warming. the appreciation i have for it almost brings tears. which may be because of the loneliness and driving for many hours. i notice my own speech. i am from ohio. hello. my name is megan. i like vodka, cigarettes and electronic music. about an hour ago, my air filter was replaced, and the nice young boys who changed it had the same drawl, calling me ma'am. nothing substantial, just pleasant.


broken bottle blindfolds

i think of seeing again, much later,
both of us
regaining vision
still and all over again
never quite recovering.
but how can blindmen tell.
he might be better by now.
i should believe him when talks to me
looking in the wrong direction.
but recently he's been a liar.
irrelevant anyway.
i think of it sometimes in the dark.
when i'm lonely and lost.
listening to his music.
and that is all i know about what now is.
being blind.



drums not dead.

late at night i left kentucky. taking time that day to write. tennessee's welcoming center was considerably weirder. smelling of toilet cleaning supplies to the point where the scent seemed so heavy in the air it was seeping into me. poisening my body. i walked around the complex looking for a hidden outlet, to cook soup up with the single stovetop unit given to me. there was one inside, but i didn't feel like staying. too many people, it felt weird, smelled unfriendly.

it's surprising how monotinous the interstate is. for three states, at almost every exit, the same places to eat, sleep and fuel call to you. tennesee has many firework supermarkets. lots of huge signs bare many flashing lights to distract drivers. the billboards hang from mountaintops looming over me like words of god. all seeing eyes. i listened to liars and drove behind a cluster of red tail lights. swimming up the interstate like a school of fishies. floating red glowing orbs for me to follow for no reason in the dark. this diner is much more frightening. maybe because it's late at night. everything seems a little more coniving and evil. the waitress is a fat middle-aged brunette named "candy". her counterpart is "kim" and they look almost identical. sometimes strangers seem less like people and i find myself lacking compassion. they don't talk as sweetly here, they speak with throats and noses poor english, screaming at eachother, laughing. the cook chews gum with her mouth wide open, half smiling at something someone's saying. bothering me. there are a lot of people in this world. i question what makes me different from any of them. i've always questioned this, but seeing new people from all over everyday makes me feel very small. outside a town that treats itself like a universe. most towns probably do. a red-headed boy sits in the corner alone. he reminds me sort of. where lies the difference between men and boys? it's obvious i look very weird sitting in here. a saddness and a loneliness is running through my body, but not overtaking it. missing my family, worring about their concerns, loving them more than anything. they are what i have forever, and don't want to dissapoint, but imagine they will be. which is the saddest part, because i love them. they know i am good, but i'm not doing too well right now, having been distracted for a long time. and the perspective needed, i hope will come from this. sometimes i think about the money i owe. i have to tell myself everything will work out. everything will be okay.

the appreciation for friends has grown. those who care, who i care for in return. i am tired, hungry and cold and have no one to save me. i have no one to put to bed, feed or keep warm. no one to save. tears haven't been close to eyes since i lefy, but they are on the verge. stupid great ghosts.

i have no idea what's going on.
just running with this.
but you can hear us howling.

there were occassionally enormous white crosses to pass along the way. giant heavily lit white crosses projecting out of woods on the mountain side. just there, for no reason. but they did have intention and i know they did and it made me feel better and worse about myself. at one point i wished the firework displays and the huge crosses would be combined. for some reason.

the last rest stop for many miles and we need to rest. the sign said no overnight parking. but what else was i to do. tired, wondering if the sign was there because the likelyhood of someone getting murdered was higher in that particular location. i sat in my car for sometime. just sitting. eventually brushing my teeth and washing my face. decided to stay. it was cold again, and knees always feel like the coldest part. curling up in the backseat, i listening to KID A again, and clutched my knife.

when i wake, the car interior is very hot, which is funny to me, because when i go to sleep there's fear of freezing to death. the heat of day wakes me. i crack windows and go back to restless sleep. officially deciding to get up is always the best part. my body feels terribly stiff, but it's sunny again, a new day. i'm still alive, and lie there for some time. listening to people outside talking and moving about. smoke a morning cigarette, clearing the sleep from my eyes. seeming more new when i wake now.

