change of scenery

i'm bored & i need
an adventure or something.i'm craving
rich colors & gypsy music, dark eyeliner,
dimly lit revelry.
either that or
summer air on bare skin, bright sun & sparse beaches,
warm stones underfoot.
is this supposed to mean something? i've got
pictures, feelings, surroundings
stuck in my head

all i know is that today i'm done with the cold
i'm done with the way they look at me.
let's be realistic & blame it on
my achy belly and my lack of sleep,
the way my legs burn when i ride my rusty bike.
i want everything to be light & transparent &
almost invisible. is that too much to ask?
(yes)

weekend, remixed

that night we got kicked out of three bars & we
played arcade games for hours throwing away
nickels with abandon, silver coins for paper tickets for
plastic prizes; i think this is what they call
downsizing

tramped shivering side by side over piles of snow
each intersection an exciting new divergence
staring up to the clearing skies for guidance
or maybe just renewal, reminder that
the stars still press us to the earth

saw two girls stripping on their porch, preparing
for a midnight streak down the block & as they
ran shrieking covering their chests
we wore matching grins & laughing eyes, we
almost joined them.

is this a lie? do i
mash together pieces of different stories &
different you's, remix into one encounter
for clarity, for simplicity's sake, for
the bigger picture?

all i know is i almost slipped this morning
leaving yr house, striding down icy sidewalks, leaving
you & yr sweet nothings behind. all i know is
i've got my underwear on inside out, & you -
you wear yr heart on yr sleeve.

mendacity

i wish i could tell you
my thoughts on treetops, but since i moved here
everything has been about rain,
& the way it feels to come full circle.

you see i'm the expert
at holding myself tight but today i'm
leaking out seeping between my fingers
making a mess of this frigid room.

oatmeal nightmares & soy latte daydreams
& that fairytale party i forgot to go to last night.
in the dictionary, cerulean is the purplish blue of
october skies, but suddenly it's december

& the sky looks more like dingy bathroom tiles or
cigarette ashes in the daylight. i'd like you
to come up with a name for this color that makes us
run indoors and curl into each other for warmth.

a name they'll print on crayola wrappers,
package between candy-apple red and
ballerina pink. end-of-the-line orange, so i must have
missed my stop.

there's so many new beginnings
and i don't know where they came from but if i
cut off my hair or stopped smiling at strangers
could i have a moment alone?

pack it all up and away and
we'll take a trip to the other side of the river,
where nothing has changed.
except where have all the girls gone?

homesick?

weaving thru fragments of
beginnings & endings
thru pieces of perceptions &
potentials. yr fundamental lack of reasoning
& my impractical quest for sentience.
this blank slate is too smudgy with
reminders of what stained it before -
rub it clean with yr gaudy meditations &
yr startling grin, till we
forget who we are. were we?
i think i'm remembering
what to miss, i think
our unhinged speculations are
our own undoing &
we've delved too deep this time.
you see, i'm perched on a ledge
with a view to nostalgia
& only yr distractions will do.

a memory, canada in september

& all i could think was
how intricately beautiful a photograph it could be
the sunset behind you
yr tear-streaked face in the fading light
the heartbreak in yr eyes.

yr tears &
my calm arms &
i wondered how i could be so cruel.

& it wasn't till morning
behind the wheel with you just vanished
in the rearview mirror
that reality hit & my eyes flooded &
i cried for every ounce of love
i've ever had to leave.

glimpses

standing on my bike stepping
full body into the pedals i'm
taking off i'm soaring i can never be
stopped, & the instances
captured in the lighted spaces whizzing by
are held hostage by these cold dark streets
are bound to each other
in some self-referential collage that
contracts and expands and
repeats night after night after night & my
squeaky bike chains and my visible breaths
give me away
make me look solid and grounded and real
while really truly i'm weightless and gone.
& the silhouette of yr beard is too
close a match, too
strong a resemblance so i
shake my head & will you away
& what am i trying to prove with this
attempt at inexistance i wonder
what detachment have i designated
for myself?

fingerprints

woke this morning to
bruises on my thighs like
ghostly fingerprints
had left their mark & i
wonder did i clutch myself
too tightly curling and
shivering
holding myself together in my dreams?

