confused the ancestors, but that's my timeline...

and all that's left of it now is wings and a prayer and your foolish transistor radio turned up so loud and you all proud now deaf and dumbfounded and clouded night-vision as wandering clouds loom overhead and your wire afoot is shaky with dread all alone and left reeling from years spent unfeeling and my flock nesting in this time zone away makes it possible to forget you yesterday and far away somewhere its raining on your head now and you just pray but still. the deaf ears receive your words and i recall my tears in my dreams and thank the moss in between my toes now too for the days and the life and the wings and prayers heard here with my flock and my rock of gibraltar i guess in the years and the days and the split hairs and mothballs since i first wasted a breath on you and your death by deaf and dumb now and your plummet down to earth from that perch on a wire just always higher than mine it seemed like was a long-time coming and now i rejoice in my own version of re-birth and god or christ or buddha who cares- i thank you for giving me wings and a miracle mother who cares not of bad dreams and worse choices and all it took out of her to find me and guide me back to the nest i'd fallen from.

debated whether to hit 'send' for 16 years...

Soooo... i was hoping you will laugh at this nonsense... since you also seem to delight in the random and ridiculous. At least, i think you do...since i'm not bored with you yet. ;) Yeah, i admit it- despite my best attempts, my inner-nerd will not be silenced. sucks for you, my dog, others who i seem to geek out with. so the point of my de-railed train of thought had something to do with how we are ALL a bunch of assholes and noisemakers and shameless self-promoters and work sucks, bureaucracy follows fear and leaves in its wake not too much but organized and rationalized-away chaos. your little rant last nite about the bullshit of it all...work/life/the idiots who fill the spaces in-between, etc.... well, it made me think and i enjoy ranting in print much better, sorry... yeah no, the point there (i'm reaching, here...) was something about people who suck are not gonna see that they suck, nor why they suck, nor are they going to suddenly stop sucking. so stop caring, and let it go....what the fuck, it's way more fun to laugh about how absurd shit can be when you're just over it and the hair-pulling/wall-punching/counting-to-ten/throat-slashing can just be some fodder for the memoir later on....but no longer consumes you, because you're too busy yukkin' it up at all the silly people and their nonsense-talk to get angry. that's what i had to do eventually... it's not like i have some awesome story of why, i guess... but i did get to a point in my rage where it was just unbearable and alienating and then i started writing it all down. and whatta ya know? it was obvious in reading what i'd written that nobody i was so mad at had any clue that they were a deuschebag. what was even crazier to swallow- admitting that even if i unleashed the fury on them? the release would be a hollow and empty victory; because not a single 'wrong' would be realized or accounted for; or even apologized for.... so let go. take it and throw it out the window and laugh at the sound it makes when it hits the pavement behind you, because that's always super-hilarious. i preached and probably pissed you off, and yeah...it was for the sheer fact that i didn't want to not care about you. or what you had to say. hope that's okay, and that you want me to care. (cause i think i do....maybe.) :) (and yes, i am fully aware of how preachy and selectively-sighted i sound here..but it's been a long time since i cared at all about anything or anyone enough to preach. let me have my moment.... ) ;) and expose myself for what i really am sometimes... and one of those times seems to be today/in this email-foolery... because i think we share a similar sense of irony in the face of ass-backwards people/situations/circumstances, etc.)

What Would You Say

If I asked you to say fuck it all and run? Passports, one bag. Children. Go. I live in a constant state of heightened fear or general awareness even when I don't feel aware that anyone, any time could throw me down to the tracks below and what if I had just asked you to run when we had the chance instead?

What's the age

When you stop smiling about things just to make other people comfortable?

Measurements.

Your tape measure still smells like you, and it’s devastating.  I miss you, Nan.  But also, I’m trying not to use it to measure my body and it’s progress, whatever that means.  I keep wanting to, but I can picture your disapproval and I stop my hands and just keep rolling it up tighter instead.

I literally just talk to it like it’s some kind of portal to you.  It’s the smell and the way that it rolls up just right, I can picture you rolling it just right so it would fit perfectly in your yellow sewing kit.  You still blow my mind.  And I wish you were here, so much… if only to laugh at Georgia’s dance moves and Bear’s killer smiles.  And arrange the flowers, because there’s so many left.

