{no.}

the way your mouth folds
when you say no
is so secretly enticing

the drunks meander
they plod down town
up the street stumbling.
i can't tell if it's endearing
but i know i like it.

i remember names.
and i have visions.
alcohol eventually makes you
lean across the bar
{in subconscious desperations maybe}
or slide under.

i love the handsome men.
i'd like to be their friends
and see their naked backs.
but i'm too shy to whistle
and too afraid to strip.

when they're drunk
their lips are swollen
necks hang
sophistication is a constant challenge.

the way a face is put together,
all the facets gathering
never ceases to enchant me.

let's be ghosts together
because of my mind supposedly
i seek in soulmates
and i'd like you to know who i am
and all that i stand for.
you won't meet anyone
who loves like me.

i'm a drunk when i can't love.
because i need something
to be dedicated to.

and for some strange reason
that brings me hope.

{dastard.}

i'm the man who looks in the mirror
and forgets what he has seen
maintaining the heavy task of daily redefinition
but there is the undertone
of a certain single self surviving
like the dwindling embers of specific existence
most days i don't feel much like making things matter
especially that and after
spending so much time trying for nothing
my realizations are just passing thoughts
epiphanies, petty.
the truth of the matter always escapes me
or eludes me
samething.
eitherway
if i could grab a hold of it
i'd probably just let go anyway
these are the heavy days
these are dastardly days
and lately i'm just another sucker for them

{i hate this.}

that pretty much sums it up.





{drawing from:explodingdog.com}

{yerr-ah girl-drink-drunk.}

i understand that everyone is crazy in their own respect. and i appreciate that for what it is. pause. i should really just leave it at that. but i'd like to add that there are some things people do that completely leave me speechless. just. speechless. and i'm sure i elicit the same emotion in others. but man. MAN. i don't get so many things. seriously. there are so many things i don't get. how many different ways can i write that. in order to get the point across better. oh boy. like marriage. say it in your head once. now say it aloud. marriage. people love getting married, thinking about getting married. planning weddings. buying dresses. how many ladies do i know who peruse the wedding magazines in the check out isle. and i know there's nothing wrong with that... i'm excited to see all the people i grew up with getting married. i'd like to thank them all in advance. for providing me with massive quantities of alcohol. you can bet your bottom dollar i will be at the most spectacular day of your life. to shake your hand. and take over the bar. one of my most satisfying memories involves a wedding i attended two summers ago. at that point in my life i was looking really good. i'd been sad a while, and on account of it was very slim. so i went to this wedding on a hot july day, and found the bar was serving wine. a decent wine at that. except they were handing it out in these shot sized plastic cups. i had three or four, and then decided the portions were ridiculous, so i asked to be upped to the pint glass. three or four of those later. i felt the need to simply ask for the bottle. in the midst of casually snatching it, while the bartender wasn't looking (or maybe he just let this happen) a wonderful thing occurred. the dj, who had been sucking it up all night, as they tend to do, made a marvelous decision, possible sparked by some cosmic... thing, to put the song "danging queen" on. at thing point, a large portion of the crowd had left. and the dance floor was empty. with the exception of myself. dancing the night away. clinging closely to my bottle. it was one of the most glorious things that have ever happened. the end.


also:

au revoir, les enfants. do yourself a favour and watch it. it's good. and i'm a sucker for anything french.

{Eiszapfen.}

the rats get cold and come inside. i sleep in my coat. and there's ice on the sheets, frozen to the wall. we are all waiting. for summer. sleeping naked, i don't care to put on clothes and venture out into the wilderness. so smoking out my window, leaning out as far as possible in a bathrobe, i watch the cold from comfort. attaining just enough of its bitterness, so that i'm filled with thoughts. the chain link fence in front of me is frozen, laden with murderous icicles. the kind that kill. and trees crack, brittle in the breezes. seemingly intentionally. i blow smoke hard away. to not let it enter my house. i smoke furiously and emotionally. closing window i collapse on sheets and pillow. thinking i'll fall right into dreaming. the negative image of a metal fence is ingrained behind my eyelids. gradually abstracting and sinking in on itself, i slide right in. like living in a kaleidoscope. folding in while duplicating. i softly chew my tongue. and open my eyes. i know i won't sleep yet.

{drivel.}

i'm hungry. don't feel like eating. cheese sandwich. most nights i sit in my car and listen to good songs i like that make me lonely. i'm lonely. and hungry. not the kind of lonely i used to be. different this time. i think too much. i'm just a person being human. driving down that hill making myself cry. listening to old love songs. swooning. i don't think i'll eat for several days. it's just something i have to do. don't tell me anything about it. i don't want to hear it. and i won't take any heed. time is standing still for us. the things you say always captivate me. but i try to grow new skins. harder steel and armor. let nothing pass through me. let nothing take me over. except sleep and death. not even sleep. i can deny anything i want. i can control anything i like. because i am so weak, and my compulsions are all i have. my addictions are all i have here. at this time.

it's exciting when separated from the context of my own life. it's part of the memoir i have yet to write. it's already being written. but i still try to absorb the moments i find myself living. knowing i'll miss them later. i always do.

{willow trees and codeine.}

i like the truth. i like it when it's hard to take. the truth i know presently, and have know for some time, is that cheap red wine will fuck anyone up. i laugh at people who drink wine like juice. like it's kool-aid. wine will hand your ass to you at night, and your brains come morning. and cheap red wine will make you realize that because of your poverty, tomorrow isn't just another day, it's the day of your crucifixion. it's the poor man's burden. you can't bounce back.

i just ate some pasta, about eighteen green olives, and a teaspoon of codeine "elixir". i'm forcing myself into sleep. and if i die tonight, let it be known, i want no funeral. just to be buried underneath that willow tree on conneaut avenue. i know it's someone's front yard, but that tree and i had a moment once. it was four in the morning and raining, and i'd lost both my shoes somehow. we held each other and wept. i couldn't begin to tell you the circumstances that led to that point. i just know that we'd loved each other, as i've taken to loving inanimate objects. finding it to be emotionally safer.

this is some life to be living. i've been told to live it like a cancer patient. there are many people i have loved. who don't call. or who i've never told i love them. all the things we'd like to say, "so what oh well," to. but as far as i can tell, this is fucking all there is. so i'd better make the best of it.

