20 October 2011

I keep my tiny money in a big bank,
And I know there are people raving in the streets.
The big banks are greedy and evil.
They are ruining everything from balconies with monocles and cigars.
But I'm in love with the bank teller.
She is a young black girl that wears her hair like my grandmother did in the '60's.
Short in the back with an elegant, voluminous s w o o p on top.
She has a scar on her chest that I always think is a tiger's eye pendant.
And I stare at it unabashedly at first then raise my gaze apologetically to hers.
Her eyes are quiet, kind, and sad.
When she calls me by name I can feel my tongue filling up my mouth.
And the big banks of the world are ridiculous.

28 August 2011

At the two-year mark, my love is at a place where my language starts to break down. The feeling I have is strong and deep, but it's also very simple. It doesn't have any reservations or conditions or conflicts of interest. It doesn't need to justify itself by the overuse of adjectives, ornate verbosity or ruffles. This love is a flat, cool, blue thing like a calm river or sky. It lies at the base and at the ceiling of my days and moves them along with a quiet constancy.

What would I have done otherwise? Maybe my nervous system would have short-circuited. Maybe I would have grown hard and jaded. Those were real fears for me once, but here I am. My heart as soft as a flower and my eyes are open.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's your very skeleton I love, dear.
The honesty in your gait,
The frank way your hands fall at your sides.
The earnest curve of your skull into your brow and then jaw.

I let my eyes fall
Into the places where you are most yourself
I am going to stay there forever
In the slopes and valleys of your bones.

27 August 2011

While making love, I knocked a bowl of strawberries off the night stand.

A mosquito stung my nose while I was taking a bath,
I slapped him into the water and bathed with him, dead.

I went to sleep and dreamt of a wall of water, hare krishnas, and a hanged man.

A full moon. A hurricane.

The rain, the rain, the rain.

The dams will break and wash the symbolism off everything so we can see what's what.

19 August 2011

Menstruation Questions and Answers

What does it feel like?

Two clenched fists right inside your hip joints.

Why do you cry when it happens?

Because it marks the passing of time.

Who do you blame?

Myself.

Why is this necessary?

I don't know.

31 July 2011

She has the face of someone who will die young.
(Spending all day with children, you're suspended in a place that's not your own. A hazy memory place.)

She has the face of someone who will die young.
(They trapped me in their childhoods. A shadow figure in an apron with an outdated hairstyle.)

She has the face of someone who will die young.
(I am shoes on linoleum. A cigarette lighter. A cheap pocketbook.)

She has the face of someone who will die young.
(I am a source. A history. They remember the hollows of my face. The outline of my profile.)

She has the face of someone who will die young.
(They started to remember me while I was still alive. They murdered me with their reverence. Now they finger my rings and eyeglasses like relics.)

She has the face of someone who will die young.
(Pose me with my hand over my eyes, shielding them from the sun. Position me with my face in the light but obscured.)

20 July 2011

When the spirit breaks,
That's when the crying stops.
Your thoughts are only an asterisk above your head.

In that moment you are aware of your whole body.
You can feel all the way
From the outside of your belly,
To the inside of your spine.
You know there ought to be blood and guts between,
but instead there is only a stale, green air.

Before the spirit breaks
It looks like a slat from a Venetian blind.
After, if looks like one broken up
In sections of various lengths.
Or after a while
It looks like that.

It happened to me,
And I'm still alive.
But I can always hear its rattling around in there
As I walk to and fro.

13 July 2011

Yesterday I saw my potential passing me on the highway.
Smoking.
It gave me the finger as it went by.

Once I saw my potential in an alley behind a bar eating out of a trashcan.
It barfed on my shoes and I looked at it with the disgust and it just laughed at me.
"I hate you, you asshole," I told it.

Another time my potential called me in the middle of the night trying to get me to loan it money.
It went, "Blah, blah, blah, anyway so I'm really hurting, I'll pay you back later, I swear."
I was like, "Fuck you, you lazy dickhead some people actually work for a living. You should try it sometime. Click."

Somebody who's seen my potential naked recently told me that it got a really shitty tattoo on its ass. They told me it looked really cheap.

So what am I supposed to do when people ask me about it? I just have to stand there looking ashamed.

Sometimes it emails me gross pictures of diseased genitals.

I still secretly love it though.