We are heading to the beach in a few weeks, whether or not that’s the smartest move, I can’t say.  But I remember seeing those old pictures of you on the beach with Poppy and man.  I want my grandkids to look at pictures of me on this beach someday in some similar way, in awe and with goals.  Goals is the name of my game right now.  Goals, game, gratitude, and going forward.  Those G words, no promises, and definitely no Guarantees.  Just grateful to have greatness and goals.  

2020 will do that to a girl.  Not all bad, I guess.  Perspective is a bitch when it slaps you in the face every 5 minutes.  Not mad about it, just want to preserve that shock.  Because even though you know it’s coming?  It still stings and triggers and blurs my vision. Every fucking news alert, every single fucking time.  All day, every day.  They say the shock dulls over time, like long-term PTSD and trauma survivors but that phase is not here yet. I’m not sure it’s the goal. But anyway.

Today: I just found a whole bunch of my old nonsense, including, but not limited to:

• One purple iPad shuffle that someday I’ll write about the decision to buy it that one time.
• The charger for said shuffle, despite it being from 2007, and guess what?  Still Works.
• The music it contains- which is basically an angry-angsty time capsule that I FUCKING LOVE RIGHT NOW.
• Subnote: Yes Alanis, we will fast-forward to a few years later, where no one knows except the both of us… and I have honored your request for silence. And you’ve washed your hands clean of this.  
• Sub-subnote: Reading this? If you think it could be about you, it just might be.  And if you had to wonder?  You can fuck entirely off.  Facts.
• Journals, if you can call them that.
• Scribbles, poems, madness. From a former life.  Or four.
• Post-it notes… always.
• Keys to an entire school I don’t work for anymore.

Do what you will with this information, it just seemed important to mention.  

Heavy shit, these old baggage claim tags.  What to do with them…?  Measure? Smell them? Listen? Judge that girl?  Judge the woman reading them now?  Give Grace?  Grateful?  Sure.  

Goals.

Speak now or...

We talk in terms of
We
But it's really not all of us
that get to speak
our truth
because I'm this
I'm too much this
and you know nothing of
Where I've been and
the what
that shapes
and howls
and roars
and enables
But snakes up through
my throat
and wants out
to Tell You
all about how
We
are a lot more alike
than
you
Will ever acknowledge
as you sit
smug
In your privilege
and your power
while you
preach
About your lack of
these things and yet
I don't get to
say a single fucking word
because
shhhhhhhhhhhh
Like a spray can or
duct tape
silenced
all over again because
I can read backwards
And you think you are confused
now but just wait
'till I get my turn.

Equity

i bought a house.

i thought that would fix 

the howling

in my head

and finally give me

peace

and carpet.

and i should have known

that i will never 

ever 

not wonder what if

and fill in the blanks

with all of the things

that howl on bad nights

and moan on terrible nights

and whisper at random

times throughout the days

at mundane times

catch me off-guard

not ready

but always

knowing

that i'm not quite home

and peace

is not for girls like me

and maybe

we just learn to live with that

and get better at blanking out

instead of trying to fill

in all of the blank

spaces

with faces

from lives gone by

and change of address

forms that i filled out

so excited

and so ready to

stay

for a change.

Dry Heat.

i.want.so.much. again.

again.

nowitsoundslikethis.lintlikefilmysurface..ofyourskinitsangrytexture.makesmeshiverand.recoil.likeiliketodolatelywhen its.late.too.late.i.smell.it.and.taste.it.the.air.is.stale.with.cardboard.throat.things.escaped.snores.and.random.words.i.guess.this.is.what.it.looks.like.on.the.verge.of.furious.nothingness.the.view.is.lovely.you.hang.it.out.to.dry.where.i.cant.miss.it.and.you.know.i.hate.it.just.because.i.want.it.but]cant cant cant
Cant not.
Do.

For.You.

Not now.not.ever.fuck.me.fuck.You and
Also
The weather. The desert.
Air
And principles.of punctuation.
Capitalization.of.You
Before
I.

