dinosaurs and roti

and lemon snowman cookies...
i come home from museum adventures, exhausted, and sleep my life away
it seemed official, but now i'm not so sure
since he became single, it appears he is no longer interested
p.s. the dead sea scrolls are far more exciting to talk/read/conjecture about than they are to look at

drunken snowy night on/in koreatown (tamarind)

"is there an engineer in the house?"

sadly, the rule does not apply here

ignore (mostly) his messages (punk rock boys are not supposed to fall in love), spin to bed, wake up early for a date with art and the old man (and his daughter)

bah humbug (out of ginger)

how is it okay to not talk to someone for five months and then just show up and say merry christmas and think that everything is fine? sigh.

how is it that there is either a plethora of options or none? my poor little head spins.

i will go bake cookies now.

it's not for me

sometimes it's nice to not feel so old

lost inside

last night i was walking just off a main intersection downtown
i saw a guy i know
standing
on the corner
he looked at me and i said hello
i thought it was funny that he didn't hear me
so sure i was that he had seen me

tonight i realized that he had been working
as in,
the streets
life is fucked up

it gets hard to remember what i have already said

turn it up loud
the recording's not so good
but i choose this version because sometimes watching is the way to the real
it's in his stance
and maybe in his coat
he was taller than i imagined

the best imaginary romance i ever had

iron deficient
slept all day, well into the evening

he sings to a new ghost

i saved up money for an ice cream maker but then i spent it on rock and roll

it was all worth it

step over ourselves

heard a cover of this tonight that made me cry

i want to learn to sing (in perfect) harmony

wishing

perhaps there is a reason why our vision grows inward

sometimes it makes more sense when you listen

Come to decide that the things that I tried
Were in my life just to get high on
When I sit alone come get a little known
But I need more than myself this time

Step from the road to the sea to the sky
And I do believe it, we rely on
When I lay it on come get to play it on
All my life to sacrifice

Hey oh, listen what I say, oh
I got your hey oh, now listen what I say, oh

When will I know that I really can't go
To the well once more time to decide on
When it's killing me, when will I really see
All that I need to look inside

Come to believe that I better not leave
Before I get my chance to ride
When it's killing me, what do I really need
All that I need to look inside

Hey oh, listen what I say, oh
Come back and hey oh, look at what I say, oh

The more I see, the less I know
The more I like to let it go
Hey oh, whoa

Deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow
Privately divided by a world so undecided
And there's nowhere to go

In between the cover of another perfect wonder
And it's so white as snow
Running through a field where all my tracks will be concealed
And there's nowhere to go

When to descend to amend for a friend
All the channels that have broken down
Now you bring it up, I'm gonna ring it up
Just to hear you sing it out

Step from the road to the sea to the sky
And I do believe what we rely on
When I lay it on, come get to play it on
All my life to sacrifice

Hey oh, listen what I say, oh
I got your hey oh, listen what I say, oh

The more I see, the less I know
The more I like to let it go
Hey oh, whoa

Deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow
Privately divided by a world so undecided
And there's nowhere to go

In between the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow
Running through the field where all my tracks will be concealed
And there's nowhere to go

I said hey, hey yeah, oh yeah, tell my Lord now
Hey, hey yeah, oh yeah, tell my Love now
Deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow

Privately divided by a world so undecided
And there's nowhere to go
Deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder
Where it's so white as snow

Running through the field where all my tracks will be concealed
And there's nowhere to go
I said hey, oh yeah, oh yeah, tell my love now
Hey, hey yeah, oh yeah

- red hot chili peppers

paint chips

everything goes at once, bit by bit...lightbulbs, the kitchen faucet, my faith in mankind...

the mice are now pulling insulation out of the oven, and we can't do dishes because there's no water in the tap. vicious. cycle. the former president of our neighbour to the south lost twenty-two MILLION emails that have now been found...one can only imagine the why and the how. my roommate says i should have an occasional news feature as bedtime story, when the bizarre or ridiculous crosses my path. the original winner from today: police are at a home investigating something (unnamed) when a woman gives birth into a toilet...police rescue the baby from drowning (yuck!). the woman is of a substantial size, and was unaware of her condition. she thought she had gas.

and so, imaginary friends, it's off to the land of not-nod, where i lie still and pray to disappear, if only for a few hours of respite from the wickedness of the world. the waiting taunts me. sleep and dreams, these i understand.

thank you

one of nineteen messages written inside a card from my students on their last day:
if i was single and straight would you be my girlfriend?

plus four hours of yoga, a punk rock text message offering a sober (for a change) booty call, and an invitation from a former possibility offering another round

though it's not love, it means something
- martin gore

just another day at the office

one of my students got held up at gunpoint last night while working the counter at the coffee shop a block away from the school. that was only one of the traumas revealed to me today. perspective on my own life and problems is a good thing...as in, mine aren't so bad.

i get flustered at the hipster espresso bar so i don't go there. until today. i figured out the trick - just be weirder than the cokehead behind the counter. done. and done. never understood lattes (soy or otherwise) anyway. onward...

ouchie

snow, he called me this morning to say stay in bed wait for me...no...but late anyway, she makes me cranky, i try my best to be kind but too often i fail. diva fight, mouse battle, swipe, wipe, breathe, just move. remember to feel loved, remember to forgive, the point is not actually to feel miserable though sometimes we sure wonder. only one, i cut my finger with a pair of scissors...wait for the ethiopian bread then bed.

roasted garlic

johnny died of aids at the age of twenty-nine

and in some small pocket of hell, there must be at least one soul condemned to riding a bus aimlessly in circles through a suburban subdivision, following a schedule that exists only on paper and searching for route numbers that change in the blink of an eye.

yesterday i added forty-four cents worth of stamps to my credit card bill at the post office, to help a stranger in need...trying to chip away at my karmic debt to the universe.

sigh.

new wave

back before she was famous, sarah jessica parker was on a show called square pegs. i was a kid. the show was about valley girls. i loved it.

my one actual memory of the show...there was a guy named johnny. he had a band. he wrote a song that went something like this:
i'm tired.
i'm so tired.
i'm very tired.
i'm really tired.
i'm totally tired.
totally.

my mom's car died. tomorrow i will wake up too early and take a train to the suburbs, then a cab to her house, so that i can teach her how to ride the bus - something she probably hasn't done in thirty or forty years.

totally.

ocean pillow blue

gaps in our knowledge and understanding are filled in with our desire

i miss him

peach licorice roundup

there's lots going on but nothing feels significant. the world gets boring really quickly when you stop looking for the hidden meaning in everything. let's see...don't remember monday, don't remember tuesday, i look at the calendar but it's december now so that doesn't help and i'm too lazy to stand up and look back. don't remember wednesday. thursday* i saw some good dancing, and the cute boy in the coffee shop gave me two cookies when i only paid for one, which was a nice bonus since it was my dinner. i chose the one with hazelnuts, for protein. (*edit - a lie - thursday was disco night, and friday came next with cookies and the like).

friday i wrote this, but was too lazy to post: it was such a gift for me to find out that there was a difference between being intuitive and being crazy. but now i have learned that being intuitive counts for shit/is a curse when the world is full of people who don't want to know. i realized today that's what i love about teaching - people pay to hear what i see that they can't. (i actually got an email from one of them on the weekend, thanking me for this...proof i'm not crazy, right?).

then i thought i should post the glamorous life by sheila e but i didn't and now i just tried but the only video on youtube has no sound so that's that. silence.