crawling from my car makes feel like a holy presence. people look at me funny, but they have been doing that a lot lately. when i wash my hair in the sink, or sit in a diner for hours tapping away at a computer, smoking heavily and only drinking coffee. people look at you funny all the time anyway. and i usually subconsciously return the gesture.



this building's totally burning down.mark.

at night i'm often very worried. i try not to be, but it's dark and i'm alone somewhere i've never been before driving hundreds of miles in an unreliable car. but the nights make me intensely anxious about breaking down. i tell myself, you did this, whatever happens is just how it's gonna be. so i listened to new liars and was freaked out. and the cacophany of sounds freaked me out even more, occasionally to the point where i was very peaceful. felt like i was floating. so i thought of you then, and how you are my friend. a good one.


i like to switch sound during the sequence.leo.

(yellow)

i thought of you while i drove through the mountains of southern tennessee listening to aphex twin. drinking a diet because i was jealous at the last rest stop of a lady having a picnic, drinking her can of diet. so i bought one for me, and was very hungry, grateful that you gave me bread to eat. i forgot to bring a spoon. there was a giant factory to the left and a lake to the right. straight ahead a mountain. i didn't know what to do with myself as a took all those sharp turns around the huge masses of soil and rock. a terraine my mind didn't know how to look at. but it was nice and sunny out, much warmer now. i was wearing a white t-shirt. smoking lots of cigarettes. as i tend to do. i miss you, and miss seems like such a stupid simple word. it doesn't seem like enough. and i think of its meaning. to miss something or someone. it doesn't even seem to make coherent sense. to turn a verb into an emotion.

(fehlen)

we were friends and we lived in the same house. it was actually an old church. but it was a good relationship. sometimes i couldn't acurately gauge how personal, because it seemed you gave yourself equally to many with a specific curious intimacy that made people feel very special. most days we sat with eachother in the basement smoking cigarettes and listening to music. held eachother's hands throughout sorrow. spoke very specifically and thoughtfully when one cried to the other. that afternoon i laughed and told you i was leaving and you said okay. a week later you helped me pack. you were the lookout as i secretly stashed belongings into my car. made sure i brought a pen. gave me a german to english, english to german dictionary with a yellow cover and a heart taped on the plastic cover. i'm not assuming you put it there. but i'd like to think you did. either way, you told me it was one of your favorite things, so i loved it. you took me to their house. i had to make my secret goodbyes. i asked you if i should just tell them i was going to get cigarettes, and you said it was ingenious. i thought so too. we left, and i made us run to your car because i was scared and anxious. spot 123? i don't remember, but you did. we went to the diner to smoke and listen KID A, which we had done together before. it felt sad to me then, and even sadder now. i drank my coffee and you drank diet pepsi. when i see diet pepsi i think of you. sometimes i'll buy it, and drink it because it makes me think of you. we smoked heavily. and when it was time for me to go you walked me to my car and we held eachother. i never felt any sense of awkwardness around you and i didn't then. you made me feel right and correct and okay in every instance. i know where i stand and i do love you dearly. as i pulled from the parking lot i looked back at you sitting there in your car with your black hat on. i did this five or six times. you would be my last familiar face. a face i loved. now there's no one to talk to. and i miss my friend.

erleiden: suffer



i am in total control of the drum machine.

::I am now speaking through a ring modulator::


mountains

a lady puts "sweet home alabama" on the jukebox. i thought about how i hate this song, and then realized oh yeah, i'm in alabama, a quiet laugh. i'll bet that song is on every jukebox in this state.


trying not to think about what's happening in that city.
not to think about the people living there, unsubsantially.
the weather and who's drinking coffee, slandering name's.

anything stupid like that and i don't wish to write about it anymore
because they make me think about that city.
i'll be alone. with lone thoughts and lone actions.
the only object of this existence.
daydream, without expectations.
landing, and going from there.
taking no prisoners.


a "waffle king" in some town. not to be confused with waffle house, but they are practically the same. they even have the same napkin holders. a small airport rests out the window to my left. with little planes taking off and landing.