Still.i.struggle.to.sit.still.in.spite.of.the.hours.the.pills.and.palm.trees.the.lack.of.wind.
Tonight.
On my knees
For lack of blood flow and
Why.Not
Disease
Cures
Me you.say.
Tomorrow I may sleep until you.hear.me.
Howling
Outside
Ice.in.my.lungs.and.
Fear
Freezing
My.tears.

Less likely still
Is feeling
Returning
Anytime feasible
The future. Please tell me
More Capital lettered words wait.for.me.
Patient-like. Zen.

I read that somewhere...

Alice.

And to think that I was initially just so taken with the crown molding.

What a charming detail in the story we spin
About this boy meets girl next door
And how
You.

Deserve to be capitalized
Italicized
Underlined
And loved
In bold
Sweet cursive
Always.

I have spent too many
Minutes
In boots
Worn so well and also so wrong
I know I still
Take solace in what few things
I've managed to carry on
And sling over my back
On this quest
A self-making wrong things
Feel like
Pretty alright
And all the while I walked and I
Watched
For any signs of life
That somehow made sense to
String together
Like feathers
Tied up in
Unkempt
Unclean
Hair I hold tightly to
In lieu of
You
Before this roof
Like a landing pad
For flying machines

Before I could
Quit squinting into the sun
And just sit here with you
And know that we
Both
Know better than to spill
The cup we share and overflow it may
A surplus
Of sustenance and
Us
With caps lock on
And all the while
When in Rome I really remember
Little anymore
About how far and long and hard
I marched
Stubbornly seeking
The title to this
Deed I knew of only as a
Voyeur
Perhaps
This precious and life-begets-life
Thing and it's everything
But
Our once
well-kept secret
Desperate
I am to tell you of how
You
Make sense
Inside my head we rhyme and
I see pictures often

More than any girl
In times like these ever should
Really-

Cali Sunrise

Its cool man but do me a favor and do something today that makes u happy.

The Absence of things.

tonight
I reached out and grabbed a knee for
what
reason i cant say or care about
and i came up
with a fistful of
your heartbeats

it caught me right in the sweet
spot
my throat
swollen with all the shit and stewing

i should learn to say in a subtle way
so as not to provoke
or exacerbate perhaps like
everything else i scratch your surface
just all wrong
and just too much

with a heavy hand

always

and now as your pulse clicks question marks into unfinished sentences and
fragments
of my arguments and constant
static
like mental stolen cable channels
snow
fills my chest and i swell from some subterranean place just beyond
where i can reach
with claws and broken fingernails
always
dirty

and the left unsaid things start to
thaw
me and awaken me to some familiar awareness
i forgot to feel in recent days it seems
to the presence
the existence and persistance
of my own pulse
still keeping track of all the things i know better than to keep tabs on
for the sake of self preservation perhaps
or maybe just selfish short-sightedness and
vertigo
is what i can blame today i guess
it matters less with each second hand twitch of my life
that goes by unnoticed and unaccounted for by choice
to everything and everyone who might count for something
except this thing the size of my fist
i was always led to believe
but who really knows how big or small
and for all i know the pulse i take for granted all too often
and in too many nights like these

might not be built to last afterall
and all there is to count on
is the countless ways to keep on
your sleeve the worst of yourself
like a
badge

a sticky band-aid
and a sickly looking wound
of my own making and who am i to say

it is not normal
or natural at all
to find your life

behind your kneecap
while you sleep
at ease and

all told, it sold me on the idea of
question marks

and i will try to sleep it off tonight
like i should not have to pretend
and you
leave me wide open
exposed
and choking
on my bloated and swollen
lips
tingling from what
never did escape them today

but probably should have
saved me
from

this.

moment of truth
in its brutal
i know too well, and throw the well-rehearsed
other cheek
before it even clears the
event horizon
of my scrambled egg thing of mind.

and i don't mind if you don't mind
that things are beating and
pumping
thrusting
working hard
to keep on
not living
like we do more than we don't.

right on my sleeve
and here in my hand
your proof of you
in kneecaps
and ellipses unfinished business
do nothing good for us and i
pull back

my hand

and my heart.

Peace of Mind

Now if you're feelin' kinda low 'bout the dues you've been paying

Future's coming much too slow

And you wanna run but somehow you just keep on stayin'

Can't decide on which way to go

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I understand about indecision

But I don't care if I get behind

                                 People livin' in competition

All I want is to have my peace of mind.

