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.