leaving

walking down the street today watching the curl of my breath in the air as i exhaled, slipped my hands into my pockets pulled from the folds of denim a pile of pale dry crumbled fragments that vanished twisting into the breeze only a memory of warmer air, of the close of a day, of another walk, singing face flung to the blue skies above until the perfect shade of autumn crimson caught my eye and i stopped and reached down, spun it between my fingers then tucked it away as if to save that fall day, that anticipation in the air, that sense of the weather almost gone, hovering before fading away. a smattering of vibrant leaves lighting up the street where today they lie soggy and brown clogging the drains and soaking the hems of my jeans. i brushed the last bits from my fingertips trying to recall their former hue but the sky only turned greyer and spat raindrops my way, whispering: winter is here.

downtown pdx

i'm so tired, & the sunlight is so short
these days. this is a picture of me
crawling across the floor groping for my alarm clock
this is the shock of cold air
the smell of rain and leaves.
the electric glow and the darkness,
they look like you
in the periphery of what i used to be, You
just out of focus when i look away


the dryness in my eyes & the
cheap sugar cookies turning sour in my stomach,
the clean empty streets & the
bar-goers who look at me sideways.
the shiver in my shoulders tonight,
the smile on my lips.


how many of us are faking sane and
how many faking crazy?
you staggered down the sidewalk making people
jump! in surprise
at yr laughing eyes and loud voice;
the second time i passed you i told you i was lost
you said i was breaking yr heart

wet wet water

i licked dairy-free buttery spread from my fingers &
you came clean about the milk you'd poured in my cereal but i only laughed
turned up the oven while the toast crackled
and the smoke drifted up
and let's just hope the fire alarm doesn't work, else
the screeching beeping will drive us outside

into the rain and we'll
wander confused, wander wet
with drops drip-dropping off the ends of our noses
streams coming down from our hair.
listen, do you hear the clouds silently fleeing?

now that we're wet and slippery we should go to the coast
before it dries up too
oh look i imagined it maybe but here i am still
in this puddle drenched and shivering,
transported. where have you gone, my enemy?

bike time

time moves at a different pace on a bike - each ride in its entirety one unit disregarding clocks and schedules, each ride in its entirety a release and a relief, a forgetting of how fast the world moves while we cling to it with our feet or plow through it in our cars. skimming over the surface all relativity disappears till we jolt to a stop come back down to earth wonder how many minutes have elapsed.

amethyst lake

a shock of hair a flash of eyes a glance as fleeting as that flicker of smile

yr face remembers me yr limbs recall our future submersion - let us allow ourselves to get acquainted once more

i'll be the ice fisher chipping away numbly to lower myself gingerly into yr cold amethyst depths - you the impassive the impenetrable the vast and beautiful

you fill with lights shining through the translucent blanket like underwater fireflies darting from possibility to moment to anticipation

write me a song to lull me to frozen sleep so we can sing the refrain together in my dreams

you were never the legible type, i was always the sleepwalker stumbling into you hands out as if my blind fingers could pull a textured meaning from yr unbearable smooth surfaces

one night i spun fiery circles in a fierce dance a dervish impersonation illuminating your dark still countenance and i felt you melt and shift a little beneath my feet

before you regained yr composure

a day in the life

i was sitting impatient at the busstop curled up on the bench biting my lip when you pulled over and offered me a ride; i hopped into yr cream-colored volkswagen and petted yr dog and we smoked and you took me to the house offering from the curb a goodbye and a place to stay so i turned back halfway up the stairs to accept; we filled the backseat with my bags, later after burritos we drove for hours around portland glowing orange and foggy in the night, watched planes taking off miraculously lifting their heavy bodies from the pavement and others slowly appearing mystical from the clouds, talked about cities and friends and yr almost-ex-wife and drugs and the past and then nothing, just sat in soft silence with the lights rushing by and the night rushing by till upstairs in yr room where you were flipping coins.

goodbye chicago (for now)
hello portland

free falling

the giddiness of erasure
the adrenaline of breaking yr fall
the headrush that comes from
letting go

close calls

The bus was at the intersection when I stepped out of Broadview, heaved air into my lungs, swung my bag over my shoulder and started sprinting down the block, across the street, straining and kicking to catch up till i was banging on the back window as it pulled away. Luckily, a parking car intervened and the bus driver let me in between stops. and i realized, plopping panting into the slick seat, that man do i love to run. Distances, out jogging by myself, wearing myself out, they sometimes don't appeal so much. But running fast and hard, long enough to get into my stride and my rhythm, legs pounding the ground with lengthening strides till I'm airborne, the back of the girl in front of me as I eat up the space between us; that feels like power. That is me, rejoicing in my body, no room in my head for anything but one foot in front of the other and my heartbeat pulsing through me and the air piercing my throat. It's a wild joyous sort of freedom that fills me up till I expand into me.