Now you're climbin' to the top of the company ladder

Can't cha see there'll come a day when it won't matter

Come a day when you'll be gone

 

I understand about indecision

But I don't care if I get behind

People livin' in competition

All I want is to have my peace of mind.

Take a look ahead, take a look ahead...

Now everybody's got advice they just keep on givin'

Doesn't mean too much to me

Lot's of people out to make-believe they're livin'

Can't decide who they should be.

I understand about indecision

But I don't care if I get behind

People livin' in competition

All I want is to have my peace of mind.

Take a look ahead, take a look ahead.

Look ahead.

                                                                        Hope it doesn't take too long

   

one.  year.            

[down].

Idealist Portrait of the Champion (ENFP)


Like the other Idealists, Champions are rather rare, say two or three percent of the population, but even more than the others-
they consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life.

Champions have a wide range and variety of emotions, and a great passion for novelty.

They see life as an exciting drama,

 pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil, and

they want to experience

all the meaningful events and

fascinating people

                              in the world.

The most outgoing of the Idealists, Champions often can't wait to tell others of their extraordinary

experiences.

Champions can be tireless in talking with others,

like fountains that

bubble and splash,

spilling over

their own words

 to get it all

  out.        

       

And usually this is not simple storytelling;

Champions often speak (or write)

in the hope of

revealing some truth about human experience,

or of motivating others with

their powerful

convictions.                   

Their strong drive to speak out on issues and events,

along with their boundless enthusiasm and

natural talent  with language,

makes them the most vivacious and

                    inspiring

                of all the types.

Fiercely individualistic,

Champions strive toward

a kind of      

             personal authenticity,

         and this intention

always to be themselves

is usually quite attractive

                                                  to others.

At the same time, Champions have outstanding intuitive powers

and can tell what is going on inside of others,

reading hidden emotions

and giving special significance

to words or actions.

Their attention is rarely

passive or casual.

On the contrary, Champions tend to be

             extra sensitive and alert,

always ready for emergencies,

 always on the lookout for

what's possible.

Champions are good with people and
usually have a wide range of personal relationships.

They are warm and full of energy with their friends. They are likable and at ease with colleagues, and handle their employees or students with great skill.

They are good in public and on the telephone,
and are so spontaneous and dramatic
                                                         that others love to be in their company.

Champions are positive, exuberant people,

and often their confidence in

the goodness of life

and of human nature

makes

good things

                                      happen.     

Joan Baez, Phil Donahue, Paul Robeson, Bill Moyer, Elizibeth Cady Stanton, Joeseph Campbell, Edith Wharton, Sargent Shriver, Charles Dickens, and Upton Sinclair ...are examples of Idealist Champions.

"To be loved, love."  (Si vis amari, ama.)

Ovid

Limitless.

Since the sink and the slip and those pills which still sit on my shelf in storage i could not bring myself to sip and then swallow without scars forming in my mind all over again i must just be crazy afterall i did hit my head rather hard and heard crack sounds like nightmare i have on nights where i curse your motives and my homelessness that time i met you i wish it was less fake and more blood that i shed impossible head wounds bleed for like too long i don't care to thank god i just know i won't feel good for who knows how long it takes the blistered scar thing i peel layers off daily to just let me forget about gramercy and you and what happened that winter and suitcases stolen from stairwells and where is karma when i was wronged and not in the wrong for once i can pinpoint the moment i knew what regret and bloodshed tastes like in large amounts when forcefed through what i must face every day in front of the sink and what stings between my eyes the place where my face lets me live like a leper sometimes i know less of what this is and more of what isn't fair either but keep telling me all about how i am needed elsewhere and that's just fine i call out but feel panic rise bile and mercury like shot through throat parts like unreal and my teeth get weaker each time i bite back the tears of shit past and taste bitter and all i passed on while i was passed out or should have been days into something like that time they found me in time but i wished they were as slow to get moving as i was and still am and

 I feel less certain about what is my fatal flaw; where and how I tripped and fell and what was the cause and what effects are still tripping me up in spite of how different the sidewalks feel beneath my sneakers here.