everyone seen, everywhere i've gone has looked haggard and worn. i have only seen what seems like real people. i have no idea what that is suppose to mean, or if it means anything at all. but they have skin the sun has burnt and melted. everyone over weight. the only attractive person was that waitress at the kentuky waffle house. everyone else has been old and fat and worn, almost identical in this respect. a bizarre observation. sometimes there are children, cute like kids are, with these scary overweight monsters parents coralling them. wiping their faces. and i imagine those normal looking kids growing into their monsterous parents. i think of how these adults were once beautiful babies.

a couple walked in. a pretty lady with brown eyes. and her meathead boyfriend. an old couple sits at the booth next to me. the man looks like kenny rodgers. the lady actually put together, unlike almost every woman over thirty i've seen so far. i wish "cassandra" would bring me more coffee. another fat sickly looking brunette. wait. she's clearly a blonde.

a few hours farther there is a diner in the dark. bodies must be compelled to eat warm meals. otherwise we feel unhealthy, still hungry. someone just said my name, right next to me, but there's no one there. maybe it's my cigarette feeling ignored, telepathically communicating. i called my mother to tell her i was alive. she had left worried messages. i didn't want her to worry. she thought i had hung myself in a hotel room somewhere. she had cried about it. i didn't wan't her to worry. she was very understanding, much more than i thought she would be. an overwhelming relief passed through me today. i told her not to tell anyone where i was.

there's some man in this diner talking about religion to a group of people.
something about killing infidels.


mississippi

the storm was about to roll in. i had seen lightening behind the trees as i drove through the night. not for one moment has there been any hurry, or a sense of rushing somewhere. just trying to save any part of me left, that i didn't already give to you. this rest stop was lit with a deep muted yellow. the trees were tall skinny and looming. i filmed what was most haunting, listening to rhubarb. it was much warmer. the rain began to fall heavily, so i retreated to my car. feeling a calm loneliness as i lie in the backseat staring at the wet windows. the yellow light reflected off of droplets as they slid to their deaths on the car door. listening to rhubarb, falling asleep.

i slept for thirteen hours. woke up to what seemed like a much different place than it had been the night before. getting up feels like crawling from wreckage when you are sleeping in a car. living in a car.

this has officially begun and all the shit is hitting the fan. my face is breaking out and my throat and ear hurt. both probably the result of too much smoking. the welcoming sign for mississippi read :it's like coming home: and i laughed out loud because it felt true. sort of. i enjoy the way people talk here. it's new to me, so it's delighting.

another diner. sometimes i realize what's going on. what i've done to myself. recognizing i'm in some completely unfamiliar place sleeping in my car having no idea what happens next. the idea that i'm living this life amazes me. i'm just trying like everyone else, but in different ways. i try not to think i'm anything special, but the only mind i'll ever truly know is my own. and when i speak, and when i look at people and interact, i tend to think it's a wonderous occurrance. these people in this diner, i'll never see them again. the cook will never make food for me again. my waitress will only serve me this once. the attractive man who opened the door for me and smiled. every instance is intense in this respect, and meaningful to me. for whatever reason we are all coinciding at the same time. everyone i've seen or encountered lives their own separate life. and i had no idea they existed while i lived in that city. and they will continue living their lives after i leave. i am forgettable. but for an hour we live together.

i took my check up to the counter to cash out. the cook looked at me and said :where you from: i already knew i looked like i wasn't from around there. i told him ohio. the old black man in suspenders sitting at the counter said :where?: the cook said :ohio, you know where that is?: :yeah, i been there.:

i went across the way to get oil and wash my hair in the bathroom sink of a gas station. in the corner of the lot, next to the interstate was a man sitting on a cement block, smoking. next to him a shopping cart loaded up with suitcases and plastic bags. i started hearing these weird noises. i thought is was some strange bird, a crow or a raven. there are giant black birds here. i finally noticed that the sounds were coming from this man. he was just sitting there screaming periodically. it was reminiscent of a laugh or a cawing. i thought maybe he was yelling at the traffic or the birds or just simply being crazy. i thought about how he was someone's child once. i watched him as i pulled onto the interstate. just sitting there, screaming.