So I have this unhealthy new habit, when I'm out riding my bike, of running red lights later and later, relying on the few seconds it takes for the drivers to register the green light in front of them and go go go. And each time they're a little closer but somehow all I want is everything always to be close calls and narrow misses and just-in-times.

suffocate

everywhere i look seems like
another line being drawn
a deadline, an obligation, another
promise i have to keep; it's
days weeks years
boxing me in and
i keep trying to slip out
cuz i can feel the air leaking in
through the holes in the corners
but i tell myself i ought
i ought
i ought to make them happy
i ought not to disappoint
i don't want to let anyone down so i don't
batter through the cardboard walls
surrounding me; instead
i let the papery dryness build up
in my mouth
hide the box cutter in my shoe
decorate my cage with bright colors and
activities to distract me from
my suffocation & that
fresh air i can almost almost taste

night ride

riding my bike through the unusually warm night air dress bunched above my thighs bare legs wonderful in the breeze the day at my back and home somewhere in front but now i'm here here on a dark street whizzing through night always looks to me like a kaleidoscope of lights and haloes and outlines of figures but at the moment it is cool and dark wrapping around me the only things real are the pavement immediately ahead and my legs pumping and the wind on my face and i am unaware and content.

the missing parts

i think that this isn't true; i think that maybe it's my empty stomach growling out its annoyance at me, that it's also the realization of an end to a summer which has been all about endings. the leaving is easy and the arriving is always hard and everywhere i go i almost have second thoughts and turn back. and maybe i live by the thought that leaving is easy but lately i have a sneaking suspicion that it's less manageable than i think. as long as i keep filling up my heart with more people and more places i won't have time or energy or cause to miss any of them i tell myself until suddenly i do and there are so many there for me to miss.

in the summer

walking around out here takes me back to summers when we were little and the world was our playground and we rarely left home aside from the occasional library trip but life was a series of expeditions and games, exploring the creek, smearing pokeberries to stain our skins purple, poison ivy and scratches and scrapes scarring our arms our legs while we ran home muddy-faced and tired to big bowls of pasta and fresh summer salads we'd help pick from the garden; baths and bedtime stories with my dad sitting on the banister outside our rooms spinning sagas and fairytales into paths for our imaginations reading in bed by the light from the window on those long summer nights, dancing with my sister across the space between our beds and whispering inventions into each other's ears behind tangled hair in the summer, in the summer.

tomato

you are beautiful you
are if i could sum you up in a flavor i'd
wrap you in a tomato skin just firm enough
seeds pulp and all, juicy and bursting with
summer, with sweetness and boldness and
just enough tart taste on my tongue
a freshly picked tomato still dusty from
the garden, new and ripe and
delicious

phone call

i don't want
tears on the other end of the phone line
tears and unraveling

hot pink signatures

i snip through my hair dropping ends &
beginnings & scraps
into the sink, twirl around &
strain for angles dig my fingers deep into my roots
squeeze my eyes shut
shake my head fast hard so the
hairdust endings fall out to
litter my shoulders
turn on the faucet and clear the sink
each hair leaving a tracing
a signature in hot pink dye
looping and spiralling webs on the
cool white porcelain, a map of my
eccentricities.

leaving

talking to kevin i told him that's what I do; i'm
the leaving type and he looks at me he
raises his eyebrows he says
eventually you'll have to stay somewhere
and i nod of course cuz no matter what i say i'm
tired of all the leaving.
my last few days in a place every encounter
feels like it needs to be a goodbye
you know, just in case & we
waste our precious time talking of
where i'm going to be, not
where we are.
my last few days every night
i never sleep till the clock hits morning and my
body tells me it needs a couple hours of
unawareness.
my last few days i don't know how to react so i
cut short the people i love and
focus on what's just out of reach out of
sight, in the leaving.
i leave people, i leave places, when they've
hooked into me lightly enough
that i can still tear free; deep enough
to leave a scar.
& i tell myself leaving is easier but
it exhausts me.