saturday: i used to come here and write because i had hope and i could laugh at myself but now it's not funny or fun, it's just sad. too many tries, too many fails, too many moments of anti-epiphany where i realize that there is a life i am not meant to have...what i find interesting, thinking about who likes me, thinking about being my mother's daughter with the veils of childhood innocence lifted from mine eyes - men who only want to fuck me or have me fix them...i come home from a family afternoon and make a punk rock booty call. sunday i wash my sheets and do battle with a mouse who is disturbed by my invasion of its home inside my home.

monday he uses a word that i haven't heard before. this is significant. little else is these days. i think i said that already. a new old song, maybe...maybe?

pain in my gut, in my head, in my shoulder. forget about the pretty blonde who somehow gets by when i wouldn't. forget about boys who would be perfect if only...fade to black and white. i should sleep.

too much

i love how this year there are all kinds of trees where the leaves have fallen off but the apples haven't

brown socks, homeless camps, bulk sprees, close call, shake, cry, talk, plan, bake, transfer, wonder, sleep

this is the part where i become a raging alcoholic

turns out the only guy who ever wanted to be the father of my children also believes that he is an alien. if life gets any weirder than this, i never want to find out about it.

crazy people are now banned from my world.

i am not fucking kidding.

walking pink dead

we are breeding a race of super mice in my kitchen
poison and poison and they still come back
i quit fighting, now...put out my lights.

collapse

if i ever announce that i'm going to do a phd, somebody kick me.

kabuki afternoon

always everything is about raining and parades
even when they are perfect they are the same as all the rest

today i learned that the moon is a symbol of buddhist enlightenment,
and if you give me enough extravagant fabric and wallpaper eye candy
i might remember to believe that
"love is the flower of the mortal world"

running on empty

sometimes when you hear a certain song at a certain time, it's not a sign, it's just a song.

elephants vs. the monkey

the weight of presence

lately i have been compelled to fall asleep for a short while right after i eat dinner
tonight i was swallowed by a deep exhaustion
wake up just before midnight
like a character in a tarkovsky film
pray by placing my forehead upon the ground
i exist somewhere between the earth and sky
begin again
begin now

flashback

too busy to worry

or otherwise care
it's nice, in a way

encounter

borrowed words:
my desire has had the momentum of hunger

mess of fall

hint: if you click on the pictures they will get bigger and prettier

restless legs

eight am text, so lovely
except he was either too drunk or is too stubborn now to recall that i told him we were done

six pm passes with no word
was it power or fear?

can't get over being sick
no one reads
everything is different now

count the days until i make an attempt at normal,
by way of different
the scariest place i've been in a while
at least crazy is never boring

he didn't mean it

for halloween i dressed up as myself: afraid of mice, allergic to my world, annoyed at the drunk neighbours who party outside my window while i try to write conference proposals and citations, wondering all the while if i haven't managed to make all the wrong choices and fuck everything up...
it's not what i wanted to create
not who i wanted to be
(and)
in spite of what they would have you believe about orgasms and all the rest, sneezing constantly is not fun.

lost

we sat under the almost full moon
and together we mourned the thing we never got to have
selfish
sad
i dreamed last night of gerry chopping bananas on a black towel in a tiny room
learning to separate my longing from myself
walk home alone
and allow myself to cry
for broken hearts

fly

what was true yesterday may not be today
but we let it stand
wash this bitter taste out of my mouth
with orange juice and dreams

my mom turned 75 today
she has a new love interest
he's ten years younger, and married
apples...trees...falling...
and it seems that him not calling sucks as much at 75 as it does at 35 as it does at 15

i am afraid of mice (they have returned)
on monday i will have to tell him that the girl he tried to kill no longer exists
on friday i will have to tell him that i chose (and choose again) not to live his life
it doesn't matter if it's real if it doesn't work
alias
hidden
you find out who really loved you when you see who forgets you (or not)

living means not writing,
means sleeping and remembering and hoping that this will be the one

crash

i can't decide what's worse - when stupid people think i suck or when smart people do
no, that's not it
i hate stupid people
a little venom to close out this evening
thank you, and good night

sunday afternoon

it never happens like you think it's going to

gritty neighbourhoods

It is eternity now; I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as the butterfly in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come; it is now. Now is eternity; now is immortal life.

- Richard Jefferies

more bold than me

after a moment of truth, even if it's only true for a moment,
everything changes
sometimes the gift is also a burden

the first boy i ever kissed
shares a name with the one who said the words
i have waited my whole life to hear

(it now begins and ends with other invitations that i no longer desire)
keep the pilot lights on for
good
enough

in the stories, every hero has a weakness that leads to his demise
poets will be mine

the ghosts of commuters

there's not much to see when you ride the train in the dark

isn't it ironic

i miss a time when it was okay for things just to be beautiful and sincere
the pendulum is swinging...

don't feel much like talking

and musicians (especially drummers) and boys from london are a pain in my ass.

tired, a green notebook full of little stories from last week, feeling sick from eating mostly pie for days.

finally no longer hanging on to any of it
a tally for me, to mark this time

i see the remains of that place
the edges, the shadow of who we used to be
i told him he was free to ride, but he lingers
breaking down, she taunts him, the fool
another returns,
he stands by the gate, the flare of danger but only when i hear his voice
round the side, but first a vision of scarred youth, of perfection lost before it ever got a chance
i will break his heart
back to the river, i no longer want him to stay
i have left them to float downstream, to a place forgotten unseen
pause for one who is not even one,
how light in the dark can change our minds
who remains?
my friend under the tree who returns a shell
the one who gave my life to another, and left me only with mountains and fears
he brings me a painting of the moon in exchange, but it will be too big to keep inside
and three more
i mail him my love packed amongst letters and unfinished chores
to the moors, to the hills, we will hide and pretend
nostalgic (as i said to him) for a time when my credit cards felt like lottery winnings
still one
still here
still friends
and all

the saddest poem in the world

.
.
.
It is kinder not to love when you know love has no future.

Our poor dog keeps on whining, enough to drive us to madness,
with his paws scratching now on your door, now on my door.
I no longer love you; for that I do not ask forgiveness.
I did love you; that is what I ask forgiveness for.

- Yevgeny Yevtushenko

fantasy gardening

Once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.

- Douglas Coupland

he will never find me

I'd like to say goodbye
You can't really say good-bye to those kinds of things
You carry them with you wherever you go
Likes ducks in the snow that quack as they go
The Wind blows back discarded trash

I'd like to say goodbye
I feel that I must say goodbye to everyone
Though I love them so
I love them all
I feel that if I said goodbye to them
I could say goodbye to a me I do not like
A horrible, nasty me which I despise

I'd like to say goodbye
I feel I must say goodbye to dreams
Empty and hollow though charming maybe
I feel that I must say goodbye to things
Maybe I could just sneak out the back door and say see you later
And never come back again

You can't really say good-bye to those kinds of things
You carry them with you wherever you go
Likes ducks in the snow that quack as they go
The wind blows back discarded trash

- Daniel Johnston

sleep all day

the weather report said "light rain" so i didn't bring my umbrella
flights of angels and rest for my loves

no one's coming

periods, check.
(this is not a post about hockey, though we watched some the other night)
three genres of film: zombie, violent and silly
i'm so in love with you...
done all my wondering
it's an odd kind of calm
sometimes you've read enough to know how the story ends
no need to finish the book
take off the armour, he's so small
our secret wishes reveal themselves while we sleep
send them all away
i will wait (for nothing)

too many what ifs

"...writing records the memory of the image of the future that will not be - the one I will never see."
- Peggy Phelan, Broken symmetries

it continues to be true, the trick to editing is sudafed

shades of purple

i stopped dancing for a long time because i was waiting for my life to be okay
but then i realized that my life is never going to be okay
so i started dancing again

apparition

pie
not only broken, but gay as the trees
my secret (bus) crush

reading about eyes
i see myself
a white man dressed in the clothes of a buddhist monk,
my secret shame and secret fear exposed/revealed
for no one but me
(there is a mystical force that resides where i catch the bus home)

indian summer,
heart like one
maybe just not today
how quickly they get bored
when they know they're going to lose

secret quiet still surprise

end of summer
after the rain
the smell of flowers hangs in the air

when we move to mexico and start hanging out with communists
i will be the under-recognized female genius half of our duo
don't forget

anti-climax

men lie
okay, women lie too
(am i getting soft in my old age?)