{acidophilus.}

pulling my glasses off to rub my eyes in frustration. i remember i put makeup on today. i don't know why. i just feel like it sometimes. like painting my face. the notion is so strange to me that i enjoy it. and often wonder who's idea it was to add colour to particular places.

how many times have i walked down that hill and taken my clothes off in sub zero weather. calling out to no one and crying to myself i'm asking for help. not to anyone in particular. and had someone walked past and offered to lend a hand or call the police, i would probably freak out and start running. apologizing profusely as i sped off. the whiskey has found me again. and on my walk home, listening to music that i know pleases, i wrote your name in the untouched snow with my shuffling feet. i stepped back to admire my handiwork. later down the street i spelled an abbreviation of my own name. which also pleased me. and the entire way back i drew curly-ques in at least fifteen stranger's front yards. it was delightful. but now i'm home, and have recently eaten another tuna melt and some acidophilus. which is good for your intestines. i've been perpetually nauseated. which makes me think i am terminally ill. and have been attempting to take my thoughts captive a bit better. sometimes when i go to sleep i dream about how i might kill myself, and how beautiful it would be, aesthetically speaking. or i think of the day i'll end up in the state home, and wonder who will visit me. i don't know why i dwell on such things. but i do believe these thoughts depress me, so i'm trying to avoid them. i'm going to take a bath now. as this is part of my pre-sleep routine. tomorrow i'll wake and forget that i drank the night before. but will remember that a handsome man referred to me as "cool." and i don't see why i should care. just leave me alone.

{anything you say, baby.}

okay. this is what it all boils down to. i feel anxious. and very. very. cold. someone come visit me. but let me warn you, it's relentlessly frigid here, however, my warm heart and spirits will compensate. that and all the booze.

while driving dangerously down a snow covered road the other day, lacking the ability to see clearly out my windshield, and almost running over some strange man who thought it was a smart idea to walk in the middle of the road instead of on the sidewalk, i made a pact with myself to avoid public whiskey drinking at all cost. you see, whiskey and i are like abusive lovers. i get angry sometimes and start pounding down shots, and before you know it i'm drawing pictures of accordions and giving them to people i think might become my friends. this is why i don't make friends.

so i'm walking home and singing whatever song is playing on my headphones, thinking about how all the expensive yards i'm passing look nice when covered in lots of fresh snow. they look good enough to take a nap in. so i lie down in someone's well groomed lawn, and watch the clouds overhead gently float past the tops of trees. it's the loveliest thing i've seen in a long time. i hum along to the music, and puff away at my cigarette, which is starting to make me nauseated. standing up, i toss the smoke, and head home.

the next day i experience no hang over. i am never ever hung over, which is nice, but it also enables me to be a drunk more often than i could ever want. oh well. the moral of the story is that whiskey and i beat the shit out of each other, and in the end whiskey always wins. when i go to the bar, whiskey always seems to whisper in my left ear, "baby, you know i only hit you cuz i love you." and i inevitably drink more of it. more accordions are drawn. less friends made. i know that vodka really loves me. much more than whiskey ever could. but when we were together, vodka and i, it got old after a while. the relationship became bland, and i was always spending so much money on it, and vodka never even batted one beautiful green olive. but i know that it loves me more than words could ever explain. even more than red wine. who's bitter, cynical, yet warm qualities, always brought out the most romantic side of me. but after a time it was all just about sex, and i began felt so cheap. i don't know. and don't even get me started on beer. talk about sloppy disasters. and it made me feel bloated for days.

i'm going to the bar now, with my heart set on telling vodka that i want to get back together. but i know the moment i enter the door whiskey will be there eyeballing me. offering to warm my insides. and i will inevitably give in to its sharp, biting passion.

{yeah. i'm watching. and you don't know my name.}

is that unfortunate
will i ever find the ones to live with.
why am i talking to myself.
all the time. and writing
things about how i'm
fucked up or something.
silly. that's stupid.
i don't play games.
and i don't
mingle.

{weird among the weird. drunk among the drunk.}

you just ain't right.
and you can't stop drinking.
why do you say that

like it's a bad thing.

they almost made me cry today.
almost broke down.
but right now i'm thinking about boys and booze.
efficient alcoholic.

i love my life
stop kidding yourself.
at the bar
i sit in front
of my own beautiful ocean
it beckons in Burgundy
it calls to me in thick copper coloured liquids.
and the blood in these veins flows clear
and inebriates those who drink it.
no one ever has.

along this sweet shoreline
find me bobbing on the surface
some times drowning
on dry land
but always basking.

even when it pulls me under
and kicks me in the teeth
until i'm screaming.

{you know who you are.}

you had better keep writing.
or i'm going to find you.
and beat your ass...

{truly.}

at night i lie in a grey scale room looking to the left, out a window. on my back, i listen to headphones. eyes open i imagine my beautiful brothers dancing under aphotic, murky water laughing. while milky streams of light course across their taut young bodies. so full of little fleshy facets.

i fall asleep and dream. i am watching a family of whales swim across the sky, subtly aglow with shades of orange and pink and turquoise. i am lying in an endless marshland, very sparsely vegetated. somnolently floating on my back. and the whales moan a mournful harmonious tune as they drift towards the west with the seagulls. several stars present themselves in the great expanse.

sometimes i go home and rub my father's feet. he is a tired man. i clip his nails and sooth his calloused hands with lotion. with fingertips i massage his temples. my palms lie flat against the parietal bones of his skull. and my fingers gradually make their way along the temporal plates. soon enough he is sleeping, and i admire the manner in which the sun has broken down his face. his eyelids puffy, wrinkled. and underneath them remains the china blue.

i imagine myself older. going grey, my skin losing hold of the bones. i lie down with my mother. put my right arm around her, and say nonsensical, whimsical things to her, until she says that she is tired. we are wrapped in down blankets. she smells like her own skin, and i remember being very small, smelling her slips when i missed her. the shade of her lipstick.

i picture my parents underwater dancing and kissing each other. their bodies are old, scarred, and filled out. they are dancing underwater.


at night sometimes i pray for myself. not to be so disenchanted. not to be so sour. i begin to understand the biology behind family. the desire for it. and why not create something that loves you back. beyond biology. when they are gone. when i leave them. and every day will be like having hands in boiling water. i'd like not to be so disillusioned. don't let me stop writing. because during the dissatisfaction of days a fool sometimes sits outside embarking on specific delinquent thought patterns. sparked by unsubstantiated feelings of loss. and allowing the presumed bad deck of dirty cards to be taken in gusts gradually. timely winds devour. one by one, or handfuls, all the same. and the witness stares passively ungratified. at times, frustrations well up right behind the eyes, as they dance like unaffected leaves down the red brick roads. and pining, i do nothing. seeking the still and quiet voice, i do nothing. and so at night i lie in the bed i've made for begging saying please. don't let me die of nothing.