Union Square.

I will always feel at home in New York City, despite last winter when I called the Starbucks in Union Square my home, for lack of

anywhere else

that would have me and at the time
its funny how time is so fickle and useless in spite of what they tell me
i felt fine about that corner table the one by the side door that faced
what-13th street-i guess? useless alley if you ask me, really
just a buncha dumpsters and wind which makes for oddly-shaped cigarette butts
but anyway, my table was right in the drafty spot where i'd catch a random
shot
of crisp delicious metallic from whatever idiot needed coffee at that hour too
and swung that side door wide open just long enough
to take my breath away as
i suppose i can  be honest here-
the truth is this and nothing less than
the.what i can't fathom still or shake from my wrists like sticky rice
wanton won-tons
and cheap eats i liked to feast on back then in bed-stuy and bushwick alike
besides all of it still i try to find something half as good or close to
alive
as the addiction i loved to hate to miss even now in this fucking place
where i am the oddest duck around and even
my mail can't find me i'm so good at
hiding
out and what if i stood on top of one of those fucking
mountain tops
one of these useless days where i have pills and enough of
what flows just below where i can see through
veins in my feet
swollen and still
once i got to the tippy-top of the.what
i like to picture when speaking of you, and of
sin city as its better views i guess
those mountainous background images keep
me from running too hard down the hill by my house here
or staring straightintothesun like i
want to sometimes
for lack of foresight why not try
spots and blinkbackthings for the sake of
my boredom and i never liked
my eyes anyway even when they were
shot
up with
alive
and the air from outside
and my face felt like ice pops
and your cheek next to mine so close
to we're done and i'm over the best part of life and its not even
been a full year since i ate shit and had to
hang pride and
the.what
on the line to dry out for days at a time
and then all of a sudden it was the fourth of july and i might have been
better off not knowing that popping sounds outside my windowless room
on john street that night
were anything more than gunshots and dying
people every time my song changed quiet between them i'd find
room to move my feet and question why not me and answer myself silently
from every angle i just could convince my mind to bend around
i knew nothing like
alive and this is why you left me clotheslined strikethrough your old words
and also why i like to love the pages of this book i play with sometimes when
i'm high on
boredom these nights when i sleep wide eyed and think about
your hands my thighs were less than this and so was i but still
i love
i love
i love to lie still on my back and pretend that outside that the wind i can hear
howling
and mountains i see in my mind just beyond where the coyotes come down from
i hear the sky rumble just like
it did when i was awake at this time of the night in a corner in my glory but less
than free from worry and debt and destroying my face and then came flights
one-way always
scared piss out of me and panties were scarce back in those days i guess i made
messes of more than just chairs at the airport where i ran to catch my
fucking departure
from my life and all that i liked once upon a time
and every once in a while i find myself lying out loud to a stranger in his bed or
else to myself again why not
just carrying on about being on time and how i hate that type of thing and
can't find my priorities right now they might be, i reason, buried in my bag perhaps
the shoulder strap broke but that's fine i said for lack of what else and
embarrassed pack rat i felt like for that whole test of strength and vinyl failed me
like i describe to anyone who might be reading this nonsense and shit and
you
who fights the urge to bolt for the side door or else just yawn through my truth
spilling.out
like soda shaken can stuff
exploding
from somewhere unseen but felt violent with potential
and carbonated and ready
to splash the contents of your hands with what i try not to cry over more times
than i might like to consider but still
you sigh like you know better than me and i know its a long shot but
i think i've got nothing but time and whynot and its this or
just jump off the summit i can't climb
for lack of something i lost back when strong gusts
of blinding december early though back when its cold but not
so much so that toes in my best boots the ones with
holes in the soles and everywhere else from miles i walked while my classmates
knew how to save up the spare change i suppose i could not
and just blew off the steam i tightened my thighs up for what its worth
in hindsight maybe i should have just learned how to ride the
subway but ohwell is what fills me with smugness and sly little half-smiles
inside i'm sure you don't notice me not noticing you when i go there
in stories regaling you with but really i just need a reason to listen
to myself talk about this shit and run circles around history
re-written to fit what i miss most and without all the commercial interuptions
just because i control the on/off switch and this is spillage and crazy talk
and i still make more sense
to myself and within the context of
normal
when i am sitting still and i will seek out the corners of coffee shops for the rest of my time here until i am unsatisfied enough with
all that is lacking in me and the.what and the rest of it all of the shit i bring with me
if you check my bag out you get it, how i can't leave without knowing i might not come back tonight or at all actually better off thinking that just up