just outside the city i looked to the field at my right,
witnessing a giant raging fire.
i wondered how something so brilliant and beautiful
could be so devistating.


the coast is here now. trying not to be worried. looking for a safe place.


this is the arrival. and some man in a camouflage ball cap and hunter green t-shirt just came up to me in the diner and asked me how i carried my computer. i told him i carried it in my bag. asked him why. he said he had an extra laptop bag in his truck. so he gave it to me. that was so random and wonderful. how strange. it also made me realize that i have no safe place to hide. there's a homeless man on a bicycle. he is old and has few things tied to the back of his bike in a makeshift cart. his companion is a little pup with white paws, tied to a string. i hope i don't end up crazy like all these other homeless people i've seen. i hope i keep my wits about me. what's your pups name? :the pups name is T.C. for "Tent City" s'where i found im. (?) he's only 'bout ten weeks ol. give er take. raised is leg first time this morn. only half way.: i think it's about time i left this diner. she's not going to bring me more coffee any time soon. why do i open my mouth.



:crooked spin can't come to rest. i'm damaged, bad at best.:

orange and white and green balloons float from the trucks parked in the lot across the street. a very sweet obese man helped me plug in my computer. he sits saying :lordy-lordy-lordy: over and over to the little girl telling him a story. he coud eat her. wearing all black, a slimming colour. hair tied up in a brunette ponytail. the parts around his eyes are a sickly shade of brown. i listen to the mix he gave me a month ago. time and life certainly did shake hands and say goodbye. i don't even know how to write dates anymore. the good news about the south is work is everywhere, because of the hurricane that destroyed everything. i knew it would be a mess down here, but knowing and seeing are two completely different things.


white lie

i try not to think about you.
or anything that you might be doing.
anything at all.
i just don't think about it anymore
now that i'm here.
it will creep in every once in a while,
but i cast thoughts out like demons,
and every time i forget about you is like a religious experience.
i'm at a revival.
i'm being rehabilitated.
i just don't think about you.
not at all.


it's easier to forget emotional pain when i'm hungry and tired and lost.

i haven't showered in quite a few days, but there are sinks to clean up in, shave my legs, wash my feet. i'm not too worried. only when i go to sleep thinking, :i guess this place is as good as any.: the heat wakes me. the heat always wakes me and i crawl from the wreckage.

i have my pile of things you gave to me. they set inside a giant blue book and sometimes i pull them out to look at. i don't even really look at them anymore. i just finger through them with my hands very delicately, remembering every pleasant instance in which they were given. where i was and what i was doing, where you were. the memories all seem so clear and passing. like bible stories or pointless fables. the only thing i really look at is the polaroid picture i took of you sitting at the white kitchen table. you can't tell the table is white in the photo, but i know it was. i always liked sitting there. and it was my birthday, so you bought me that camera. it was the first picture i took. i wanted it to be of you, this was very important to me. often times i felt like you were dying, so anything you gave to me through love felt like it might be the last. when i showed you the picture you said you looked ugly. well i thought you looked beautiful and i still think so. you did look sad though. and i realize i am still very sad inside. sometimes i will talk out loud to myself, pretend we're still talking. but i'm just by myself. most lights here are yellow and soon i'll crawl into my backseat bed and think about you because it distracts me from my fears and leads me into sleep. i'll miss you. clutching my knife. being scared.

i'd like to justify all this and say i would have killed myself had i stayed. but the truth i know deep down is that i wouldn't have. i would have just stagnated and been miserable. but that's close enough to self-destruction. isn't it.

the airplanes coming down to land overhead wake me from my nap. sleeping in a parking lot.

at times i am desparing. what is happening? i try to take a more existential perspective. i'm glad for all of it. i've found a different way of surviving, in order to truly survive. my appreciations for simpler things has grown. before, i tried to appreciate them as best i could, but now, having nothing makes me appreciate everything. no home makes me appreciate a home. having no friends around makes me appreciate the friends i do have. the ones i know care for me. having no job. no shower or food source or sense of safety. a bed. a room. at least i have music. and cigarettes.