time to face the music and dance

carrot cake

they all made an appearance today in some form or another,
even the first
numbers and odds dictate that one must be a myth
and so, it isn't quite right to say i've given up on love itself...
just on becoming and staying

when we change our paths, we change everyone else's
and at a certain point back and forward look a lot the same
impassable
impossible
me
two-thirds through the month and i'm out of grocery money
small quests make small disappointments
a wise friend, talk
of trying to "snap myself out of the gravitational pull"
are bar fights always tied to romance?

always something there to remind me

apples and prophecies

i try to push less these days
big thoughts without voice
careful what you let in
he knows what he blocks out

i lie still
not waiting, not anything

like the wind/cliffs on both sides

thank you mr. swayze
(and i can't believe i went to work instead of keanu's press conference today)

what i did on my summer vacation

got myself into a stupid love triangle where i didn't even manage to get laid.

went to new york for a secret weekend liaison with an older married man, only to find out months later that he was no longer married by that point (the third anniversary of our affair) but couldn't figure out how to tell me. got my boots shined by a street preacher.

met my blog stalker in central park. i was late. he brought me flowers and butterflies and prayers. it rained. i kissed him for a long time in the parking lot and lobby of the newark airport, and then i went home.

saw california and the pacific proper for the first time. from my vantage point in the sky, found out how much of the wild west is really just wasteland.

investigated phd programs only to decide that i'm too lazy (and maybe crazy) to do one.

helped my mom as much as i could.

cleaned and cleansed my apartment.

got a new roommate.

got closer to the end.

got over my ex.

re-found one of my best childhood friends/quasi-brother.

got back together with my long lost punk rock teenage love, only to be duped/dumped in favour of an 18 year old who looks just like i did when i was that age.

realized it was probably never about me, though sometimes it's still hard to believe.

broke my heart (again!), this time in several places.

gave up on love.

it will be enough

insomnia tells me that a train passes by my house around this time every night

it would just be nice to know it wasn't all in my head

the bottom's not as bad as i imagined it would be

drunk

i wish he still talked to me

centrefold

i wanted it to be about me and maybe it once was but it's not now
i hope he has found her
it's all about who makes us laugh, and about who wants to
little ponds and big fishes
it's funny how we aren't who we were when we started
it's funny who you can find when you keep your real world small

sometimes magnolias bloom in september
i saw it today

take it back

books and lovers
(sometimes i don't even know what it means but we must stay true to our intentions)
more gentle and more kind than any wolf in a sheep suit will ever be
he plays the disguise from both sides
can't get the dayglos out of my head

postcard from belgium

some weirdo called my work today and said he could tell i was a dancer by the sound of effervescence in my voice

have you ever looked at a picture of someone and known they were thinking about you when it was taken?

this is where i disappeared

eighteen

the magic 8 ball says i will get my umbrella back

quoth the raven

no more

don't look and it won't hurt

sparkle gutter river

surfacing

i found him
and then i never saw him again

and your little dog too...

sweating
the funny little leprechaun pointed out that it was awfully hot in my office

training impatience to be a virtue
thy will be done
i'll just take my disappointment and be on my merry way

fail one
the easy way is the highway

fail two
it's never meant to be poems
just observations and recollections of truths
and lies

perfect astrology
the way he feels about me is the way she feels about him
to see from both sides
medicine, not poison
caution
he's totally perfect, except for the part where he's an asshole
one rotten tomato can ruin a whole salad
or something
she totally sees what i see/saw in (the other) him

i am destined to fall for men who will never think to notice that i don't like sushi

still waiting for the punchline

yellow

barking dog
without fanfare, he's gone
uninspired is also calm
no choice but to let it be
has she fallen again?
only time will know
it fades...

lemonade

from before:
the fact that you're here means that you lied

tonight i could sleep for a thousand years...

the air gets jaundice

never seen anything like it
but i missed the double rainbow

took my song out into the world today
debauchery preempted by potential toxic waste emergencies,
disasters on hold...
in some ways it's nice to (not)date a guy where the risks are all out on the table
cleaning one mess at a time
(tonight it was the shelves in my bathroom)

waiting is such sweet sorrow

the plural of enigma

what else was he looking for?
(unsaid)
why is honest and open hidden?
does he (ever) wish it had been me?
why couldn't (and can't) he say it?
what would actually happen if we came true?
was he dreaming about me?
(not the same, not the same, forgot one, mixed a few)

it had been a long time since i heard a crow in these parts

we all have to grow up sometime
i cannot bring myself to congratulate him

breaking news

i know it's not bedtime but my ex-husband just had a baby with his disgusting and trashy new girlfriend who is too scared to meet me. i feel like i'm going to puke. been over him for a long time so i'm not quite sure what that's all about.

karmic revenge, i'll go slumming and get really drunk with someone he hates tomorrow. yay.

monumental cupcake day

i urgently need a haircut
and it turns out that sometimes they actually do leave their wives...

apparently the trick to meeting strangers is to carry an armful of small appliances on public transit
(toaster oven and dustbuster)

a russian man (sad and slightly drunk, as they tend to be) came to me while i was waiting for the bus at the subway station
he asked if he could ask a question
he asked if we could go get some food together
he asked if i was married, he asked my name
he asked if he could give me his phone number
he sat himself down on the ground at my feet
and apologized for his inability to make his point
something about the difference between sex and relationships
he told me he was alone here, that his wife had left him
he told me i was beautiful,
and then he asked if he could follow me home
i said no.

the bus arrived
i went to the front, he sulked in the back
i sat beside a nice somalian woman
who admired my dustbuster and asked where i got it since she might like to take one home to her husband to use in his car
she was amazed that it was cordless,
and only cost fifty dollars

letting go

i always forget how much i need my body until i find it again...
the force requires balance
can’t hold myself together with wishes anymore

ain't it good to be back home

savasana

gypsy buskers in the subway
his eyes followed me away

from another guide: Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
~ Rumi

tensegrity, domes, light, secret gardens, illusions, returns, goodbyes, sleep

he stopped taking pictures

trying to just deal with what's in front of me

always already lost

the trick to editing is pseudoephedrine

i have been reading the same book since april

the last bowles for now:
Cry a little while, but not too long. A little while is good. Too long is bad. You should never think of what is finished...Women always think of what is finished instead of what is beginning. Here we say that life is a cliff, and you must never turn around and look back when you're climbing. It makes you sick.



this chapter of the bizarre tale begins with robert longo, features prince charming, comes with a soundtrack (ignore the video) and ends with a moment of pause for mr. john hughes

edit

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

- Leonardo da Vinci

books will never let you down

i wish i had written this bit of genius perfection first. but i didn't. steve reinke did. (he makes good movies too)