{family ties.}

I made
you
and I
can destroy
you

{drinking harder in our own personal dimensions.}

self placement
there you go.
skinny somewhere town.
you've got that grin again
a snide sideways smirk.
like you know something i don't
like the ghost of true alcoholism
has transcended up on you.
your cranium tilts forward
and you look at me
from the tops of your eyeballs.
i can almost see a sliver
of your off-white set of teeth
slipping though your upturned lips
when you smile like that
i know that you could watch me die
and get over it.
i know
that really
we are strangers.

and in the dismal dingy here
i can smell your breath
in my left ear
come crashing down
on the tender kidneys within.


i start to think-
on average-
how unfortunate are we really-
as individuals.
and how does time impact decisions.
or desire.
trying. swaying hips and pointing fingers
to and at the rhythm of the world

i fold.


(+)


{good form.}

the beauty of secrets is silence.
but i
can't ever
seem to keep mine.
they form delightful fortitude
in the
forefront of my
brain
lying comfortably shallow for a time.
gradually they force their
way up
into the crust
of my mind.
make a home of my eye sockets
i see nothing else.
and my tongue
becomes their doormat.

{Gewölk. Geister.}

clouds. ghosts.

in the air coasting
like a jet engine sometimes
crashing like a jet engine smoking
there is a constant mechanical failure
noticed and disregarded
circling amongst the clouds
and always over the thick ocean
which is continually calling
sitting pretty and deadly desirable
sometimes she comes down
but rarely. anymore.
only when she allows herself the plummet.
most days surrounding smoking clouds
floating passionately and misunderstood
she looks upon her loved ones
down and always over wanting.
grieved that they might be so distant.
accepting painful satisfaction
that at least they are there.
in some ways.
but never all.
nor could they be.

ocean. ghosts.

in the water treading
like drift wood sometimes
sinking silently so water logged
there are the every day attempts to stay afloat
going limp and giving up.
letting the gulls have their fill
or falling deep into muffled quiet water
turning into seafoam or salt
being devoured by the beasts
sometimes she goes down
but rarely. anymore.
only she controls the darkest dives
and most days being drift wood
choosing battles and where her heart goes
she reaches for her loved ones
eyes up with arms and desperation
mourning the faces she cannot touch
with her hands weeping
into water daily
she gives the sea its salt
a body
and a name

trees. ghosts.

in the bark basking
while gentle breezes from the sea
sweetly blow into these little leaves
made for gathering the salts
to crystallize for consumption and sustenance
planted firmly in the land
overlooking the ocean
and the vast sky above
taking care and bringing back
sometimes she calls to them
more often. than before.
there is a righteousness in her roots
and the rich soil sustains her
so she can stabilize the rest
but without the water there is no growth
and with no sky no messenger
she turns patiently towards her loved ones
and kisses them softly
on the eyelids
she gives them rest
watches them sleep
lets them go.

forever i have only had an audience of one
in mind
who is ever changing, but always and only one
who i'm aloud to pick, and do so choosing
and often times i do so foolishly
either way, i scream in cryptic phraseologies
and if you pick it up, you'll know what i mean
like some kind of cheap shot at my own emotions
always changing
like myself, but always never really
we all have our bags of tricks we wish
to put away from us
sometimes they are given
come as presents
and always unwanted
impossibly unacceptable
so maybe that's why i'm writing this to you
i'm always straight up
cat's feet don't tip toe around
and i will bust up those egg shells
but when it comes to speaking loving
i can't help but try you out
and wonder if you're hearing

now the world is run
on gasoline, blasphemy
and hooded sweatshirts.

everybody out.
i'm warning you.
a halfhearted stickup.
blood flows out like strawberry molasses.
i should be so melted down.
my ashes mixed with rubber
to make bicycle tires.
sprinkled into pancake batter.
i am a holistic remidy
turned into tablets.
take twice daily
before a meal.
or with glass of milk.
call me in two weeks.
we'll see how you're feeling.


+


i've been staring for a while now
at this plastic skeleton of a reindeer
adorned with christmas lights
the mechanical gears in its neck click away
and make its head flop jarringly back and forth
back and forth backandforth
as though it were alive and moving
it almost topples eveytime
i can't think of something more eerie
and recognize myself mimicking the motions
moving my hand to my drink. to my mouth.
sipping. as the ice chimes in a heavy glass.
placing back.
my hand quickly and clumsily falls to lap.
while the other holding cigarette is lifted. to my lips.
and puffs. then ash.
back into the lap.

we aren't much different
this plastic reindeer and i
and how disturbing.
plug me in.
let me go.

it goes. and it goes. always all the time. and i couldn't begin to explain to you what that means. my mother says to me, maybe you're just venting, but you don't seem to like anybody. ohidontknow. i've done it again. that's something i can agree on. and sick of self. every action ever made has led up to this point. where i am right now. all the choices. ever sense of determination. ever passive limp-wristed gesture. and here. drinking up all afraid like fine wine. that's not a metaphor. and it doesn't work. but seems like consuming fears. for an hour. maybe two. thinking about different things. i'm going places. in my head. back to where i was once. or forward to where i'd like to be. one of my biggest secrets is the amount of time i spend pretending. no that's not you, because i said so, you will decidedly be this person, because i said so. you hear. no not lonely. i'm a secret agent. and this is the life i chose. it's cold and hard. but when i was young. and those gypsies came and killed my parents. took away the family farm. i knew, even then, that this would be a solitary life. bad hand those fuckin cards. the only things that cling to me are time and death. i have no control. i lack it completely. don't laugh itsnotsofunny. seriously. i can't. i can't do it. my face is caving in, while i bloat and cringe at the present deterioration of my self, who i once knew so well. when people say, what you see is what you get. i don't think they really mean it. i said it about a month ago (i've been gone about a week) and the moment the words left my lips i knew they weren't true. and i am not a liar. the veins under my tongue have swelled. there are abscesses forming in my sinuses leading through the roof of my mouth. soon i won't be able to talk. my trachea is just a honey comb. easily crushed. ripped out and apart. ulcer. ulcer. ulcer. come on. give it to me. come on come on. i want it now. i don't want it now. that was a lie. i am a liar.