i think i need more indefinites in my life because i
live through each place knowing my time there is closing.
i want to stay stay stay stay LEAVE with no warnings, no
forethought, no
goodbyes.


on bald head island:

kaleidoscope

hot afternoon & we're
melting away, trying
not to move
sit still and let the world
kaleidoscope around us
this cold drink in my hand, these
familiar faces surrounding as we
lounge around and wave our hands at flies,
at friends, at the thick air
underage skater boys with sticky smiles
old men hiding beers inside paper bags
hipster girls in heels bumming cigarettes
moving and flowing through this street scene dance
of hellos and goodbyes and this day
this month this summer - they're
going too fast i need a pause
a signal, a memento
something more to
hold onto.

last days

raspberry hair
volcanic
sunglasses that tint my world the soft greenish brown of 70s films
i feel myself melting away like a popsicle (raspberry popsicle!)
they can't touch me except they can, oh they can

no unfamiliar faces

do each other

who knows what's real
what's pretend when there's
all this time to kill, all this
sticky summer air &
these empty streets & there's
nothing to do so we do
what we can, do
what we want, do
each other

summer flings

romances seem easy, seem lovely but less intricate - what's beautiful is the intimacies we create outside of the contexts of exclusivity and ownership and even sexuality. let's color our own pictures of love of life of friendship

i think i expect too little from people, expect them to expect too little from me.

i don't even want to think about
things
just want to spend all my evenings in the
half-dark, never sleeping
till almost dawn
curling up whispers
passed between shadowy faces
expressions almost indecipherable but for
the occasional flash of smile
let's be near, let's be dear, let's be
undefined&indiscriminate and always
newnewnew; let's
go to bed.

shall we?

Let's have a gas station romance, an insomniac future, a revolution. Calling all runaways and commitment-phobes - we can build sand castles and cloud constellations, take midnight bike rides that leave us starry-eyed and wanting more; when our voices get scratchy in our throats we'll shout even louder. I want to spill out my secrets to strangers, create intimacies and miracles and then vanish into a new reality.

Lola

             She slipped off the stool, asked me to babysit her beer while she peed, and I nodded, turned and smiled at him in what i thought would turn into an uncomfortable silence filled with our unfamiliarity; we'd reintroduced ourselves yet again but I wasn't sure what there was to say. He reached for his back pocket. "Do you smoke?" "Yeah....if I can bum one..." He smiled, rubbing his sweaty hair.
             In the other room he stuck a cigarette between his lips as we stood in the doorway, pulled out a book of matches then remembered and offered me the pack, cupped his hands around a flame as I inhaled. We wove around the boys playing pool to find familiar faces in the nook in the back; he sat on the table and I folded myself onto the floor, looking around and smiling faintly as introductions were made and beers were compared.
             "You look like Lola."
             I looked up, laughing, "Who's Lola?"
             "Lola from Run Lola Run. You know." I claimed it was just the hair but he shook his head, no, no it's her style too, it's the tilt of my head.

fortresses

              Sitting on the floor behind the counter feels like hiding, and I suppose that's what we're doing, ducking down out of sight, away from our job and their eyes and any responsibilities. Down here, curled beside the humming refrigerators, we're kids building fortresses out of cushions; we've downsized our spaces and simplified our world. The few square feet of grimy stone, the coffee grinds and plastic lids I can see we've neglected to sweep from way beneath the counters, the prepackaged muzak streaming out the speakers. We're giggling, he's singing, I lean my head back on the cool metal, close my eyes, let out a sigh. Our knees are almost touching. I open my eyes for a peek and smile...the front door bangs open and he jumps up a customer a customer at last! Reluctantly I'm easing to my feet, grabbing the big milk pitcher and wiping the steaming wand, blinking as my reality expands once more.

hot july

today is listed as 103 degrees hot hot hot; the humidity of course as always is adding to it, but it doesn't seem so bad. It's like living in an oven, a warm blanket of air wrapped always around us, the glow on our skins merely a constant presence we've learned to accept.

