i ate a can of beans, only to realize later that they had expired exactly four years ago this month. but what does that even mean, really. i stared at the empty bowl for a time. then decided not to think anything of it. tonight i work. it's my second day. as we closed up on the first day of my employment i asked another worker if we were permitted to buy a beer from the restaurant and drink it as we cleaned the place up. she paused and eyeballed me. and after a few seconds flatly said, "no." it seemed like a pretty reasonable question to me, but the judgments had poured from her eyes, and i knew that she thought i was a lush. well shit. i can't seem to remember how to make friends anymore.

apologies for all the shitty writing. i've been drinking a bit less, so it might improve. in the sense that i won't drunkenly plop down in front of this computer and start typing. it always seems like such a good idea at the time. i guess i have more to think about than write about. to compensate for this i've been making lots of collages. many nude ladies from the 50's. which strikes me as pretty scandalous for the time. i've started making story boards instead of lists, for the things i have to do. today i felt french. i have no money for cigarettes. i like neutral milk hotel a lot. my job is a terror. the amount i talk to myself is at a record high. i don't know what i expected. well, actually i think i did expect this. fancy that. wow, i can't believe you just read that.

it never feels as good as it did when i made it up in my head.
what feeds me now?
there's a worm on the ground
but i'm out of cigarettes
and i can't have one without the other
i can't drink stably without you

there's a run in my tights
and i can't drink courageously without you
it's all haunted and pitiful
it's the one without the other
and pointless taxing tribulations
i can't drink righteously without

all the daydreamed thoughts
about wantings and being wanted
and wanton thoughts about
someone who might care for me so much

and this is the body you dress in the daytime
taking showers and cleansing
i take so much delight in
a communion
jesus said it once
a feast of the assumption
that i might not have to wake up on the floor
alone and despondently careless
about everything i ever thought might take delight in me
i think about these things
more than i'd like to let on
i'm nothing new under the sun
i'm the sad drunken chain smoker
who dreams more often than she lives

from what i can tell
the rain can't even take delight in me
and the snow tries its hardest
to pull me under

i used to like to be reminded.

the epsom salts late night soaking now
and nostalgia paves over pastways
the old cobblestones treks
of these poor burnt out synapses
their buggies and rickshaws
their familiar and deceptive scenery
i don't remember what anything was really like
this is an ingrained path
sometimes seems too hard to tear it all up
cave into the up coming times
these poor burnt out synapses
i forget your all closed off
with your muddy streets
because it's always raining down there.
let's have a bypass
a four lane major highway
serious rerouting
i could cut the red ribbon
with novelty sized gold scissors
raise a toast to the new age
a new found raison d'etre
build a monument
over the tyrannical ways of was


+++


the neighbors
eating meat everyday paunched naked bellies
with their big dog barking named buster
daily spats through run down
artificially brick
walls
someone to slap around
he probably makes her feel like a woman
she probably makes him feel a man
they laugh at chinese babies
together. they live
they are together, know eachother
as much as.

i like to listen to them
from the other side of the chain-linked fence
ten yards
in my red shoes
my nails are red
my tongue is red
my throat and stomach red.
i smoke and listen to the neighbors
as they live
together.


+++


just a warning

if life is progression
the next one will be better
four walls for me and hardwood floors
a tiny bed, a long bath, deep tub
i'll bake bread for me, beat eggs
and eat them
i won't feel so guilty
over laying under windows
and watching breezes blow the blinds

gently
drinking too much alone
in one room for hours
and who's to say
you couldn't come and visit in the summer
not my finest season
after autumn winter and spring
have left me so alone for longer hours
i'll need the company
but won't ask for it.
just a warning
my control sleeps with my solitude
like worms hide in the dirt
i'm not a seeker anymore
it's too dangerous
if you can be good to me

who said that i was kidding? i don't kid. more on that later..

under eye bags begin and multiply
sleep deprived documentaries about
the sister wives of polygamy sleeping
while their husbands touch their children
yeah your a murderer
plugging away
it's a wicked world i don't want
a middle class bitch making
problems for myself
so life is more interesting
am i really? you don't even know anymore.

dream i'm driving through floods
with lanky black men
maybe you'll make me happy
but remembering truth isn't nearly as exciting
as initially discovering it
so easily displaced
snubbed

that reflection makes me sad
those words aren't mine
and i miss to be nowhere
good has come from company
but when we're there i'm not really
now really losing
not excited
no dreams
i want nothing
the question now is
what has really happened here
where has life gone to
it's a cold world and i hate it here
i need something to cling to
keep me warmer

pray for me today. even if you don't, just try and fake it. a senseless state of self hate is solidifying inside of me. and i don't want to talk anymore. it's not my fault it's all my fault. at night the kids come in to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. with them they bring their sense of infallibility. and they act so infinite. i sit and watch, smoking endlessly and silently beseeching any higher cause to let me feel that way again. but it's true i've been dying for years, and more so now than ever i believe it. and i'm not really living. it seems that what i see in myself isn't there at all and every cell and fiber is simply stagnating. congealing slowly into the thick milky blemish that has come to be recognized as me. and i don't even see anymore, correctly. i don't remember visions. my breasts are rotting off, and i sit in the tub feeling for the tumors. there are lumps that won't go away like i've so kindly asked them to. i think of eating healthier foods, which turns into simply just not eating. the veins develop on my legs, and remind me of my mother. it doesn't matter how much your parents love you, they can't cure your lungs of cancer. or your epiglottis. and they'll tell you that you're fine. there's no hope. it's a vicious cycle of fear and antifear. they ending result of any self diagnosis is that i'm going to die soon, so i'd better just enjoy myself. everyone dies. i don't fear death. i'm terrified. the worst disease i've ever had is own mind. and i pray to god to help me be better than i am. to fix me. to save me from myself. i'd like to be so sturdy. but i'm not. and now i keep my fears and hatred silent and only to myself. because no one wants to hear anymore sad stories. and i don't want to tell them. and no one can cure you of yourself.

just give me a second. i swear this won't take forever.