baby's always cryin to be better than she is
reachin out to online fortune tellers
spendin time alone
watchin the weather and waiting
always wanting
seeking out distractions
prayin for them to come callin

she leans out winter's window half naked
wrapped in a blanket

in the snow smokin
she says
we should do this more often
but with someone else
with a pretty mouth
oh my how i'd like that

instead she keeps to crying
barging through the days like maple syrup
that don't stick
she'll just keep thinkin through the hours
about stuff that ain't hers to be havin

i want to live alone
and be consumed
by every one of my self-loathing
self-indulgent whims
secretly succumb to my silent vulnerabilities
become skin and bone
transcend even myself
and not know where to go
no one knowing
but wondering if they do
while i sit in the closet
in the dark
drunk and telling myself i'm beautiful
everyone cares sort of
drink bottle after bottle
until i'm gripping the carpet
trembling with my own deep frustration
and curiosity
making the neighbors wonder
folded over in the bathroom
for hours on end staring into the mirror
watching my hair grow long and unkempt
thinking of everyone i've ever met or loved in my life
and how i don't know them now
and don't know myself
and don't particularly care to
despondent and catatonic
getting dressed
stepping out
into day
and pretending like none of that ever really happened

my face feels long
but i realize it's as round as a moon melon
i like to walk home in the wretched cold weather
while the wind beats my face into burning
everyone is too hung up on the heat
but feeling the cold against me
makes for far too much goodness
i dance down the sidewalk listening to something bells
and almost wishing i had someone to share any sort
of stupid moment with
ain't no thing
has no meaning
it's just a life i'm living alone
while the rest watches sometimes
most times they don't even bother to look
which is fine
everyone i work with thinks i'm half dumb
i say things that only make the sense to me
i get drunk in the tub and talk to myself
i pick up trash and eat from dumpsters
and am okay with all these things
but the moments where my brains goes eighteen different places i wish i had someone to just distract me for a bit
so i could collect myself
and not be so congested with unreal notions of nothing
or write stupid things for people to read
and wish they hadn't wasted so much time on words
not like they had anything better to do
believe me, i know
i'd like to not be so distracted
by my desire for a physical distraction
i can't turn myself off
and escape into my thoughts
so as not to deal with the world as it is
i'd like to make my own, thank you
and out of desperation
for something i can't quite wrap my knuckles around
i bake blueberry muffins
and eat them all at once
wishing i had more than powdered milk
which i'm developing a taste for gradually
when you're broke you'll eat just about anything
when you're alone, you'll take long walks
just the exhaust yourself into the absence of thought
you will take too many baths so that you feel warm
on the outside and not on account of your own heat
you'll lay on the carpet and stare out windows
or into space and question the cosmos
because clearly, things aren't working out for you
ask me how i know
you'll drink too much and ramble confusing topics
into stranger's faces
until they walk away
or threaten to call the police
it only meant something to you anyway
i'm really just talking to hear my own thoughts
because there are so many of them
i can't seem to make any coherent sense anywhere
within my own life
and like i've said so many times over
everyone is trying so hard
and sometimes they aren't even striving
towards a particular end
they are simply in a vicious loop
of their own creation
telling themselves that they are trying
and they don't know where the end is
because they aren't making it for themselves
just waiting on something that doesn't exist
until you breath your own life into it

i miss them more when they leave first
an upper hand against me
never
even the ones i don't know
they hold the heaviest longing
i feel like i could be alive again
or at least myself, who i had never thought of losing

back to the fickleness of nights
everything will die down outside
and within me be so terrifying
changing bad habits
into worse ones
letting the days go
and giving up
my sidewalk on the face, just staring
i'm tired of the baths and thebooze
cigarettes because even if i lost myself
at least that would be something

i don't know you. i don't know what's going on. i only recognize my own familiar ache that has lost its original contact. and the empty, confused nights of substance abuse. i have no idea where i am. idontknowwhatsgoingon.

misplaced inhibitions
a milky muttering fills the space behind
my head, so lost and soft
secretly stark naked in the dark
drinking quickly on accident
eating vertebra
like so many moments
always out of place and shrill
i am getting to the point where
i cannot stand my own processes
or anyone else's
while the flashing lights
make memories i feel are already dead.
can't help it
still shots for wild animals
don't mean much to me
when are we not so wild
it seems everyone is aching to live
prey and capture
i'm not sure what that means actually
for me either, unmemorable
but always aching too
it makes me want god so badly
something to take me
out of dissatisfaction and substance
or to have strip mall babies
or a forest to live in
the dirt will eat me up
all the books will end somewhere
the sounds will stop
and breath forgotten

the differences between this day and that day aren't at all substantial. with the oncoming winter i am slowly saying goodbye to most everyone. but it's always my secret. i watch them from car windows and empty lots as they pass by oblivious. being sick of constantly questioning what the fuck is with you. makes me question myself, and i don't care to do that. not at all. i'll only keep the ones who sit around my table gladly laughing enjoyably eating when i've made a meal for them. we put on french records. and i resent your distaste for eggs. i'm finished. done. i don't have the tolerance within me. quiet stormy eyed sleepiest of sleepers. i'm in it for the long haul. i've got no one to keep well. no one to fill me full of semen. or spill it on someone else's sheets. i don't like the smell of it. a hard head. be quiet, i'm thinking.

at almost three in the morning we are eating turkey with white wine and watching movies. i can see my breath in the room. but we won't turn the heat on. it's a test. and poverty. i like to be challenged, which is why i plan on becoming a farmer next summer. i want to work the land. wake up at five. in the morning. and watch the sun rise. plow and sew seeds. bake bread and eat eggs. become taught and tanned. glisten. that is exactly what i want. in the northeast by the ocean.

you are never forgotten in the night time
as i dizzily drink up the tomatoes
the night is beastly and as much as i
try so very hard to subject myself to drunkenness
it remains night
just as day is day and always inevitably so

i fall asleep to the realities that aren't my own
i take myself somewhere else during consciousness
only to be abruptly brought back by the belligerent bellows
of people i only know for now
and will soon forget these instances in which we corresponded
too bad or something

the fact that everyone is trying too hard
make me want to break my skin
and bones away
from everything that is the world
but where
does one go
to do such things i wonder most times

there is here and now
the pointless ramblings
the handsome men
there is here and now
but these two things are overlooked by all
the fanciful ideas of whatever might be

so everything is irrelevant in the end.
always and forever negating itself
and we're always only trying

the inevitability of my own wet feet. each day molests me secretly. and this world i care nothing for. there is a fine line to live in. between where i am. and the world, but i can't seem to get there. the unimportance of myself. and the vastness too, which only escapes itself, becoming an unsurpassable aloofness. i often wonder why death won't take me now. not to sound so dramatic. but what has man to offer me. what does the earth give. i expect nothing from the world. and desperately try to amputate myself from it. but when that starts to work, i feel a failure. there is no place for me in this world.

it was half and quiet light through the kitchen window. and i sat basking in all the silence life had to offer, while straddling your lap. as we sat on a wooden chair, in our underclothes. the room sparse and dim with the oncoming morning. my head on your left shoulder. absorbing pleasantries, and dark hair. and thoughts of absolutely nothing.