Why I am a surrealist

I believe that the unconscious exists and that I possess one. I believe that the unconscious is neither primordial nor instinctual. I am skeptical, uncertain, relativistic and doubtful but never cynical. I eat a good breakfast, though not until noon. I try to balance sublimation (a negotiation of instinctual renunciation) with desublimation (transgression of cultural prohibitions). I believe that transgression is a useless, empty gesture, but regression is productive, entertaining, fun. I am undertaking an analysis of the sexual determination of subjectivity and the social construction of identity. I am interested in the imbrication of the unconscious in the real. Because my memory is blank, I rely on the repetitions caused by repression. I feel the melancholy of loss and am compelled to make jokes about it. I attempt to create scenarios that are analogous to a primal structure. I am continually anxious over the alterity of the other, which I refuse to capitalize until it reveals itself more completely and proves it is exactly like me in every important respect. My work is driven by trauma and structured in repetition in order to transform the principle of identity, to convulse identity. I produce new objects of knowledge and then empty them out — it's a burlesque of traumatic loss, unbridgable gaps, endless sorrow. A sentient disruption of continuity, an unstable identity in which axes of desire and identification cross. Clearly, an hysterical position. Collapse, collapse, collapse! Involuntary memory, traumatic fantasy. (Also a belief in the primacy of the death drive.)

dramatic tension (new candles and desert sand)

just because you can see it coming a million miles away, doesn't mean you can stop it from happening
might as well just close my eyes, feel the light on my face and run headlong into the blinding sun

i spend my whole life waiting for midnight

both my horoscope and my guide say it's time to move on

so many thoughts and yet none

according to einstein, god does not play dice with the cosmos
but merce cunningham did
as a young student i was terrified at the idea of using elements of chance procedure in dance performance
afraid of mistakes, unaware (yet) that improvising is really just a lot like living
ironic now, so much am i a subject of lady fortune and her caprice

a pirated photocopy, a gift from a friend...
i swore to never distribute it so you didn't read it here
rule 9: be happy whenever you can manage it. enjoy yourself. it is lighter than you think.
(from "10 rules for students and teachers," typed and handed out by john cage in his classes at the cunningham studio in new york, at around this same time my worldview was exploding)

tonight, a line from a poem i wrote when i was a teen
just before the veil of fear was lifted from my eyes
stuck...really, i don't know
i went looking, in the spirit of breaking my own rules
in times like these one must be able to laugh at oneself
but the dig was too deep
easy to dismiss, not worth it
sometimes i suppose shit is meant to be left buried

from rule number six: there is no win and no fail

with gratitude to two of the greats
and peace to mr. cunningham as he joins his love in the silence

Here we are. Let us say Yes to our presence together in Chaos.
- john cage

so many things are like so many other things

c-clamps on my brain
i miss him like a limb
even though it never really worked
i gave up writing to talk to him today
which is okay
since the whole fun of writing was always to impress him
(and his kind)

photos and deserts and skaters and bombs
clouds and bridges and big big love
my home and my wound
no more
version x.o

rainbow over belfast

free pastry
no luck
dancing in the alley behind the donut store
secret handshakes
biscotti
beer belly
nettle tea
clear mind courtesy of my young heart

wool sweater in july (albeit a thin one)

i've been a vegetarian for more than half my life but i still love the smell of fast
food fried chicken

i can count my real friends on a hand or two
they're the ones who can disappear for a decade
and walk back into your life like they've never been gone
one reappeared today
the second boy i ever kissed
(on the same weekend as the first and third boys i ever kissed)...
a portent of my future slutdom,
which he witnessed with patience and care
he was one of the first boys i knew who would act like a man
but for all his love of asian strippers
i suspect it broke his heart when i married his best friend
(he told his mother to warn my mother about him - i found out too late)

in his honour, a list of my favorite childhood sticker smells:
grass (the lawn kind)
gasoline
grape

i'm sure there must be more

dinner invitation

terrible mistakes are exhausting
i'm going to bed

it wasn't supposed to rain today

why do people fight so hard for things they don't even want?

it already feels like so long ago
the whole world has fallen away now
i still see shadows when the steel grey fog creeps in
the path of the river
he stands with arms outstretched
sometimes he looks away
his shirt, their smiles, the distance
i float, gone away from my watch
maidens and willows and tears...
can't get out from under it

look back, way back
i am going to add "rebound relationship" to my list of special skills...
right after "zombie"

next page

mid-year resolution:
try to get to the end of my to-do list everyday
whining about men has been moved to the bottom
"as long as he was living his life, he could not write about it"
(mr. bowles again, from the desert)
at least, that's the plan

three hundred years of solitude

feels like i should have something special to say
it seems july is the time for signs
as always
i have no idea if they are pointers or warnings
only that they all go backwards
you didn't see me smile at her
too reserved to write beauty but you know i see it
i breathe my optimism
you read my cynicism
and so the truth will out
too much about recognition for these pages
speak to me friend, or not at all

perfect weather

stand at the bus stop with my eyes closed to the wind
listen
think about you and me
three year olds shouldn't know yet how to frown

time machine back to when my world was all possibility
regrets, perhaps a few
but i'm not here now without them
make do with watching the kids i used to babysit grow up
semi-professional musical theatre is much more entertaining than this broken record
it's nice to be reminded
it's never too late to gesture toward someone you have let go

what can't be said, what doesn't it mean?
you will know i am back when i feel like dancing again

ready for the world

Then for a few hours the idea of his actually writing a book had amused him. A journal, filled in each evening with the day's thoughts, carefully seasoned with local color, in which the absolute truth of the theorem he would set forth in the beginning—namely, that the difference between something and nothing is nothing—should be clearly and calmly demonstrated.
(Paul Bowles)

the colour of the wheat

you made me into the her who did you wrong
he made me into the her who could have done him right
i made me into the me who finally sees
sit with this
the heaviness of realization will pass and
i'll be okay on my own
push myself back into reality
i will miss the poems

wicked/inertia

with apologies to dostoevsky
i forgot to notice if he had slipped me his phone number

there's a guy i always check out when i'm in the coffee shop,
he owns the restaurant next door
there's a woman who rents space to teach her yoga class in the building where i work,
i hate her without explanation - i'm mean whenever she asks me for help and i scowl when i pass by her in the halls
yesterday i saw the two of them holding hands on the street
funny how we know our enemies,
who knows what we know, why we know...but we do

for martin

so many times me and rosie were the only girls in the pit, where we talked back to university jock bouncers and came home with black eyes from being kicked in the face with steel toe boots. i wouldn't give it back for anything.

thanks martin, for late nights making me feel not so alone, in bed or driving home, listening to the radio.

grocery store

that's my soul up there

possibility and the fool

the pattern of infinity
slippery ground
saturated, immobile
blind
turn your back, as i stand here and crumble back into the sea
dreamt last night of a dead but beautifully preserved blue peacock, lying on the ground on its back, the delicate aura of plumage gently surrounding his frame
there's a lot out there these days that breaks my heart
they just got the timing wrong is all

requiem

one day i will have a garden

pina

without this woman, the world as I know it would not exist

respect, thanks, and wishes of peace...

epiphanies

he's just not that into me
(and my beloved keanu should watch out for justin long!)

san francisco

things often don't look so bad
until you get a closer view,
until you've been around long enough to start to notice details
a room in paradise
with a view overlooking hell...
i walk fast
and become invisible

never sure which way is up
i went to the top
looking for that place i see in my dreams
the sign was there (lillie hitchcock coit)
but it wasn't quite
i stood dizzy above the clouds
i rode the bus down with the pink lady
i forgot that i look okay with a tan

finally found the copy of nine stories i have been searching for
bought it in the store where the beat poets used to hang
so much dancing on these streets
i read and write in snapshots lately

tomorrow i will go to the ocean
to the beach where the rocks of love came from
mysteries to unfold
there is this space full of the unknown
i will follow...
that's all

stanford/vacation

so much for my plan to meet a lonely physicist and then live happily ever after

onward...