painted my nails today. trying to look more presentable. i can honestly say now, that going somewhere else won't alleviate the subtly overwhelming ache within me. it is different, this pain, but in no way easier. different in the sense that i am far from the cause of pain, but due to the fact that i let love absorb me so substantially, i now have to carry it with me everywhere i go. and i don't know when that won't be the case. i can be nowhere. i have nowhere to be sound. it seems easier to not be in that city, but where am i now. nowhere. not a place in this world that i want to be. i'm just wandering, not assuming that constant movement will blow away all this sadness, just realizing that i have nothing to sooth me. so why wallow in such a sickening comfortable city. the memories are solid now, during the day at least. night is altering. but they are still more sweet than bitter. the only way i can think to explain the relationship now, how i feel in this instance, is through this:

:what a beautiful face i have found in this place that is circling all round the sun. what a beautiful dream i could flash on the screen in the blink of an eye and be gone from me. soft and sweet. let me hold it close and keep it here with me. and one day we will die and our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea. but for now we are young. let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see. love to be in the arms of all i'm keeping here with me. what a curious life we have found here tonight. there is music that sounds from the street. there are lights in the clouds and there's ghosts all around. hear a voice as it's rolling and ringing through me. soft and sweet. how the notes all bend and reach above the trees. now i remember you. how i would push my fingers through your mouth to make those muscles move and make your voice so smooth and sweet. but now we keep where we don't know. all secrets sleep in winter clothes. with one you loved so long ago. now we don't even know

what a beautiful face i have found in this place that is circling all round the sun. and when we meet on a cloud i'll be laughing out loud. i'll be laughing at everyone i see.
can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all.:


oh i'm scared of the middle place between life and nowhere.
i don't want to be the one left in there.


found the coast. the ocean is a magnificant thing. so beautiful and forboading. i am scared to death of it. and it's birds. there are little spiders crawling up my leg, plastic jewelery, fake flowers, pants, a wheel barrow, a blue converse. so much debris from the storm. every inch along the coast is mangled and devistated. or simply gone. there will be a resaurant sign and no building. everything is wrapped around itself. just empty skeletal structures. the land is delapidated. in ruins. and the beaches are closed. i happened to find a little spot where other people where parked on the beach, so here i am, sitting next to the dirty ocean. randomly tree trunks and poles wrapped in plastic stick out of the water. seagulls resting upon them. giant nonsense machines sift through the sand, inch by inch, ridding it of trash. sometimes children run around on the giant piles of clean white sand the machines leave behind. people walk around with nets. looking for things of value i suppose. it doesn't even look like a beach anymore. at least for now. i'm staring at the gulf of mexico. i want to go to mexico. deep into it. and if this city were me, and mexico my deeper parts, i may be in the right place.


Don't Tell Me I'm Safe.

there are such things as ghosts
i hear them when they are not speaking
i have seen them
crawling up my chest
while i sleep
they visit me in dreams
and when i scream they dive
into my mouth
night after night and i am afraid of sleeping now
underneath my fingernails
they live there
tried to bite my hands off
but in my stomach they have made a nest
they dig into me for comfort
in the cracks of my skin
seeping into pores creating infections
i cannot manage
and i know there is nothing i can do

please get out now.



his song was a prophecy when i left, and i knew it was. but like i often do in life, i wanted to find things out for myself. the present realization makes it so much more painful. at least i had something to look forward to for a few days. at least i could tell myself that if i were far enough away i might feel better. and i knew this wouldn't instantly solve anything, and for all intents and purposes, i'm much worse off for now. but tonight was the first breakdown of many in a place far away from everything i know. everyone i knew. and i couldn't tell you where i am now, psycologically i have no idea. i sit alone and howl and scream to be released. [yelling at no one. punching snow.] and i already know what will happen. that i won't truly be mended. that i will live like this for some time. and yes, i am disappointed in this. i am as destroyed as this city. and it will be a long time before either of us are livable again. and neither of us will ever be what we once were. the question is, can we be more glorious.


it seems now this song rings truer than anything else ever has.