yesterday was 101, the heat index 110, so hot that everyone let their air conditioners roar full blast in hopes of coming home to icy relief, so hot that power usage soared and a line burst and from 8 to 11 last night carrboro went dark and quiet and still. The darkness was luxurious - after the daytime of so much sun, the suffocating evening air and the hot breeze on our skins felt pleasant and easy; sitting in the house with candles lit it was simpler to ignore the dampness in the smalls of our backs, in our elbows and knees.

yesterday and today have been the hottest days so far, but the easiest to bear somehow. i've melted enough away that i'm accustomed to the melting; you can try and shove through the air like thick draperies or you can glide slooowwwwly through it like water, smoothly sedately softly. i'm gliding lately, i'm complaining still but i'm thriving.

poison

it's strange how we feed ourselves
poison then
sit back and enjoy the ride while
our bodies and minds fight it out to
save us, to
restore reality

puddle jumper

              looking up from my book as the raindrops stop falling, a brief intense shower gone as quickly as it appeared, my eyes adjusting to the sudden reappearance of the sun.

              a red-haired boy maybe five years old, blissful smile on his face as he stomps his feet in the miniscule puddle formed in the corner of the sidewalk panel, marching in place watching the droplets fly up onto his shoes his socks his legs. mother and sister reversing their steps, materializing to encourage him along and for a moment he steps away from the water, then runs back towards it with a jump and a sprinkling of water. still not satisfied, runs almost out of this window pane, turns and gathers momentum for one final splash, a satisfied grin, then a gallop to catch up with his family and he's gone.

              i uncurl myself with a yawn, unwrap my mind from the fiction i've been drawn into, upend the paper cup to catch the last few cooling drops of coffee and step outside. waiting to cross the street i feel a dampness seeping through a hole in my shoe, look down, and smile. i'm standing in the little boy's puddle.

scissor sisters

                  the other day, a hot day, a sweltering day, one of those days when we should lie under the trees and catch drips from popsicles instead of venturing into the asphalt oven of civilization
                  pushing my way out the doors of the mall twisting shoulders to slip between clusters of preteens, ducking to avoid flailing arms gesturing with too much excitement, chipped painted nails soaring above my head and faces chattering frantically, glistening with layers of makeup
                  glancing side to side surveying the crowd the sun beating down the noise engulfing me i fumble for a moment then slip on my headphones choose a song am transported
                  i stride through the crowd feeling at once part of it and surrounded by a bubble of myself maneuvering through families and couples and friends and people people people, shutting out their noises and filling myself with more pleasing ones, ones that transform the situation
                  later, sitting on the hot metal counter at work, throwing out songs and stories with a coworker, i describe it and he says, "no i get it, it's like the camera zoomed out and there you were in the crowd, you still in focus and centered but surrounded by a sea of people. the song gave the zooming out."
                  it gives a taste of humanity, a detachment, a significance and poignancy unmatched by their reality...distracted and deterred by appearances and sounds and personas, i'm pushed away, i take myself back. plug in a song to my head and i'll give them a chance, i'll see their beauty, i zoom out and give them another look.

the way life tastes

here chicago feels like one of those abstract dreams i have on sleepy weekday afternoons, napping in the sun from my window trying to escape the heat outside

i'm not a different person i'm just continuously expanding and shifting to fit my spaces and i like the one i'm filling right now, i like the way my life tastes now as i adjust and observe and create my surroundings it seems more real than anything lately

i like to dig my way into a place i like to immerse myself and then only then does it complete me then only then does it come alive

and then letter or phone calls arrive voices words scribbled thoughts from beyond the realm of my understanding my reality my world they remind me & confuse me; they throw some doubt into the progression of my days

it's strange feeling yr living two lives; it's odd when every situation is temporary and i love moving on i hate being static but this, this is too much i have no choice, every time i settle every time i think i've maybe started to find myself i'm uprooted and slammed back into an alternate fiction and which one is me which one is me i have to start over again

new ink:

revelations

waking early with the sour taste of
last night's revelries in my mouth having
crawled into bed too far past sunrise the intoxication of our
porch conversations becoming sillier and looser
slurring stories and interruptions we lit cigarettes
off the burning ends of our recognitions and fascinations
pointing out the stars squinting up to the sky to the clouds
to the sounds of our voices
four AM car ride letting the music creep
up the back of our minds
the dawn air cooling our damp skins
keeping us confessional we
drove for hours with no destination except
ourselves

barriers

it's odd when you delve a little deeper, when you suddenly cross a barrier that you didn't realize you had erected between you and someone else. the spaces of our separations are of our own making and they crumble so suddenly effortlessly easily you don't notice till later when you blink in surprise at the new rearrangements of souls.