offerings and leftovers

scent of jasmine
it gets cold in the desert at night

i think of you often
as the fierce wind dances in the sun

there is so much i should say
but you already know
and i'm the kind of tired that comes from being outside

we talked today about possession, cannibalism, power
there is no present without the shadow of memory

raspberries
and scarves in june
salt from oceans far away
i tried to be perfect
full moon birthday (you can see it in my eyes)
and a solstice sunset
mysteries and the value of questions
you say i'm a dreamer...
sometimes a greasy monkey,
the force of wishes can nearly knock me off my feet

i walk
i sit
i listen
i watch
i take

i should probably stop waiting,
but first i must sleep

full circle

speeding past endless ditches full of purple and white phlox
green, the undersides of poplar leaves flashing in the sun
bright-blue sky and the turquoise beaches of my dreams,
today with sailboats and windmills

how much of who i used to be do i want to keep?

dusk-blue dusk, water and sky
a perfect, round, glowing orb suspended somewhere between
moonlight beams a golden path onto the lake
interrupted only by the hands of the clouds as they pass before her

he knows my name now,
my curiosity wanes
my friend leaves once more for israel,
and again i don't know when i'll see her next
a cute guy on a bike - "cheers" as he passes me on the sidewalk,
a block later (on that same corner as before) he parks and looks me over as i pass by
no accidents this time
no coincidences
no drama
the magic dissipates...
for everywhere i've been this year
i'm really not much closer than i ever was

love is...

...having sex with someone enough times that they actually get to know your underwear collection

sad but true

i am at my best when i honestly no longer give a shit

roasted red peppers

somewhere around here it all starts to bleed together

waiting room

it's all about timing
dismissed - but i hate being wrong so i'm going to stop guessing
stood up - but i'm sick anyway so i'll come home and sleep
the best i can do is a dirty old punk rock nut who wants to make me birthday dinner and vodka - i said i had plans, and i'll eat cake alone if i have to to make it true
no one is ever completely forgotten
my ocean came back (like the wonder twins - form of...sky)
i will put my happy thanks out into the universe and hope it lands where it's aimed
joy finds me when i least expect it
at river's edge
at this great height
memories of...
we let it all go
i dance those smiles and dream into tomorrow...

sick and finally tired again

an injured squirrel
a dove
a pond of goldfish
irises are the only flowers that have done well in this crazy cold
i pretend not to hear the voices that float by on the wind
i know, i don't want to know
there must be more but i have no idea where to begin

best friend

a little distance
feels like it's time to start writing these ones down...

he was my "doué buddy"
("gifted" in french, "dove" in the misprinted high school yearbook)
once every week they took a bunch of us from our respective schools
and sent us down the highway in a taxi
to another school
where we would explore the contents of our exceptional minds
by writing children's books
and watching the space shuttle explode on TV

beautiful, athletic, popular, smart, funny
adopted, damaged
the perfect asshole gentleman
by fifteen he knew what it was to stare deep into the void
leather jacket, james dean in the rain

he dated the girl next door
but he loved me more than anyone else
dead poets society will always be about the night his hand slipped between my thighs in the darkened theatre
and how i made him stop

from then on he threatened anyone who tried to touch me
while continuing to date the wrong girl
one day i moved on
and despite his promises
he disappeared

skip forward thirteen months or so
an unexpected surprise (i suppose that's redundant)
an invitation
an apology
a renewal
looking back
a gift of an ancient wisdom
and an awkward intimacy

to see him happy, and at his request
i set him up with my friend, the girl across his street
beautiful, popular, talented
perfect
i cried alone

one crazy night he broke his leg on snake mountain
eighteen, and still staring into the black
he returned to me
flashback
point break will always be about the night he kissed the back of my neck
while his hand slipped between my thighs in my darkened living room
a snowy and treacherous night for driving in the country
handicapped
he somehow took my offer of a bed as a betrayal of our friendship
i tried desperately to understand
i never did

skip forward to the outset of my own demise
i walked past a fading version of him and the still-perfect girl in a shopping mall
we locked eyes
and pretended not to see
i rode the escalator straight up into the fancy chocolate store
i abused my credit card
and then i went home and wept alone

he disappeared again into his own deep, thrashing ocean
skip forward thirteen years or so
gossip with an old mutual friend...
rumours of how his life had spiraled into a mess
of crystal meth, cocaine, and gay porn
i found a photo of him online, long since removed
a casting agent's gallery of photos of potential extras
bloated, haggard, scarred
but somehow still beautiful
i looked into his eyes
and all i could see was the abyss
i no longer cry over him
but i do wonder if he's still here
no longer any trace
i wonder how i will know when (if?) he has gone from this world

cute brown dog, dead bird

i need to pay more attention
i need to learn to dodge bullets
i need to figure out how to say no
i need to stop getting myself into these messes
i need to stop caring about why
we all have our reasons

it's so easy to make friends with animals
not like people

sleep catches up with me
blindsides me
i have dreams about losing my mojo

why does rain smell like metal sometimes?

this is my life / love story

tonight i went to a fundraiser at a gay bar where i saw a drag queen named sofonda cox do her rendition of a kelly clarkson song. i don't even know who kelly clarkson is, but i'm sure sofonda cox is way more awesome. i watched my friend (wearing a gold sequined unitard) jump on a mini-trampoline in time to some techno song while my other friend (wearing a shiny metallic speedo) humped a leopard-print covered bed, also in time to the music. i saw a few old men, and even a dog, dancing (on film). i smiled. i also won a raffle prize and caught up with an old friend in between acts. all the young gay boys love me too, and i, them. it is safe to be honest and easy to be kind.

next week i will travel back in time. the secret fantasy is that i will also travel forward while i'm at it. then an awkward work gathering, editing and cleaning, a birthday, a birthday boy, a goodbye, an anniversary, an investigation, and a hello if all goes well. i no longer sleep so this will not be too much.

i wonder about absence, i am surprised by presence, i am trying not to take everything so personally, i am trying to no longer be as resistant to change as i have always been. he was riding on oceans, someone said the other night. i will learn to surf.

new carpet

it looks like they're planning to tear down the rest of the fire trap on the corner...i imagine the lilac will be destroyed in the process...i understand the idea of having to sacrifice something beautiful in order to avoid disaster farther on down the road, but it doesn't mean i have to like it

i keep having dreams about the place i lived growing up...it only occurred to me tonight that this might be about him

the wisteria in the tree blooms this year and the seeds i gathered have overcome both pests and poison

feeling optimistic tonight

the sky was a lovely shade of purple this evening

surrounded

lullaby
it's astonishing how many of them heard me
dark, love, sleep

daybreak

it's basically irrelevant since no one comes around here anymore talking to myself find a way to make it through one week until this passes maybe then it will be fine - i hate this now how it goes how it turns how my head spins sick from it all i may not return have lost my will my faith my hope my words my ability to make logic and order it all runs together how desperately i wish i could sleep maybe the end of this place i will breathe and lie and dream of planes and love and pray

the unbearable...ness of being (me)

it warms my heart (and my ego) to know that at least there are lots of old gay men who love me

flirting with germans

my investigations are centred around the following questions:

- if we hadn't been waiting for godot, would i have had the nerve to sit right next to him?
- what exactly is it that necessitates my exclusion?
- did he wonder what i was writing the whole time i should have been watching him?
- does it have to be dangerous for me to be interested? (exquisite craft on one side of the coin, real gambles with chance on the other)
- when we made eye contact, did it count for anything?
- how many of us wish we could go back and start this dance all over again?