:i had my hopes of how i would be after living in exile
after closing your eyes to me
i even wrote scenes where i re-emerged boldly bearded alive
with eskimo eyes
new baby on my back
but i didn't count the fact that i have ghosts in my mind
still away
great ghosts of my life
great ghosts of old wives
and they're howling

so i spend my wilderness time rolling on the ground
pulling my hair and wrestling them off
yelling at no one
punching snow
i gathered ghosts and i gave them my lecture
bid them away
i pleaded and cried
there's no room in my life for you
or your howling
let me undo these ropes and go on living without you
not just change where i live
go on get, i said

i had my hopes of how i would be after sending them off
after getting set free
but there's no such thing as living
without their prowling
as you can see having descended the hill
i still look like me
i still wallow like filth
and forever will
i'm teeming with ghosts and i'm still whining for wives
knitting my brow
but now i've surrendered
in fact i've joined in
you can hear us howling:




there's a woman at the beach, what's left of what used to be a beach. she sits on the wreckage of a pier, really just a pile of cement, with her cat. resting comfortably in her arms. safe in her arms. and i have a feeling this cat feels that sense of safty, knowing only she could bare it.

occasionally the seagulls sworm me. hovering only a few feet above my head by the dozens, like all these desperate, hungry thoughts. i wish they would go away, and i say to them :get out. i don't like you: which is a silly, simple thing to say. but they just land next to me, watching my every move. i glance back periodically, making sure they aren't getting any bright ideas.

sometimes old men pull up in cadillacs and throw pieces of bread into the sky. the bread never comes down. there birds are greedy, nosey, pocket-pickers. they should all get jobs.

i threw the piece of stale bread out my car door, which i quickly shut. knowing exactly what would happen. and i watched the gulls instantly flock to it. hundreds devouring the bread before it even hit the ground. then staring at me, waiting for more.



my workers

i watch them rebuild the city
many hired hands making better
why not for me too mouths to say
when i ask other faces

(my face a broken mess through tears
all the pitiful questions with answers
i need to know
for living's sake.
i am only human.)

am i pretty.
they would say yes,
you are pretty
and i would say
do you love me
yes,
yes we love you.


i'd like to stop smoking, but now it seems like all i have.
the lazy-eyed man in the corner. i think he's staring at me.
girl putting ketchup on grits. i don't like grits.
only when i'm starving.


it lives a lot farther than i thought. and i have no idea how to get where i am going. so the days melt together, into streams of forced and desperate activities. i hope i'm getting somewhere. he was very angry when he found out wasn't dead. he was glad and voiced sounds of concern i didn't ask for. actually i owe him money, which was the main concern. dead people don't pay you back. dead people don't hurt you anymore. but there's no one for me to kill. and i love a liar. a million miles away and counting, but that doesn't mean a thing. doesn't make any difference. things got bad pretty quickly, getting worse. so i hope she gets here soon. because it's too quiet outside. and too loud in my head. and sometimes it's such a combination of both i think i might go crazy. it may rain tonight. sounds to keep me company while i stare at that flashing red sign for hours, with my thoughts and one good eye. until i've fogged up the windows with my breath. a red haze behind the glass now. i keep looking at my watch like i need to be somewhere. and i smoke like it's the only thing sustaining me. the air sticks to my skin here. and leaves me feeling heavier than when i came. but my clothes are falling off. my hands hot. and my feet black from barefoot. that isn't safe. i forget to lock the door today. but i wear the one sock of yours i inadvertantly brought along. and it comforts me slightly. i watch the planes landing. they come down from the sky right above my head. it seems i could grab them, if i raised my hand high enough. everyone is coming home to their hotelrooms. and i come home to my car. the night is here again, and like i said, the days melt together. tomorrow is somehow thursday. almost a week i have been gone. so the planes come down, and i watch their lights up close for the first time. it is cloudy, but the moon is still visible behind them, as the planes loudly drift by. and i feel the pain growing inside me like a child. i will raise it into adulthood. watch it make something of itself.



she speaks of salvation.