it's so simple, so sudden, so obvious. peer between the trees on that street so close, talk to the girl with the eerily familiar smile, spill out yr guts, take people up on offers, stop fearing to intrude & to overstep. the boundaries we skirt are of our own creation.

heart racing

some days things make less sense. or perhaps more sense.

everyone i've never met.

the excitement of new people without the time to get bored. first conversations and unexpected connections and the beauty of shared humanities. these are the kinds of people i can open up to, pour out the deepest randomly secret thoughtsdoubtsworrieshopesloves in front of them without regret.

i'm lazy and i want a fling, something fleeting and intense, brief and definite and understood.

              my heart racing. curls of smoke drifting in dim light, skinny boys and girls with tousled hair leaning too close to drop secrets too loudly into the spaces between us outside in the grass in the trees with our laughter too sudden and our eyes too unsure when our arms brush unexpectedly and our skins thrill at the touch our smiles widen our hearts race.

              i saw the most beautiful girl today; her simple dark haircut framed her clear bright face and big eyes and as she turned to walk away her tattooed back her easy stride caught my breath. bony shoulders and a trusting smile and my mind froze up i offered only the necessary words and niceties but if i didnt show it i promise really truly i was in awe dont put my hesitancy down to indifference; i hide desires with indifference, my insecurities with a smile.



spring carnival at UChicago, back in May:

wet cigarettes

riding home tonight the air
               still thick from the storm
smelled like wet cigarettes

music poured out of open doorways
couples stumbling home
               leaned unsteadily into each other

               the breeze whizzing by cool on my
skin still grimy with
coffee &
sweat &
               the damp hovering stickiness

riding home tonight the sky
               grumbled thunder and the air
                              smelled like wet cigarettes

lustful

i want to see you touch you squeeze you
taste yr tongue on mine feel you
slide into me until we merge melt
into a single moaning sighing contradiction of my
solitude.

fit ourselves intricately together till we
lose the air between us, i want you
under me over me
around me
map out a song on my skin, trail

fingers into spirals of lust
erase my doubts pull me into
yr steady heartbeat yr breath
on my hair; this time
i mean it.

bubbles

lately life's been blowing
strange bubbles my way
odd ups and downs
hills to coast down but the
coasting freefalling scares me
and i fight it, i slow, the uphill
climb is a battle i give up on
speed on patience surge or stop
i can't picture his face outside
my photos can't quite grasp
the voice on the phone it's not real
not life not anything but
strangers filling ears with stories
and silences i fold myself neat
fold myself simple to fit trimly
in the receiver, package a volume
of myself off down lines to yr
unlistening ear. colors are
dancing before my eyes i saw her
she only tapped her foot maybe
looked my way maybe, too cool
to dance but i'm drowning in yr
magnificence i want to know
yr history and yr secrets and
you can have mine

shrinky dink

                        drawing with crayons relaxes me
                               consumes me to a ridiculous extent

i was taking a nap just now and dreaming of cartoon giraffes
                 listening to snow patrol & tres chicas while i slept
      when a funny feeling like deja vu or something else
                                indescribable
                                                startled me awake

frustration/inspiration

some days i want to be normal i want to
stop dressing in my own special way
stop dreaming stop drifting stop
dancing to the beat of my own private drum i want to
blend in with the crowd &
perhaps maybe their way is right perhaps
i should revise my expectations
rethink my plans but then i
unlock the door walk in after
midnight see you sleeping lovely tousled
new short dark haircut and thrift store skirt
bedroom filled with pieces of yrself and yr
sleeping away yr work from the day &
no yr the one who's getting it right; yr
sketching out yr life as youd like
living for real
different & quirky & so you