my money for the best lover is on the one who listens, not the one who shows you he can

green socks and mixed tapes and black angels and karaoke

hawk valley afternoon / erasure

testing my own lies
finding the ground under my feet
unexpected
welcomed

for a change i'm not actually sad about anything (except maybe the plane ticket the computer won't let me book), i just have this this song stuck in my head.

nightmares

haven't had one like that in forever

disappointment ball

watching the wrong path, i follow mine
twitching, this energy is fast and dark
(rapids on the river prut)
brace myself...
only go as far as you know how to come back from
training wheels
less release on the left side
blank
open
beautiful
it's too bad you missed this

i need to pee
i need to write

i found my anger in the place i least expected it
in hindsight, it all pulls to the right,
away from the left
tears when i go out to the edge
feet asleep
gather the energy back to the centre
relax
it is not time yet to turn my head to the sky
choke
breathe

i need to explore my painter side
rest in the image
the lights are on
i am home
don't look now,
i will find him if he's there
i wish i could sculpt the pictures inside my head
when you close your eyes, that's all there is...

acrid smell of ballpoint
i push my cheek into this grey floor
it was here in this brick room with its yellow band that i danced my you
for me

break

midnight

what's weird is when you randomly meet up with your ex-husband on an empty streetcar

rainbows

Q. why is a math book so sad?

A. because it has so many problems.

green

i still wish you were who i know now you are not

magic seed eaten down to nothing
sprinkled with poison, it grows again

it is hard not to covet
when everybody but me has what i want
(yes, i owe my relatively youthful appearance to the fact that i am still a child)

dinosaur tails and cupcakes

my life is pretty strange sometimes
so are other people
incomprehensible, actually
i'm trying not to stress about it
tonight a young untouchable one hugged me while a rejected old one looked on
that was fun

no wonder

full moon in scorpio
he said
mercury in retrograde
she said...

this is the real shadow test
deep sea diving
dying before my eyes,
i still can't look
draw near
touch...
find a way to stay here
open
until it's time to come up for air
that glint will save me
(we have matching glasses)
magical three
i will practice remembering the bright side
while i search the bottom

vigil

i was thinking about how sometimes it's best not to look down
i was in the middle of writing something important
when the lights went out again
i was perplexed but of course it's the moon
good thing this time i knew exactly where to look for my candle holders
missed a call
ignore the sounds
damned if i do and damned if i don't
he told me he just sleeps his life away now
"just like they did in the gulags"
i will leave the candles on long enough to breathe
and find my way into the luxury of sleep
the trick will be to catch the moment between
there is a strange sort of satisfaction in watching it burn down to nothing
goddess of mercy
pray for me
i know not what i've done

baby food

cherry blossoms
full moon in a navy blue sky
a gathering of strong, smart women
i haven't been to school in at least a year
my keys no longer work
my ID card now does magic things
and they have since invented ways to cite electronic media
my beautiful bald brown man still works at the library
and it's still the only bus in town where every guy will be most intrigued by the girl sitting alone in the back, lost in her thick book and its big ideas
(they think she doesn't notice them staring, but she feels them, she does)

maybe they are here to make me see
all i need to breathe is light

mystified

resigned

how is it still here?

he saw me smile today

tonight an old man approached and asked where he knew me from
"are you on TV?"
it was the boots, no man can escape their charms
(balanced by the cute $12 on sale dress score)
requisite friendly polite response
his wife was less than impressed

eloquent writings on the ignoring of miracles
one mustn't...it is as simple as this

i don't know what she means
freedom...what did it say to him?
where have they gone?
my eyes burn with the tears of fatigue

variations on the theme of empty
stay, okay?

i miss not being afraid to go to sleep

it ate my fucking couch
in happier news, he reminds me of things I have forgotten
(in good ways)

estuary

now i have to watch the matrix again to see if it's true that my keanu is a bad actor
(he should never, NEVER, do a foreign accent again, that much i concur)

wait and see...
i wish i hadn't lost that song

search party

most of the time i really prefer to be still and quiet
listening...
i trapped the little guy from returning to his home
so now he will die in mine (if he hasn't already)
serves me right

beside myself

calm
storms and moons and armies of fire
showers of magnolia petals
what if this is where the river ends
and not where it left off
travelling upstream
plant some monkeys in the tree
watch the torch light on the other side
finally, dusk has come

little buddha

twenty years later and everything is still pretty much the same
"great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
that t-shirt saved my sanity then, as being reminded of it does now -
actually a misquote of sir einstein from a 1940 issue of the new york times...
sometimes it's nicer when the poetry wins
even if it's wrong

limbo

waiting
strange
without desire seems the best plan

i booked my escape to california today...

gone before dark

i am made of poison

pushing words out from the depths of my black headache, i doodle on a scrap of paper to avoid the crazy gaze of the shouting street preacher man on the subway. he does not need to see that we have met before, that i once looked with love into eyes much like his own, fascinated by his poetry just before it took us both over the edge...

spent $15 on a european magazine so i could read an interview with prince keanu in french, but apparently the north american version comes in english. can't decide if that's better or worse. at least the pictures are the pictures are the pictures...

visions of drummers and bridesmaids and arsenal games and spain...that and the light of the fading sun on the skyscrapers downtown this evening were enough to put a hint of a smile back where it belongs

it has been a few years since the tulips were this good
that summer was the one when he scratched our initials into the sidewalk
then the floods came,
and the mice
and soon enough he was gone;
now, i'm still here
the floods have been again,
the mice are returned
and he is still gone.

i know this by now
when a married man invites you to vacation in the guest room of "my little apartment" out of town, it means danger
we are all guilty of something...
acceptance
if these are my joys, so be it

one must practice...
something
anything

dumbing it down

nothing but another notch in my belt of sadness

tired of people (sorry if you're one)
i think next life i will try to come back as a crocodile

cursed by gypsies

or something

sinking ship

most of them are out of focus
this is where i saw the swans fucking

too much icing on the cake

now i have an ant invasion as well
my life is turning into one of those apocalypse movies where all the beasts of hell arrive and wreak havoc on the lives of innocents (or the damned)
someone today said something about saturn, i never know enough
the ghosts were anxious when it got time for me to leave tonight
milk chocolate cravings
pink mouse poison
pictures that catch my breath in my throat
pretend, ignore, i'm afraid i'm always still here
wish as any of us may

bite me

i have run out of patience for grown men who are unable to manage their own behavior, who then twist things to make it seem like their problems are somehow my fault

i should have just slept at work instead of leaving (nowhere near finished cleaning up the mess) at midnight. i guess i'm less afraid of ninja stealth mice than i am of an old building full of ghosts

i keep seeing things move out of the corners of my eyes. maybe i need new glasses, or a new brain

untouched bait

i had to get off the subway a stop early tonight so that the creepy dance fan/stalker wouldn't find out where i live

i have been wearing my shoes in the house just in case a mouse runs across the floor and over my foot. i am a total chicken. in lieu of that horrible experience, an ant managed to climb up the underside of my pant leg and bite the back of my knee. i found it lying on the floor underneath my chair, dying. serves him right.

watermelon rain

the little pest is back because the person who thought it was fun to try and catch him is gone...it shits on my counters and then disappears. i am tired of this. i miss my toaster like crazy.

i was hours late for work today because i was lost in a dream where keanu wanted to be my boyfriend...there was also grass that was the colour and texture of grover's fur, bleachers without seats overlooking an empty field, giant fences being dragged into place, fancy hotel rooms and trouble dialing phone calls and a fantastic (and free) new wardrobe for me.

pathetic fallacy has to be the other greatest literary device ever invented...today was cold and miserable, just like me.