you will grow a man's face. and i will live in the woods delightfully alone. secreting little ditties about nothing in particular. out in the woods with old oaks and maybe some birch too. i always loved birch especially. and willows will surround me, because i have to tell them it's all going to work out just fine. i like the way they mope lazy like, very sad in the wind. with their heads down. and maybe cedar can join us, to make the air smell nice. in a forest for myself. with an accordion, and some assorted amount of other things, all very useful. a year maybe? i don't know how long. some sort of eternity out there. a completely different loving life, to nurture and be nurtured by the sky and cotton ball clouds. i'd like to see a river, or creek, spring. the summer prime, with red sun dresses. always and only red. everyday. a washcloth and some wine. i ride my blue bike into town for cigarettes and oats. perhaps a kitten named kleine fräulien. or "touchknife." olin slaughter will be there. along with rhonda metroux. we will avoid corn at all cost, as it may be a lot smarter than initially given credit. let us see. now. we have the oak, the birch, the willow, the cedar, the creek, the cat, and the accordion. and the assortment of other useful things. very sparse, you have to understand. minimal and pleasant. the birds will be there anyway, so there's no need to invite them. but i do hope that the red-winged black birds get wind of this. and show their pretty faces.

she had to stop. to cleanse herself she soaked in silence. if life were to be made into a math equation. stripped down into theorems and logic.

there really isn't a whole lot to be said. in fact. i don't think i have to say anything at all. i'm very afraid that any audible noise might adulterate my affection. it's a careful stupid game no one knows about. and the idea that there are a vast number of thoughts i keep to myself delights me, and at the same time, makes me wonder what exactly is the point of thinking them. how are these profitable. what is the value in them. when one has thoughts that seem so affectionate, and tender because they are truthful, precious because they are secretive, and worthless because they are irrelevant. i would like to say that nothing bothers me. but what does is my inability to avoid my fruitless thoughts. the daydreams that go nowhere. just fanciful stories i make for myself to keep me wanting more of life. so they are fruitful? where exactly would i be if i didn't have them. probably saved from the world, which i do not like. which, for the most part, i cannot stand. the way it moves around, and the other half that stagnates. please don't stagnate. all my loves are sparrows, and nightingales, mockingbirds and chickadees. all very aloof. paying no real attention to my hands or my eyes. no more than they pay to their own. i'm being arrogant. but i'm frustrated. because i've always had the greatest in mind for the ones i care about. and it doesn't even matter. you get lonely. sometimes you feel better, and other times you don't. i guess it's all a matter of how you look at it.

i made my own bed today. for the first time in years. normally, i make my bed right before i disappear for a while. but today i simply made my bed.

i'm not afraid of death. that is to say, i'm not necessarily concerned about the non-existence of myself. but as of late, the act of dying is consuming me. my body deteriorating, while simultaneously developing lumps and boils. my hair falls out. my teeth come loose. and gradually my breathing ceases to be. i'm everyday eaten away by a sense of impending doom. which sounds so simple. sounds like something someone stupid would fear. but most nights i spend some odd amount of hours reading all i can about disease. about my body. when i walk around i imagine coughing up my own epiglottis. my breasts may be small but that doesn't me they won't rot off. it stresses me to such a degree i end up smoking endlessly. wondering where the cancer will begin. maybe it would take months. or years. to die. i'm not afraid of any plane crash. but cervical cancer sounds so terrifying. i feel myself fighting the world, the flesh and the devil. and i do believe in the last especially because i hear him. right behind my left ear he's always talking. i know that all the horrible notions i have about myself are all seeded in his influence. he's figured out the things that cripple and everything that makes me fall down. he uses them against me. everyday, everyday he does this. and i want to cast out all these thoughts like demons into a fire. be rid of them and watch the trees instead. sometimes i remember that deep within my body is myself. and i feel safe. the solace always comes from singing.

maybe the second time around is better. but everyone tends to forget the important parts. equally, they forget the most simple. i don't recall asking for this. actually. i don't remember asking for anything at all. it was just given to me. hand fed. for whatever reason. we didn't think to use spoons at the time. which i am very grateful for. had we thought of it then, i don't think i would be as delighted by that presence of being as i am now.

during that time i would drive ten miles to a specific cemetery surrounded by nothing but agriculture, trees and a questionable creek that came and went as it pleased. the creek fed a moderately sized chocolate lake. at least it looked like chocolate to me. and several times while living there, i contemplated drinking that water. but it was mostly stagnant, and i couldn't look past that aspect of it. one should never drink from anything that is stagnating. instead i would sit under a strong tree and read william carlos williams, while drinking a forty. i would get drunk and cry over words and thoughts that weren't mine, along with the ones that were. why did william carlos williams have to be dead now. and why weren't the words he'd left me enough to satisfy. i wondered if i too would leave words to someone who would live much later than myself. and i would dread the eventual time that would come in a few hours. when i had to enter the world again. eventually, i would fall asleep. sleep was solid state around that time, but still no solution. and i would wake to the same day, that bore the same quandaries. my mouth dry and sticky.

when i was a child i lived out in the country. about five miles north of town. close enough that at night i could see the dome of light encasing the city. and the myriad of lights, varying in size, shape and colour, that were tossed on the horizon line. seemingly as casually placed as the location of the city itself. i would stare at the town and imagine all the tiny people milling about inside its supposed borders. there had to be thousands of little souls in that tiny place. just living lives. and i wondered what they were thinking. and what they were doing. kind of like when you are lying in the grass, and happen to notice a plane gliding dreamily overhead. for as long as i can remember, i have watched these planes fly by and imagined all the tiny people inside that tiny cylinder. but they aren't tiny at all, just distant. headed somewhere for some reason. and when i'm alone, and it is quiet outside except for the faint sound of jet engines, and this fragile looking ship trailing white smoke is passing me by, i find myself weeping. the notion of it, the sight of it, stirs up some vast and incomprehensible perspective of life. i am a slight speck of time. so tiny. and very very small. i can't help but cry happy tears. over the beautifully and infinitely temporary instances i don't understand.

but because i lived so far from town, and had no neighbors within my age, i formed a deep trust in my imagination, as most children placed in a similar circumstance are forced to do. i played with my brothers. but when i wanted to be alone, i would ride my bike to the cemetery. it was one of the oldest in ohio, i may have just made that up, but it was really old. it was across the cornfield from our house. and after the harvest, one could see portions of it in the distance. i rode my bicycle down the rocky road, where i always assumed older kids would go to have sex and do drugs. i did both of these things in that place later in life. maybe namely because of this childhood assumption. but there were two parts to the cemetery. a hill and a "forest." at least i liked to think it was a forest. and along the southern edge was a slummy trailer park. i was partial to the hill. it was the older portion. and i would sit. and speak with the dead people who lived there. we would watch the sun go down. and despite how dreary the day had been, the sunsets were always wonderful. the sort of beauty one mourns over. as it passes. in fact, the gloomiest days brought about the most luminous sunsets. so the dead and i would sit. and talk. because i felt, they were just as lonely as i was. we would watch the sun go down. and from time to time, the trailer park kids would come around and knock down the tombstones. my mother and i would do our best to restore the damage done. it always made me so sad. that they would do this to my friends. but they didn't know. that we were friends.