:have you heard about that cheeyup
the one they put in yah, so they know where yare
they c'n see yah everhwhere
and you know whadt's for
it's cause the antichrist is comin
and jesus don't want you to put that cheeyup in yer heyad
they cut yer head off
and yah die
but jesus's comin een the end
to save you
i'm suprised more people don't know:



[malt liquor and me in the backseat smoking and thinking about knowing other people]



breastmilk

befriending my ghosts
they aren't a bad presence
i don't resent, i try not to
but they change with the day
sometimes loving me
with an honest love
offering themselves up and
then tearing me to pieces
without hesitation i am bombarded
with imaginary baseball bats
and what can i say
when i let them inside
made a bed for them
and another for myself to sleep
in the backseat of my car
in a foreign city full of strangers
but these ghosts came along too
like i knew they would
and what can i say
we made them together like children
and taught them how to love
i'd like to give you all the custody
and everything else they have to offer
but they cling to us both
like hungry babies
you're a terrible father
and i'm all out of breast milk.

so just like that all has changed
except these ghosts
even my body, bones showing now
where they didn't before
even though i knew they were there
the skin that held me together
when i left has been replaced
eyes see newness and nothing familiar
except these ghosts
time is all i wait for anywhere
to understand its structure
and its frustrations
hope seems like such a sham
a pointless craving
an ignorant confusion

that night i dreamt we had a child,
all of the sudden
a bady and breastmilk completed me
with a biological emotional need
i nursed and loved a tiny body
and felt such happiness for having something
to care for again
and someone to love me
without question


getting off getting easy

anguished life is everywhere
i see it barely breathing under sickly skin
and thinning, greasy hair
fat unhealthy hands with cracking joints
red and brown blotchey skin
makes me want to wash you body
all the parts you forgot existed
the ones you haven't seen in years
sweet man.
and family father closes eyes
through all the screaming mothers
slapping children playing
shut up
thumbs upon the temples
babies beaten quietly crying under tables
and the father slowly closes his eyes
for hours
to think of different living
other people possibilities
tells himself he's happy
looking up, seeing truth attempting
puts an arm around his wife
rubs her back and wants to choke her
looking into never-ending angry eyes



+
revisions have been made.
i'll keep cutting until there are only three words left to say.
+



billy henton

you my daughdah
his fingernails painted red
we got dah same hands he says you my daughter
we all cherokee
and so's you
where's your boyfren, he workin
my daughter sarah
i paint my nails to keep dah dirt ow
my daughter looks just like my mama
she's five foot six
and i'm named after two white women
who worked my daddy to death
then they named him
in southwest mississippi
how long you been here
ress bedeh phaugh bowzah
my daughter sarah
she'll be here in bout a hour
spoken through a beard full of foamy saliva
you look like all my daughdahs
you're a cute lil devil
and i say all my daughter's is cute
and you say billy, you cute
how old are yah
look like you's twelve
let me get a quawdah
let's listen to some music.



Ugly Woman in Waiting.

time is the wretched redheaded devil
who takes me out to dinner
so that i can watch him feast
the green eyed monster songbird
singing me into sleep
creating all the nightmares
and sifting through the fibers
of my every waking moment
while i'm waiting
pulling out my teeth
boiling up my blood
hardening my skin
he smells like sulfer
he tastes of ash and fingertips
makes the dissonent melodies
in the background of my thoughts
he chews my organs
leaves me hungry, broken
and alone.



writing revising rebuilding is waring me thin. doing nothing with my days but this. considerations and becoming something better. appearing like such nothingness.
this sense of absence is ovewhelming. my mind is a universe no one will ever see.
there are places we can't give to anyone, even when desire is there. and places we shouldn't give to anyone. i wish i had known this. or at least, recognized the lack of appreciation. i'm realizing what disappointment truly is. to be let down and not just once, but to continually be let down, by myself as well. trying harder everyday until i'm full of desperation. it's unbelievable the things i did. it's so stupidly beautiful. and i wonder where the line is.

last night i couldn't sleep. so i cut all my hair off.

where we go from here is the most important part.
the decision made now are dire.