release

andre told benoit that discussion of energy in/as dance is taboo in academia
the choice of path should be clear, but on second thought...
fight to exist or fight to articulate?
or none?

i don't recommend meeting one's heroes
the magic is in the work
they themselves are usually just human
or in my case, extra animal

haunted by wolf eyes
my dream of you
so much heat...

i can walk as fast as a train
(if it goes slow enough)

broken heart chakra

figures of eight across your body
mobile tongue
floating sit bones
shining trochanters
fluctuating states
outside is showing
inside is being
organizing the inside alignment allows access
listening is also a position of privilege
every movement choice creates emotional repercussions
there are consequences to all doing

eyes swimming in liquid
his are like no other blue I have ever seen
mesmerized, frozen
stand, drop the fear down and away
smile, walk, sleep, return

dionysian me likes this one better

i have been terribly dehydrated since last night; can't go get a drink of water once the lights are out...afraid of a mouse. lame.

i think i want to get married to the "chef" at our local gourmet burger joint. we made eye contact today when i picked up my order. looked up at him from under my eyelids, i was bold and shy all at once. it was awesome. i almost puked, just like cute little stan. but really...we could have messy tasty veggie burgers with avocado and roasted red peppers and sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions for dinner every single day for the rest of my life. maybe fries and onion rings on alternating fridays. it would be heaven. and he's hot. (and based on the kitchen party going on last time i visited, also into pretty girl asian chicks). sigh, but a girl can dream...

the bad thing about saying stuff is that you can’t take it back when you screw up

at least it's finally warm enough to walk home comfortably

spending the weekend with one of my heroes. excited and terrified all at once. fun.

quiet voice

battle the mouse with wintergreen and wishes
the gift of sight has always been a curse
i hide in sleep and friendship
and silence

this morning (afternoon) i got to work and heard that there had been a fire near my house, just a few doors down...a strange little cleaning supplies outfit, a dilapidated building with a blue tarp roof and a window full of plungers and other junk. every day i pass the guys who work there, every day we see one another but pretend not to. one of them (i suspect i know which one, though sometimes people surprise you so i have a second choice even though there are really only two of them to begin with if you eliminate the owners) leaves cairns made from garbage found as the snow thaws - items brought by animals or left by pilgrims who pass by on the way to mecca (of the beer or grocery variety) and sometimes lose their belongings. before i woke up there were helicopters and billows of smoke; later i stood across the street and waited for the bus in the aftermath, somehow oblivious to it all, looking at a sight so familiar that i no longer see. tonight i stopped by to survey the damage and pay my respects in the dark. i knew it was only a matter of time before their neglect backfired, but i was also made keenly aware of how even great loss doesn't always have to mean tragedy. blackened wood, boarded up windows, but no smell of smoke unless you get really close and no damage to the houses too close by. the lilac still stands, unscathed.

i wonder if he knows how much his gifts make me smile, and then i imagine there must be no other reason why he creates them. for smiles that is, not for me alone. my favorite was the yellow rubber glove, middle finger placed oh-so subtly over the end of a broomstick, a flag, an ode...his works are symbols of resistance and testaments to the necessity of continuing to look for beauty among dullness and ruins. no reason for him to return, now. i will miss him, my secret friend and unlikely spirit lover.

descent

as your tears hit the ground, blue flowers spring from them

one can only hope

casting shadows

you can't always get what you want

















but you can go for tasty brunch with your friends (on a day that coincidentally is also easter, so you don't have to be one of those lonely-on-holidays people)













your plans can get rained out

















the pizza store you walked blocks to find
might not sell slices













but you can still end up here
where reflection is the means
and not the end

hunting starfish

we were supposed to go to the beach but it rained
so instead i stayed out late
watching the mist
and waiting for sunset

home

a voice i thought i'd never hear again
familiar like it was never gone
strange how...

ride a train through the sky
a day spent averting desperate gazes and invasive approaches
a single pane of glass and five feet between me and a crack house,
until i found my cajones
now i look down at the life i do not need to see anymore
surrounded by energies i will spend my weekend fighting with walls
and absence
and burger king french fries to go

synchronicity, discovery
a gift of ladybug luck and kindness
paintings that read better when photographed
flowers in waiting
pictures not taken
plays about wanting and madness and hearts and clouds

"dress code in effect"
children pretending to be vixens
hair stringy from the rain
i walk between them, unscathed
i return to find the lights turned out
covet the blurry photo in the corner
find a way to write my own

hunger strikes
the burnt-out ends of smoky days...
tomorrow is another day

rock the casbah (hotel lounge)

it has taken my whole life to finally feel comfortable enough with myself to eat alone in a restaurant

He awoke, opened his eyes. The room meant very little to him; he was too deeply immersed in the non-being from which he had just come. If he had not the energy to ascertain his position in time and space, he also lacked the desire. He was somewhere, he had come back through vast regions from nowhere; there was the certitude of an infinite sadness at the core of his consciousness, but the sadness was reassuring, because it alone was familiar. He needed no further consolation. In utter comfort, utter relaxation he lay absolutely still for a while, and then sank back into one of the light momentary sleeps that occur after a long, profound one. - Paul Bowles

the only thing i ever wanted was to be someone's muse

methocarbamol

try again

diaphragm spasm

watching ducks mate is pretty much the most romantic, hilarious and wondrous thing ever

that, and maybe the fourteen year old boy from brazil who improvised for me today and took my breath away with his dancing

the crows tease me
but they still won't let me take their pictures
i will continue to watch and listen from afar

headache

i am killing myself trying to find a song for tomorrow

rock star

my friend says he imagines i'm one out here
i suppose it's a bit like that
no one is allowed to talk to me
i pass them in the halls
sometimes they're bold and they catch my eye
i want to sit down with them,
to dance around together
there is so much we have to talk about
so many things we could say,
but...no
so lonely
so exhausting
this feigning of disinterest

in my dreams he hops into his fancy car and drives across the river to say hello

perspective

i befriended the most hilarious and precocious twelve year old yesterday
reminded of what it was like to prefer the company of adults
(ironically, as i now prefer the company of intelligent and curious children)
reminded of what it was like to want someone you could never touch
reminded of the days when we groped around in the back seats of cars
reminded of thinking it was all life or death
knowing now that none of it really matters
sitting now on the other side of wanting to impress
i wish there had a been a shortcut to here
still smaller than the mountains
unable to fly and sing like those majestic birds

we meet who we meet
we live what we live
we like what we like
we understand as much as we understand
that is all there is
that, and our kindness to one another
tomorrow, regardless
there will still be snow on those mountains

wrong time, wrong place, wrong universe
i guess that's what dreams are for
(that, and warnings)

In sooth I know not why I am so sad...

too early for flowers

i love how the crow's whole body pulses when he talks

surreality

missed my plane
broke my nail
staring out the window at mountains and pines
over the rainbow
everything here reminds me of you

the crows make me feel like i'm home

jet plane

bail as in water?
or
bale as in hay?

clearly this was not the plan

"Converting fonts and bullets soothes the mind in a funny way and thinking about the past puts the present and the future in another light."
MD diary, 1990

"or maybe it's just life"
Jeff M.

wide open

I bought my boots
I can’t find a roommate
I can't afford either
I like the new B-52s song
I'm tired, bored, insulted, worried
I'm waiting
I don't wanna clash, I don't want to rehash the past
I just want to believe
I'm avoiding the work I really have to do
I will go to bed and not sleep
once more

listen
close my eyes and smile

friends of achilles

i never used to like pears, but now i do
i wonder what other great things are in store for me?