knock it off, cut to the quick
all washed up, makes me feel like clean
breaks don't exist
there's no nurse without a patient
that passes understanding
and we write our own prescriptions
for the ailments
whether or not they exist
at this point it doesn't really matter
and no one works the same
so don't be disappointed
or expect correct salvation
it doesn't exist
everyone's a misunderstood liar
a liar nonetheless
misunderstood nonetheless
preoccupied by justification
the oldest fucking joke
next to love

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.

there are certain detrimental things i spend my time doing. these things are what make me a bad person. i don't mean overtly bad. or evil. just secretly and quietly bad. the kind of things that make me feel my life is a complete waste. yesterday i watched a dog eat vomit. at first, upon initially witnessing this, i told the dog to stop. still staring at the little animal gobbling up some other animals regurgitate, at least i think that's what it was, i realized that if this little fellow ate up all that vomit, i wouldn't have to clean the carpet. or feed the dog. so it was settled, and i continued doing whatever it was i was doing. later in the day, this same dog, smaller than a cat, started humping its friend, a very large dog, about the size of a fat goat. or a shetland pony. i told him this other dog was far too big for him, and he should quit while he was ahead. do himself a favour. but he must have been having a good time, because he continued , and had a particular dog elation written on this bland face. sometimes he would try to hard and fall over, but get right back up again and continue where he left off. about the same time this was all happening a swarm of bees surrounded us and we all ran about trying to escape. i still have a bone to pick with those bees. and i told them they were going to pay severely for what they did. i'm going to get a drink now. i'll be right back.

well, i'm tired. time to go to sleep in a strange lady's bed. in her lonely house. it feels very lonesome in this house. just the sense of a sad lady lives here. and you can justify these feelings based upon the set up of the home. and the stupid little poems she has taped to her bathroom mirror.

out of context by now. psychoanalyzing the parts of myself that shouldn't exist anymore. or tampering with thoughts too much, turning them into problems. these city sidewalks so full of every hope ever had. and all the footsteps bring it back. i am slow going these days in such a bad way. self-inflicted lethargy and disappointments are my bed mates, my adulterated conscience. conning the science of good thought. i slowly build glass boxes around happiness. shut it out away from me and turn it into observation. i'm looking in these windows at what i don't know how to touch. now there are no attempts. just something pretty. brings me back to my contrived times. to beg for solutions. a last chance salvation by something human. medications can't stand to be afforded. for two reasons. you're much smarter. much stronger. conclude that i'm a bad memory, and i'll die. decide that i'm as i think i am. can i ever manifest my good. be what i am. the expectation in my head. and not my myriad of false starts. saying what doesn't need to be said. thinking like a washing machine. feeling sorry for it. all the time. cowering inside when in the room. disappointing everyone. letting them down. to be nothing nowhere seems so much nicer than being someone somewhere. having nothing to prove. give me this time to cultivate my worth, and when it's enough, present it. truth be told. i don't love myself because i don't think anyone else does. my self-worth is solely based on others affirmations. a giant anticipater and high expecter. that's right. it's true. the absolute. behind every word is desperation. i speak two separate stupid languages. and perpetually feel like no one's listening. only one heard every word i said. at least i thought so. that one time. i can't smoke my way out of this one. it's all changing, maybe ever, i can't tell too much anymore. and that's okay as long as i know i'm just this person. this one time. i'll try a little harder.


{do you remember that night in context.} i'm not making up shit. and the prettiest skies lie at night in oklahoma. space is much larger there. {can you see the moon that i saw hollow what's the use when i can see right through you.} i drove down the highway almost lacking light pollution. completely. got distracted and listened. let's go find distraction and listen. by ourselves remember. this may just be for me. my way of doing. and sometimes i hate it. how i have to do. {it makes no sense.} to me.


i'm not going down that road. i'm sick of you people. seekers. there's a way to live and a way to exist. both are different things don't forget or be confused. whatever makes you happy. go ahead tell yourself your happy. the way you want it. there's always something you don't really need that you can't let go of and it consumes you more than you'd like to let on. be stupid your heart out. let something stupid suck your heart out. i'm not going down that road. you think i'm jealous? let's all burn out justifying our causes. let's crumble self-deprecating blaming others. why don't we frame our compassionate achievements? how about it, let's compare heartache. who can whine so lovely and more often. who drank to excess during sickness. smoked with more conviction. i don't have time for this anymore. and if i choose to so lightly lend myself, that belongs to me. don't go grabbing for appreciation. i'll do what i do. i don't have time for anything else. having already wasted so much. and you won't really see me anymore. i don't want you to. i'm not ashamed or sorry. it's eating up my time in such a detrimental way. fuck this world's fair. it doesn't mean that i don't love you.

out with it
you win
i'm at your tender mercies now
humiliated and hungry for more
hating selves secretly
with many miles to go
before any so-called final blow
and i'm aching masochistic

filthy-
call me baby

my great misfortune
i'm not good enough
even for myself.
between love and blood
i've always bought my own drinks.

be quiet and good
you're my favourite song
good morning to the bugs
and bicycle rides

southern story.

vicious cycles of stranger awkwardness. the gaunt gas station beard man has been bombarded (after touching my back and kissing my fingers) by the tanned crystal meth queen cadaver. speaking to herself and everyone at once. kissing the rim of her coffee mug she throws her hair and hands back into the air towards the ceiling stretching strangely. only then to be a delicate lamb, sipping quietly daintily on sugar water. with care asking. if the hurricane hit yesterday.

whispers around, i'm pretty don't you think. back straight both hands upon ceramics shakes her head slightly sets the cup down and laughs tossing back a heavy skull, then drops it on the counter. still it shakes from side to side. putting on sunglasses fist on the chin a finger extends to the lip melodramatically thoughtful. and from her mouth comes muttering. eyebrows down to look confused. straightens up again and throws a hand behind her. lights a mentholated cigarette. takes the glasses off, with eyes alarmed and opened widely, her mouth puckers as the distant deep questions excrete from a brain, supposedly. she's asking. about the existence of a so-called "johnny cash."

she looks put together and clean. a pretty little woman with small hands that move with grace when not flailing. scrunches her nose, she is chuckling. to herself and no one else now.

stepping outside she is standing there asking me for bandages. pouring peroxide on her blood soaked foot i ask a name, and am apologizing for the pain as her toes begin to foam and bubble over infection. hesitating looking towards the sky as if she can't remember proclaims her name is "sun" suspiciously then says, what is pain, but a feeling. i say lady i guess.


+++++


loved too much to talk anymore.
this is the last supper
for now i fast
to find a final resting place

of sorts

be at ease
lie down in a new body
a brighter mind

reiterating
i know what now is
and don't enjoy it
in so many words
this is loneliness
self-reliance seems so far from here
justification a joke
and often times the thief of truth
what a cloud
a haze this life is
i see it so clearly
taking place before my eyes
and why is grief
its cause and existence
the daily threats of nothing
in particular
here with simple folk

i feel shame. the kind that comes from just existing.


+++++


suzy after

nothing substantial
just talking
you don't even have to read this
pathetic lamenting over past nothings
a giant glass of gin at the table
next to the phone no one calls
i am nobody's no one
and know they are there
at their parties with their people
laughing and such
even when they've dismissed it
say they hate it
despise that little town
at their parties
with their people
i'm lamentic
that's not a real word
being bitter
wishing i had the gumption
to off myself
knowing i never will
whatahack
why does this seem so never-ending
why am i so impatient
i don't get it
and all its shadowy sadness
i don't even have a drinking buddy
cultivating contrived better times
my eyes close so tightly
my heart aches
there's a dead man
inside this chest cavity
rolling in his grave
over how i'm reacting
he'd be so ashamed
were he still breathing


+++++


they say they don't mean anything
these tornado dreams
i believe them
but am under the impression
that there's more to it than i think
either that
or these thoughts simply make for more


+++++

my great misfortune
i'm not good enough
even for myself.
but between love and blood
i've always bought my own drinks.
give us this day
our daily inadequacies.
my greatest misfortune
yes i know.
i'm not good enough.
even for myself.

one thousand cups of coffee. the dirt is deep in my eyebrows. have i been foolish? the array of diners, motels and bad directions makes me feel more misplaced within such a vast land, filled with so many people. eating from the buffet table where steam is rising from the fried chicken breasts. people pick at them with tongs. i'm no better. what a large world to wander around alone in. wanting to turn to my right and say something to someone. about nothing, the way one speaks to a loved one, someone very close to talk with, about nothing. whatever comes to mind, spouting random thoughts and observations. not bullshit, it's not bullshit. it's the most warm and loving dialogue. simple and open. to be so close to someone else's mind that your mouth harbors no hesitation. simply saying, and knowing everything is accepted. every word considered in a simple way, a gentle manner. even when they aren't cohesive. cognitivity need not exist between true and trusted friendship. that is to say, it is irrelevant due to deeper understanding. here there are only strangers. delightful strangers coming and going, smiling and giving me coffee. but strangers are like masturbation, as sex is to actual friendship. the brain requires social interaction, and these strangers don't provide complete gratification. but i love to watch them eat.

i had just rented an exorbitant amount of film from the local Blockbuster. the change handed back was enough for a pack of smokes, so i plodded through the ridiculous heat, contemplating my addictions, fifty paces to Kmart. while waiting in line to make my purchase, i stared at the woman in front of me. she was older, chewing gum forcefully, herself buying cigarettes. the skin around her mouth failed to efficiently cling to the bone any longer, making her appear much older than she probably was. from behind she could pass for thirty. i watched the folds surrounding her furiously moving mouth, hoping i could quit smoking before this happened to me. the cigarettes were $3.84. camel filters. full flavour.

as i headed for the door, lost in thoughts about nothing particular, i glanced quickly at some children sized bikes on clearance. they were schwinns. pink with white tires. my lack of thought was interrupted by a voice to my left saying, "fun fun!" i quickly turned to address it, saying "huh?" and witnessed an older man, red-headed and freckled, with a red, lemon-sized goiter on his neck. i only looked at him for a moment, as i was confused, and slightly taken aback by his deformation. he said again, "fun-fun!" i had no idea what he was talking about. "yeah." was the only response i could muster. was he speaking of the cigarettes? trying to shame me for being a smoker? maybe he was once a smoker, then he got the goiter, so the comment was the jealous revenge of an embittered, sickly man. was he talking about the bikes? reminiscing over the days of his childhood, when he too owned a pink bike with white tires? was he even talking to me? as i walked through the field of asphalt i contemplated this heavily. was it a sign? an evil prophecy or sarcastic prediction. the vague flashbulb memory of his potato shaped head consumed my thoughts, as i crossed the busy southern street towards home.

and every night before bed, thoughts come back, like a bad dream i had once,
or a really pathetic story i hated so much.


fuck you for all false starts. your backwashed ideas
supposing going nowhere neverletting
while sitting up in dirty rooms drinking expirations
cheap beer
just barely chokingdown for no good reason
i hope you see the joke you're making
the self squabbling moments when you say
i'm just a person justaperson for that and
for that reason
the world is here
there have been heavier hands
brows have been furtherfurrowedfucking shit
how can you call yourself
and i don't care just how you do
at all when you wake up alone and the day is yet another
but seemingly so new

you ruin

again comes the millionth chance
to just
andtojust nothing ever happens
the days wear on and you wear yourself thin in broken shoes
i wonder what you're sorry for i wonder why everynight
when you go home
now
when you've completed so-called productive breathing patterns
for the day
why you do
not how
you sorry
piece of shit
i'm sorry
for the both of us
you are just aperson faking it for real
and just
doing is for nothing
at all
in the whole
you're going nowhere.

Jackson Town.

waiting for the gunshots. keep the money in the icebox. my two companions are woody guthrie and herman hesse. one is made of plastic, the other, paper. before i left again, i was sent a french press and a bag of coffee from a local roaster. using both now, i realize the water wasn't hot enough, but there is a delightful grainy taste that does not upset. the deluxe inn. actually "the" doesn't even exists in the title, simply "deluxe inn." thirty-five dollars. and if i return the key, i get five back. the room smells of rot. stale cigarettes and the cheap cleaners used to try and make it smell like cleanliness. coat ugly aromas. why do people assume clean has a smell. and why is there an association between chemicals with this nonexistent fragrance called cleanliness. the notion of how many people have fucked in this bed makes one neurotic. question secrecy and infidelity. rotten old hairy genitals, with matching bodies excreting personal odors. sweat.

i've made a picnic for myself on the hotel floor. using the bathroom towels, which need never be used against clean skin. the soap smells like old plastic ladies, and i feel sorry for the hands that will use it. a chair has been placed in front of the door and the couch has been moved in front of the window. overlooked by a large mirror, the desk is arranged against a wall, ideal for my needs, but its placement adjacent to the door and window makes me uneasy. so i've set myself up at a range where, if there were shots fired in my direction, i'd be too low to the ground for a direct hit, hence the picnic. the bathroom was considered, as it is farthest from the entrance, but after close examination, its condition is wary. i can almost see the bacteria multiplying. and it had no outlet.

after lying on the bed for a time, it became disturbingly clear that the five foot by three foot horizontal mirror at bed level was not placed just so for the purpose of people looking into it with their clothes on. and left of center on the mirror itself is a large smudge of sorts. i stared at it for some time wondering what part of who's body had created this smear. and why were they here and with whom, never thinking such thoughts are none of my business. maybe because they are only thoughts. so the money's in the icebox, wrapped in a floral handkerchief. the air conditioner is on. and night is decidedly a strange and funny time. nine miles from jackson there was an angry black man yelling at a vending machine. the phone rang and a man with a thick middle eastern accent asked if a wake up call was desired. ten thirty a.m. are you sure? is everything okay? everything is just fine.

a converted house coffee shop. outside, on the porch, tiny fire ants deconstruct a piece of food. the air has thinned, and a fresh wind blows the giant oak. smoking a cigarette, my body wishes to succumb to this deep exhaustion. and the sadness subtly speaking behind it. all the feelings of loneliness and grief that come simply from being alive. i need a newer water.

somebody's in here.
scratch all those plans.
onto phase two
onto phrase infinity
again
everything is changing now
defiantly.