ahead and around
the next bend is something like i thought i would die without and
as it turns out i was more than half-right, but yeah-
just maybe i might not be lost and not found like every sock i once owned or
like you as my pet
peeve and project in-between lovey and dovey came weed maybe you made
me sick or at least it was both of us down and unlucky
downtown and unstuck we came when i was flung off like jelly from fingertips
fat little nuggets i loved to laugh at and miss
even still and
even though this is far worse
than any missed holidays spent thinking of how empty the space can be sometimes since you dismissed me without considering where
i would be in the months and the winters of this year and next and
then one day it turns out i flickered into not sleep with eyelids unwilling
but working and i saw
glitter and eyelashes from last night when i played
dress up and old me and i pranced around your place and i made eyes at
the stranger in you and the mirror behind what i saw i liked
just for those minutes when i had us both
fooled
into thinking that this
despite all that is lacking
like air that tastes too exciting to talk of today i remember
new york city the first week a new month
december
and i die less just a little on nights when i find
you
and your version of
alive
at the foot of the bed i lie down in and right beside my head as
i exhale for lack of whynot and also thanks to your pillows
the cool side hides always but still i'm not sorry or worried or bothered
like you might wonder if i care but i don't need this i swear
you stay right there while i hide
out somewhere else and if you can't find me you might try
the corner of nowhere and union square writing and shivering into the morning light
happy and holding on tight to the taste of hot chai and the city wind whipping
my cheeks into blushing i love it i must be
still me and not rusty and old like this
girl i know three time zones too late in las vegas and she lost
all sense of what this
feels like
hopeful and wide eyed blinkingback tears but not those kind
the good stuff
from whatever is not this
and hers is not his
but her own in the meantime i might just make time
to climb something somewhere in spite of my boots and what i find at the bottom is tooth rot
and grave plots i picked out for myself in my mind
thousands of times before deciding on tattoos and cremation and you made
more sense to get behind
and so like i might have already implied but not admitted to you or the mirror
outright and audible like those microphones you like to tell stories about how you made love to them audiences loved it and you were your own superfan
but i will try not to judge you like i do myself. in the long nights i spent since
then and when i looked ahead and found nothing in my life that made sense
and no one whose name or outlook even passed for okay let alone liked how my shit rhymes and finally
i like how it feels to make eye contact without going blind
and i want more
always more and then all of it all in one bite i never know when i am done
and when to say when and then i get left out in hallways of places i never played myself within but should have done less
to show that i want
i think i will try not to stare at the sun
from now on and i guess i will hope for some whynot and keep writing down
what doesn't work still and why air makes me wonder where is december and
new york and all i can do until then is
just gum food and notice as little as possible
subtle clues i will miss
from you i'm sure of this and i hope
you take your time with figuring out that
i'm nuts
but not unfun just displaced and isn't everyone really just lying
when they say they wouldn't change a thing if they could and yet
even i can admit that i can't yet be all dead and nightmare ish esque
since i met you i liked more complete moments in time and whole nights, even
more unlikely
than i can remember finding in hindsight even back when i was still able
to call myself
i
and use capital letters without hesitation despite what you might think
i don't like
to look in the mirror i really try not to its just that
i'm trying hard to fight off what urges i might have forgotten to medicate slightly
left the antivenom back behind in brooklyn and sunlight makes me feel awkward
and giddy like whatnot
and i look for things that i know only by their shape and rely on touch to find most of what lies in the corners of my better mood days
more of these blind my hindsight and i forget already some of the shit i regret and left out from letters mailed back to them all in the last month i guess oops or else ohwell you helped me get up and get off and then
over it all
and to think how its only october and how i can feel myself falling for whatever lines might land on my shoulder like birds singing something i find it
annoying
but nice at the same time i can't lie its not like me these days to try new things and people on for size but you seem to fit at least something i kind of need help filling up which is blank spaces inside this time frame city of sin and i can't find a single reason to take pride in staying single here please tell me why
i like finding new reasons to leave well enough alone for the sake of justright
so this is what i might have been like in real time and real life without all of the nonsense and noise drowning me out
and smoke in my eyes broken mirrors cracked like all i surrounded myself with why i might have missed something big in the meantime make me forget what all
i regret and remind me to
let myself like how it feels to be
breathless and love and less dead than alive.

Eyes and Bugs in the back of my head.

i.want.so.much. again.

again.

nowitsoundslikethis.lintlikefilmysurface..ofyourskinitsangrytexture.makesmeshiverand.recoil.likeiliketodolatelywhen its.late.too.late.i.smell.it.and.taste.it.the.air.is.stale.with.cardboard.throat.things.escaped.snores.and.random.words.i.guess.this.is.what.it.looks.like.on.the.verge.of.furious.nothingness.the.view.is.lovely.you.hang.it.out.to.dry.where.i.cant.miss.it.and.you.know.i.hate.it.just.because.i.want.it.but]cant cant cant

get out of bed before i

missed everything

which is really nothing

when i formed that last thought i forgot

how humiliating

i bravely made me sound like you

and your very much vip lifestyle where doors open on cue when you and your thumbprint pass last things last

and i

forgot what year it could be by now i make my bed without ever waking up

somehow

and lie in it all times incompatible with life and i lie just so i might have some lame lines to make you laugh sometimes through the static and crackling phone line i am secretly grateful for the excuse to turn you loose because its so late in new york city by now although i wouldn't know, not really and never could get into wristwatches and erasable ink and things that imply i have time

to think again, to formulate a plan

to fuck it all up once again

and when i land in a pile of shit and twisted wrists elbow crooks and corners of kneecaps shinbones and high heels with plenty of reasons to look up

since i left myself little in the way of choices again and i cant imagine what clearly does not run through your mind but maybe that's fine and fantastic for you and maybe my own could take notes and make lists and hints and to-do tasks could maybe make less of a mess in my cheap and stiff sheets that i wish were like comfort soul food for the skin or something less like sleep less in this desert in smaller than single twin bed sheets scratching the lack of sensory stimuli seems like something i saw coming or i would have if

i could have seen the forest for the trees and you on the roof pick one i dare you

at sunrise or some inconsequential time of whatever day it never dawned on me not to interrupt your pointed commentary even though you just gave up every time i was out of my mind you should know and i couldnt hear most of your stammering and fumbling for words or whatever might have lodged itself in your soft palate i guess

because i couldnt do much more than prototype and cliche it was the first time i made a mess and i should have spent less money on monstermaking voodoo tools the shed out back was me

and i should have.could.have.would.have.wont have.regretted.your.eyes.turned.at.those.hope.diamond.type.times.in.my.frayed.and.game.over.player.one.mind's eye.where.sometimes.its less this and just a split ended eyelash different than some other way it once was in your mind while i was out shopping for real estate which i made no effort to pay for and yet i dared karma and payback to play hide and go seek with all the absent

empty

lack of care

that i would have likely sold to you for the shirt off your back if you'd have it that way but no matter my fruitless searches for what i make earth better for being a consumer and user of people and air and subleased corners of places form a foggy uneasy noise in my throat when some unnassuming and well meaning nosy type nonsense face that i see but can't place from where i might be this person's favorite story to tell random strangers for some reason or another but still i can't say for certain

that i remember much more than how small my

hands

felt inside yours with my eyes open but everything else that had once looked so much like hope and french toast on sundays to you was just not much more than second hand smoke clouds outside your window where i can see cranes lifting big men and metal buildings constructing some new thing i would never be welcome in anyway so i'm not done with you if not for the sake of regret and past due late fees and library books that we stole from taxes you paid to the city because

that's just your kind of thing...

i guess what i smoked to provoke arguments in your apartment on orchard made less of a mess than what happened to your bed and your mattress so well suited for more than just one of us, the sort of setup and situational irony i would surely appreciate if only i could give a shit

or see the look in your shoulders slumped over like skulking along the sidewalk away from me always these days and even the nights remind me of your tiptoe ish type of walk its a random thing i must have dreamt up one afternoon or maybe its just this fucking twin bed that i can't get into without spitting in my face or what i picture it to look like and cursing

always cursing

myself for this

and for what i can't find and never could afford to admit i couldn't care less to even look for like it was too much of a risk to take the plunge

fingertips scraping empty pockets and coming up worse than before its true and i stopped digging for change

and other bliss makers magic markers and playing cards with diamonds on the outside

waiting for me to find and isn't it mind-blowing and obvious all wrapped up in starchy cheap shots and sheets stained with what i had to offer you before darkness became all this fifth pocket has in store for what that's worth and all of this is just the thing i'm trying to avoid

addressing the dirt and the lint and how it feels like memory and empty beds you blew your air into for lack of better more stable things in both of our lives i suppose you were right to shave yourself smooth so unsettling i said about it back then in bad neighborhoods where car alarms and snoring patternless hugs me inside still when i can't get used to this cricket-filled air and the altitude sickens me

so they say i wouldn't blame it on the elevation as much as most days when i wake up only to find i cannot wake up and i blink but it only mixes mascara years old into the gritty things i go to rub into bloodshot only to rot my layers of skin off from overcompensating for this

and i could pick the phone up i guess

and let you talk me down from the ledge like you probably do best but here's why this still fills me with air and gas bubbles like embolisms ruptured toxic

i'm not even this

or that

i'm nothing but wasted

space and

displaced hopless case file in cold corners of this arid unthinkable sleeping awake place where i still never know when to get up for whatever the day won't play out for me but still i can feel the simple one sensation that sustains me with if nothing else, the familiar and the failures and my family fucking with all of this and telling me

to wash my sheets and my feet and for what is what i would surely want to know

if i ever found any forgotten atom of energy unspent still hiding in some hidden pocket of an old purse perhaps inside a broken parliament filter that snapped like the best of things and like

this

does not bend because of physics and emptiness

voids and dark matter the proof of which does exist, ask nat-geo on cable and me at my best i still feel the full weight of what would fall from my head if i could

ever care about what i forgot to pack accordingly and was thrown out from my contraband carry-on as if a one way ticket to this

wasn't punishment and karma in the endzone victory dance in my face for the ages i know

it would have been enough

but then, i don't need much more than this

and soaking wet nylon low thread count and too worn in to be new ish i think but then i think about cheap

and how sheets and bullshit i spit here and in life is like dirty fingernails lazy with what i lack and can't find now or then for lack of looking or what i can't know but still it strikes me

shin on the clapboard there is a dent that endures on us both after too many nights of this and unthinkable calenders torn off somehwhere else i imagine since you stopped filling my missing pieces in with your whispers and rants and all i know now

is what i can't touch for lack of so much and so little in me and my eyelids like anchors

and icebergs in me continue to cover up what the bad reception and the wind might leave to blank spaces and imagination

but i'd rather not

feel the air move where you are not there to brace my flesh from freefalling out into nothing

weighted down by nothing i float on forever maybe why wait for me when chasing me once found you

cursing

more often than usual and for that

i can't bear to bring my eyes to focus on anything but just the end of my nose and the scars

from where i held out my hand and i opened my fist and released your best efforts from flimsy half assed girl grip and skipping stones on the water alone let me know i was still alive and right about this

i can't look up even though that's the only option left-

its not that i care its that the falling stars scare the shit out of my raw blistered fingertips now after this

moved mountatins out of me and i moved brooklyn into my closet with my human being ness of messy things i know this

your absence is my fault i guess its just the latest in a string of victories for fate and lady karma luck is all out to fuck with my great big debt- that i never paid off and when i watched you slip through my creased palm

the spaces between knuckles crooked joints that dodged you but still i shook you loose and refused to look you in the eye

and this

twin bed and vacant sign overhead burnt out for lack of bulbs and concern for keeping up appearances and this

is my best and nothing worse than bad acting i have small hands. and veins that would freeze if they could find the time to

call a spade a sidewalk crack reminder of stagnant rigor and oh well not for nothing but for lack of even nothing off putting vapid and free

of youandme and sheets that still smell like me i think you said this one time although i can't be sure of much at these elevations and all i know is

this is not my life.