i practice spinning on my kitchen floor
while tomatoes explode inside the microwave

i wonder if he knows that now he knows my weak spot

it seems too early for tulips
we all come in on our own time

erase it all, retrace my steps
say goodnight to the shadow of the unicorn

i want to tell him...
for what it's worth,
i'm still here

lessons

it is much easier to break up with someone because he is a drug addict than it is to do it because you're just not in love with him

i'm thinking of taking up smoking again

worst part about today (aside from the guilt): dating a fat guy seems to have made me fat

best part about today: the tetris champion made me perfect again, for free

i buy a size large but then my pants keep falling down

once in a while you can order some van gogh prints from amsterdam and when they arrive it will make you forget for a few moments about the shitty parts of your life

i am praying for the flood to stop

so far from clever

i spend a lot of time looking down
my new version of finding shapes in clouds...
staring at tiles
there's a devil i see in my bathroom sometimes
i have to play tricks on myself to forget it's there
today, a mermaid
on the subway platform
holding the staff of neptune
my dreams find me
even without the grace of sleep

i suppose i need to somehow mark the events of yesterday
planets out of line says this morning
i have always hated horses
never unicorns, it bears repeating
even if it's not true
what matters is that i had no question that it could be
i wanted it to be, easy and clean
now i crash
waiting for phone calls that will never come
wishing for faces and arms that will not ever be mine
now, again, before, no end

this is not what i wanted

crushed
by too many almosts
so many things i want to grow
and nowhere to plant them
wisteria makes amazing bonsai
i could turn the poison nightshade from the alley into a houseplant
maybe steal a spring of lilac from the tree on the corner and try that as well
there's always hope
just no normal for me
in happier news,
my avocado tonight was perfectly ripe

i have to remember to breathe

spring cleaning

things jump out at me today,
done before i can catch them

i have to organize before i can conceptualize
today is the day maybe we figure it all out
what to hide, what to move, what to keep

i was upset because the light in my basement is burnt out
worried about my stuff sitting in the dank blackness
until i realized
it's always dark when the lights are out

many moons later,
i have finally discovered where the crows go

i am so bored of me

there's this crazy wisteria vine
wrapped itself into a pine
on the grounds of an old buddhist temple
it only blooms every few years
just before my birthday
and oddly,
never around my heartbreaks
today i gathered some of its seeds from the sidewalk
magic beans
on my way to work late

i live off donut store fare and potato chips and rice krispies with bananas and soymilk

a friday night visit to the museum bookstore
march break, goddess worship
young couples call to their children in ukrainian
my turn to be jealous
saddened
denied my birthright
a music of long ago longing
anyway
too burdened with debt from my naive eleemosynary impulses to afford admission
but why pay when the street outside is flooded with an abundance of ancient energy?
called to it, i pick up some of that too
descend
repeat
then continue to hide my roots

"it's like falling backwards into no one's arms"

lost (on the) head of a pin

found my glasses (too late)
still can't find my phone
nor my headphones

i asked him if they have a term for mapping one's own unconscious
they do (jung called it active imagination)
i told him how i used to do it, that i did, and how
he walked away after a while
just walked away
i know the rules of engagement, yes
but i also think he's jealous
i think he fakes it when he plays

ask what it wants
he said, and laughed
as i put the frozen veggies into the microwave to steam...
"are those green beans?"

i will ask what it wants

jiffy pop and blueberry juice

sometimes it's not enough to get what you asked for
am i only mourning the loss of the future of that flower?

maybe the funniest joke i know

i know this guy miko, he is from venezuela
sometimes for laughs
he uses jones for his last name/stage name
say it out loud
in spanish

in related news,
tonight I saw a guy trying to eat a falafel on the bus
that takes balls
so does making eye contact when you're checking me out on the subway
(he was too beautiful, i got just outside his bubble then i chickened out and ran away)

my lame sense of humour

kurt is rolling in his grave at the crass appropriation i dare not speak
my favorite underwears (the cotton ones with the pastel pink and baby blue hearts) finally fell to pieces

oh, and i finished editing (save for three pages of words i need to check)
as with always, you look back and wonder how the fuck it took you so long to get here
it's not shit, but it does go on and on

disturbance in the force

at the bottom of a set of stairs much like these,
at water’s edge, a green moss
I stepped down into it,
giving way into sea of green and yellow string beans
the slope, too (a hill of?)
the way up is slippery, tread deliberately (not the same as carefully)
(break for discovery)
dreams (again) of belgium (running out of time)

***

i decided last night that I will start reading fiction again, to stop my compulsion to create drama in real life.

he wants to make me soup.

a man who made my life miserable, gone from this world. I will deliver the news.

i miss those women who burned with an inner life.

an objection: writing is the only place where everything is clear.

the law of the father - you cannot save anything without first giving it a name.

fireflies and lost innocence

at a time when i have the most nothing of all time,
the fear is that i will lose it all

today i stepped in and out of a vortex
at will

full sun into the evening
there is work to be done

all apologies

it was the best of times
it was the worst of times
i have lived my nine lives
this is the year to put periods on my sentences.
it's time to start writing a new book...

i told you so and all the rest

today i traded casserole recipes and onion cutting tips
with my old punk rock boyfriend
(the wonders of cream of mushroom soup!)
now we are just like middle-aged suburban housewives
how far we've come...

otherwise
practicing keeping quiet
just like them
just like this moon
whatever plus a day

i could have lied

politics = i would if i could but i can't so i won't

i'm going to bed.

lilac wood

ice cream and stories about magical creatures are the only things a girl can really depend on.

I held it for her while she was gone

brotherhood sisterhood
in reverse
a room of 13 statues
living breathing ancient smells
fill my senses
one sits
alone
topology (of this ancient quest)
who ever said walking needs legs?
stand
and she will be revealed
Antigone, Helen, Medea
the order of the witch tribe
there must be light if she's still alive
resilience

drawn backwards
without fear
monkey gone to stupid heaven

chaos theory

"Outside ideas of right doing
And wrong doing,
There is a field.
I'll meet you there."

- Rumi

a life lived sideways

what do you do when you live in a shoe?
(have i said this before?)
don't make me have to kill you...

i called
they came
a beautiful mess

another cool power to have would be an ability to move time forward
(or back, or maybe into a parallel dimension)
if only for tonight
we all have dreams

at least it seems the river is still there...

stop (sunny grey)

got all my songs back, except for the whale one
ripped down the painting last night
blank white walls
no more

six doors down from the seat of my discontent,
the home of a dead magician

gazelle soup

my dream of him...
it's a whole different thing when you open your eyes
so tired
I can't do this when I'm being watched; feeling mean so I'll choose silence instead.
the path of least resistance
33 half moons ago,
a standing chance

almost warm

morning:
I spend my time propagating succulents and reading non-fiction. this is in some ways meant to replace/offset my habit of cultivating innuendo (the title of my future autobiography, and a pastime which, while fun, hasn't tended to / doesn't always work out so well for me)

afternoon:
I will hold it together from the bottom
unseen

evening:
it's about the joy of dancing...
in the face of all that is ugly and dark
(that's the part she neglected to say out loud)
"Music allows us to avoid the abyss of unbearable anxiety." Zizek, Pervert 1:37

seussical and other nonsense

now that i know him,
nothing is the same

date crasher

you know how angels in movies are always bus drivers and stuff?
tonight i got off at the back door
he honked, opened the front door, and pointing upward at the sky
shouted
"that's venus and the moon, check it out!"
i did
a sliver of light covered up in shadow
fog
a beacon revealed in its midst
no camera for that
or the fire extinguishers and roses scattered amidst the fake snow and vodka
images for an evening only meant to live on in my head
back away slowly
no one gets hurt
there is enough for all of us to find our way
it's about...
it's something