"
i had opinions
that didn't matter
i had a brain
that felt like pancake batter
i got a backyard
with nothing in it
except stick a dog and a box with somethin in it.
"

what now so much
from time to time i still stumbled around
like a drunk looking for what i have
intentionally misplaced

so i don't find it
but its absence makes its presence
that much more obvious
knowing if i found it
i would forget that it was mine

stop distracting me

now the actual drunk calls
i say okay why not
and i do
make
opening eyes wide
with an affectionate disdain
stare down great loneliness
scowling
sitting back and grinningsayingfine

and how vast because of it
the sense of solitary life so powerful
so quiet
the sky is mine
alone

there is some stuff i saw, while in mississippi. the first picture is, without a doubt, the best. i often wonder what crazy things people do when they're alone. or with someone very close to them. just weird stuff, like talking in funny voices, or making ugly faces. just being completely stupid. things they wouldn't ever do in front of other people. these are usually my favourite moments i share with lauren. just being stupid. instances where she is the only person in the world who i know won't judge me. and when she says, "you're crazy." i know she means it. in the best of ways...

(this is reminding me of "schizopolis," steven soderbergh, a movie that must be seen.)

anyway. i will be gone soon.

i don't know these people..

{new orleans.}



















{the washboard incident.}



















{lewis the pirate.}



















{outside the cowboy gay bar.}



















{something about secret agents.}



















{i smoke too much.}



















{river phoenix.}



















{kiddo.}



















{lovely lauren.}



















{?}

"well, megan, i hate to have to tell you this, but we need you moved out by sunday." i wasn't shocked. it seemed like an inevitability. i told him i understood. pointlessly explained the details of my life that had slightly led up to this point. he said he was sorry, and good luck. i stood to go, and for whatever reason, simply started bawling. i sobbed some words to him about how i was very grateful, and i knew they were busy people, kind people, "for christ's sake, you let me come to your easter lunch. i'm sorry. goodbye." i walked down to the piece of shit trailer i so temporarily called home, to call my mother. the church was hiring a new staff member, which meant i got the boot. that and i hadn't been volunteering as much as they would have liked. my mother didn't answer. just as i was attempting to phone her again, knowing she usually doesn't answer because she can't find her phone, lauren step inside. to console me. i tell her the story.

somehow my confused sorrow turned into the two of us trying on my new sundresses, taking pictures of ourselves, and me making some short film upsidedown on the bed, while she brushed her teeth. we discussed how "diarrhea" might not be such a disgusting word, were it not for the meaning. but the word itself is almost pretty, and very fun to say.

so it's homeless again. and i don't even care. i'll be gone in a week. i don't even bother about my job anymore. for the most part i sit in the back room drinking either coffee or chocolate milk, smoking and reading david sedaris, while chaos reighns in the restaurant. lately his stories have kept me alive. or at least in better spirits. the portion of my job i do care about, in the sense that it is the only part of my job that impacts me, is the constant feeling of objectification. when a man slaps your ass to make some sort of masculine point i wish with all my little girl heart that i could vomit on demand. because i would puke in his face. this happened to me the other night, after i spent a half an hour telling this man i didn't want to give him my number, i didn't want to go out with him, i didn't want to have sex with him, and i am not "freaky" like he so unfoundedly assumed, after all i had done was give him coffee. somehow, through this fifteen second act, his judgment call was accurate, not to mention his super power brains could tell i have "a really nice personality." he proceeded to say, "i like the way your built. you look sporty. and that ass, you could make a black man so happy." call me crazy, but do people actually get persuaded by such statements? do people like that? because when someone walks up to me for the first time and informs me they think i have a nice booty, and would like for me to have sex with them, my initial instinct is to vomit. actually, i would probably just raise a confused eyebrow, which, my luck, would be completely misconstrued. what does "freaky" even mean.


upon leaving work i found a kitty. it wouldn't come to me when i called, but we meowed back and forth for about twenty minutes. i left it some bacon i stole from someone's plate in the backroom. i think they were still eating it, but obviously, there were more important kitties at hand.

has this life become so boring? i feel it is when i talk on the phone. when i tell my stories. i am constantly questioning my own pettiness. someone told me that i would stop feeling so anxious and depressed if i just recognized that life isn't constantly exciting. but i find that advice hard to grasp. for as boring as my days are i still find so much pleasure in them. maybe not minute after minute, but there are always interesting things happening. always strange social interactions and instances. i find myself forever in this state of quiet fascination witht the world around me. why it acts in such a way. why people say the things they do, or insert strange antecdotes into conversations with complete strangers. everyone is searching for common ground. everyone strives to be different. or they don't. either way it intrigues me. and i feel like a satillite. just orbiting, unnoticed. most days i feel completely invisible. except for on the rare occasions where someone asks me if i'm gay because i have short hair. i've begun to tell them, "yes, but only when my hair is short. when it's long i'm completely straight. because i base my entire sexual orientation on the length of my hair. the other day i was walking to the movies and some teenage boys in a beat up buick rolled down their window to call me a faggot. i turned to look at them, and upon doing this they realized i was a girl, laughed and drove away. the world is funny to me. and i for the life of me, i couldn't understand why they would even bother to make any remark at all. as though it were some concern of theirs. like they had to defend their masculinity by demeaning my own. assuming i were gay man. which i would like to add, i completely felt like the other day. i'm sure that statement doesn't make any sense, and i accept that. honestly i have no explanation for the feelings i had. and even if i were to try an elaborate, it wouldn't make any sense. sometimes i wonder where my head is. and being alone so much probably doesn't ground me any. i've become a complete hypochondriac. having no one to tell me i'm not dying. what if i have a brain tumor the size of a tennis ball, and that's what's causing all these strange thoughts. what if i've had it since infancey. i miss my doctor. they tell me it's just the bad air down here, but i'm beginnging to think there is a blood clot in the back of my head. all this to say, mississippi is a terrible place. containing lots and lots of sad people i contend with on a daily basis. they tell me their stories in tears. and i have lost my sense of apathy. i trust no one. i let no one in.