& what was i thinking anyway

wasp

i wander through my days like a wasp looking for the way out buzzing pressing itself onto the glass skimming the surface only an eighth of an inch from freedom tap tap tapping

carrboro

last night as i wandered towards my lovely house through the still-gathered crowds from the music on weaver st's lawn, winding my way around groups of laughing smiling talking people with dreadlocks or long tangled curls or buzzcuts, hoops twirling, drum circles forming, kids playing tag around the legs of their parents, it tasted almost like home.

poetry party in the japanese garden

This is when I don't want summer to come, this is when I want to stay outside drunk under the chicago night sky forever, laughing too loudly and sharing too much of ourselves, stumbling through darkness and new acquaintances, cementing momentary friendships and dancing to the beats we sing for ourselves...

sing along

         a song i know so well it writes itself onto the bottom of my stomach, chords sounding in time with my breath, my heartbeat, i'm so in tune with this tune i could call it my own i could sing it in my sleep. a voice rich and deep and soothing, words almost heavyhanded in their simplicity and honesty, heartbreakingly beautiful as my limbs start moving and i start swirling and tapping and nodding in time. play me a song that's ingrained in my self, i'll sing you the refrain without a thought, i'll do anything for that swell in my chest and that relief in my throat. i swallow the notes like smooth lemon drops, i bury myself in the sound as it whisks me up up and away. a song i know so well it writes itself onto the bottom of my stomach, a song to my heart.

suspended animation

tripping on insomnia, i'm
seeing reflections in the air,
colors on the walls
my face is numb
pounded by waves of would-be sleep
swallowing my words
tracing imaginary outlines
floating on the rhythm of my pulse
tasting promises of REM on my tongue
involuntary shivers and limbs
holding me down
paperweights on my sentience
eyes swirling, lights burning
let my lids drop and
calming darkness soothes
blissful unconsciousness
takes hold

back up

   walking down the sidewalk today felt like it was couples everywhere & i thought to myself
                  i never asked for a happy ending or a saccharine love story; i craved the tragic and the transitory, the fleeting and intense.

my way home from the GSB was strange today somehow - everything triggered way too vivid memories...if this was a movie it would have been misty fadeaways to a montage accompanied by cheesy music and glamorous reenactments. But this is life, so it was me walking a little slower and more thoughtfully, wistful and thinking of a one-night stand with a blurry face and a name that's slipped away, the rest of the scenario remembered - his roommate, her dog, the dinner he cooked me, the sweetest of goodbye kisses. And then moments i do still have, boys i do recall, just tucked away where i'd forgotten they existed...the abandoned church, the walk after class, throwing grass at each other and lying in the park. Winter break semi-romances with us both too cynical, losing the magic with the walk of shame.

it was strange, that's all. A chance overheard word, a street i haven't walked down in a while...sparking sudden startling forays into my head, into the past...getting Clem Snide stuck in my head, singing again and again I don't wanna know me better...

            and then i check my messages and his voice is enough to make me smile and i feel silly in my smitten state.

Shakori Hills Grassroots Fest in NC:

checkerboards

holes in my shoes growing bigger by the day yawning and gaping with every step every flex every adventure i'll dance my way down twisty sidewalks pull off my shoes and stroll languidly barefoot in the grass push my toes into these blue skies this sunny day the cool dirt - slip my feet back in and feel the tears inching wider, creeping to reveal multicolored socks, drawing a raggedly fluid map of my travels - if the whites turn to browns turn to grays are they any less beautiful? picking up pigment from perilous puddles, if you take the road less traveled believe me you will get holes in yr shoes!

vanish

let's run away into a turquoise dream let's vanish in a puff
of patchouli-scented smoke we'll float up and jump from
cloud to cloud we won't fall i promise. let's linger in
archaic daydreams and blow smoke rings through tangled
thoughts and nonsensical conversations that mean the world
when our implausible playground collapses into a pile of
originality then where will we go? let's sail on avocado
seas till we reach a center and bounce between transient
peach-colored tropic isles that imprison our senses. we'll
flit and float and fly and find the unimaginable
unattainable undefined we'll be picturesque and silly we'll
give them the slip and in this blissful somnabulance we'll
never wake up.



last month, for spring break - cleveland, boston, chapel hill, athens: