a poem

Zombie

She takes your hand first
leaves the nail clippings in the doorway
to protect you from demons
so that she can consume you whole

Next she takes the soft flesh
of your ankle
to protect you from leaving
to keep you

Then she takes your lips
to stop the air in your throat
to prevent you from revealing
the betrayal

And you know that you've been compromised
that you gave up everything to become
to become someone
someone you never wanted to become

And when you can't even taste the morning
you know that it's too late to turn
turn around, turn into someone,
someone worth turning into

But when she reaches for your heart
it's not there, not in her mouth, but
in your hand, the beat
the bumpabump of twilight and you
you're somewhere
else

two inside jokes and some information

random, but requested, picture---s! listening to your mix and missing you...



clytoris slangg?

back in bton, sleepy, applying to things, overwhelmed by life again
c'est la vie
and i guess all is back to the norm

again i say, i have got to return some pants

not alone

so here's the meanings i'm about to write into a story about a guy who wants to be a hero
1. something i learned from harry--don't get so caught up in dreams that you forget to live in this world
2. But dreams are important, soemthying i learned from kazuo ishiguro--dreams and ideals are there for us to reach for, for us to try to do/live/be, and once we reach them (now italo calvino speaks), they become ordinary and we move on, to another ideal, to anotehr step on the path
3. and honesty is paramount--be only honest when in the company of thieves and they will fool themselves (forget where i got that, maybe joss whedon?)
4. yet i am afraid of love, somethihng i realized in a church of all places--don't worry, i was reading italo calvino at the time--i'm afraid of love, to love, to be loved, because i i lose control, because it will fall apart, because everything ends
5. BUT not everything falls apart--and more importantly, love is what makes life worth living for, in part or large part---friends and family and the laughter/energy of that is worth fighting, and worth living, for
6. so we are not alone, we do not fight this fight alone, on a battlefied, we are together and many---we can only live life or weather the fierce winds of chaos and finite danger with our hands held between us---naturally, we reach for eacch other, and in finding something valuable above all else, we also find the strength to be

IN OTHER NEWS
met with phoebe



and she inspired me to keep hoping, to keep thinking that i could do things that some people or persons tell me that i can't or shouldn't or won't be able to do
because i am me, and i have that capability

to be strong and follow my mind/heart/goals

xmas postumously

got many cool things this xmas
ml went nuts and got me the new spoon, killers, and buck 65
i bought myself les savy favs and sondre lerche, then sara got me dexter on dvd, a harry potter book, and some other stuff
i also got yarn, a suitcoat (that i bought several weeks ago and held onto cuz i knew there would be little to not xmas)
then my dad surprised me with bones on dvd and a new flash drive (cuz i just lost mine)---woopee
but the best part is we all went to xmas mass, ate food several times together, and made fun of one another, making the heavy stuff inm life lighter and the lighter stuff a bit more fun than normal
overall, a good break, but now i fear i've put aside too many imporetant details,,like appli ations to schools, to jobs, and what i'm going to do next year
thinking of woofing or moving to montreal reandomly, neither of which seems very possible at this points
wish i vcfould travel to the ccetner of a star jus t to watch it burn
cuz then life would seem less painful, less important, and a bit more real
not in a morbid way though, or watever

ps
life is good for now, haning with sara and doing nothing most days, not even caring about things that hurt, because they don't hurt as badly with her around
perspective, perspective, who's got the perspective
? my money's on my fam...

busy like porridge

i'm so sleepy that my eyes keep closing and my vision is blurry today
but that's just cuz i got 5 hours of sleep last night, 5 and a half the night before, and 4 on Sunday
welcome to HELL
or, in American, life.....or rather, having to do too many things that i was not notified i needed to do all at once while at the same time trying to finish two papers and a teching module and trying to work extra hours to make up for incoming spendage on christmas
argh!

plus, i've decided that i'm going to apply to the comm dept here---with the hope that i'll get in to both boost my academic weight in gold and to rekindle my spirits---seeing as how i find the cultural focus of the dept so interesting, specially compared to my current position weighed down with theories that don't really help
all i've ever wanted to do is describe the world accurately, to make you read a sentence and say 'oh' in a way that changes everything
but i keep getting bogged down in trying to prove myself, to profs, to school, to family, to myself---i need to remember that the reason i'm here is to both understand the world better and to learn how to tell stories that are socially responsible
rather than merely strategically money-making

in other news, everyone i know who reads this should send me their addresses via email NOW---yes NOW---so i can send their xmas presents this upcoming weekend, cuz i will most likely be doing everyone's presents except for tbird's---yes t, i'm afraid i haven't picked up anything for you yet

not much else to say, except that i'm world weary----i miss my friends in other places, and i even miss my few friends here (they've all flaked out in favor of paperwriting)–--but i get the sense it's that time of year, or i know the cause (in the case of one person traveling through europe)

i just thought of an interesting title for something: "traveling through europe with hot people"----like a dirty version of a mitch albom novel or something

sleep you, and sleep well---the world will collapse thursday night at 12 am
and then i get to rest, causing a domino effect
whereby not only will you fall into a bed that randomly appears before you
with clean sheets and a warm kitten waiting to curl next to you
but also the whole world will
the sun will wake up in a warm bed with black sheets
night will fall like a revelation
or a small bird in your heart that says 'who'

"put a little birdhouse in your soul" - theymightbegiants

so it's christmas...

and we're going to have to change traditions this year
because my parents have negative cashflow, in that they owe me 700 some dollars that I loaned them when they was in need (and i had just got my bookmoney) and in that they owe money to just about everyone
thankfully, my da is working, but only sub work, so there's little likelihood he'll even be able to pay for xmas dinner without borrowing from someone
probly me
the point is that we'll have to change our tradition from a consumer one, where we spend most of our time (as we have in the last few years) following various family member's desires to shopping for hours and hours
instead, i suspect that we'll spend more time at home, walking in the woods, talking over alcohol or tea, and trying to distract ourselves from the quaint tragedies of michigan's recession
which i'm actually looking forward to
i never really like xmas as a gift thing--the presents get boring for me after five minutes because i knew what i wanted or what i would get or i just get done with it--i'm there to be with people not things---anyway, i'm excited to see what happens when the money flow stops (a flow relative to most things so not really that much--we're talking mostly needed things like sweaters or shoes to replace worn out ones) and we're forced to face the reality of being very small specks in the vast tidal changes of the universe
i'm also TERRIFIED
so at the least, it should be interesting
if not overly dramatic and involving various revelations or moments of sobbing over the uncontrollableness of all things
hey it's the execution of all things
otherwise known as capitalism
after all, it IS the American Way

a would-be performance for people here, but i'm not confident they'd hear my voice

1. "Small Stakes Give You the Blues
But You Don't Feel Taken, Don't Think You've Been Used
Cause It's Alright Friday Night To Sunday
It Feels Alright, Keeps Your Mind On The Page

Oh Yeah Small Stakes Ensure You The Minimum Blues
But You Don't Feel Taken And You Don't Feel Abused
Small Stakes Tell You That There's Nothing Can Do
Can't Think Big, Can't Think Past One Or Two "
spoon - small stakes

2. I've been in a rut. I probably will remain there for a while yet, because i think i have something more to learn. In the last three years, I have been struggling with something; for the years before that, I learned that we all are always changing. I am not the person I was yesterday nor the jerk i was in gradeschool, or the loverboy i was in kindergarten (i kissed a girl named kristina four, but it was no big deal, we just wanted to see why our parents thought it was so cool---we thought it was pretty lame). I am something new everyday. Everyday is a chance to fuck it up all over again.
Or to make it new; a bed with clean sheets. But i forgot about the mattress. We change, but we stay the same. In the last few years, I've been remembering things and trying to piece that past and present together. Like a puzzle though, the picture remains unclear, and since it's a puzzle that doesn't end, i doubt i'll ever understand it fully. But i've begun to realize that we are the people we were 20 years ago, no matter how much we fight it. In our culture, change is the emphasis, but continuity is there too, and the reality is a blurred, mishmash of both, like when you play with your mashed potatoes.
The point? Small stakes will kill you by making life seem small; every day is a new beginning. And every day is a continuance of the whole life that came before it. If life's a bed, i have to lie in every part of it. What keeps me from confusing the edge with the curtains? Friends.

3.
Our heroine remembers the blade she used to kill her friend.
"This is Friendship"
She remembers what it was like to see her there, ready to fight.
"Step One: You finally meet someone you dig, somebody you can groove with, somebody who doesn't seem like all the other phony losers out there."
Our heroine remembers that she was the one who died that night.
"Step Two: They share a little of themselves with you, you share everything with them."
The fight...
"Step Three: It all goes to crap.."
a punch...
"They hurt you."
a kick...
"You hurt 'em back."
a headbutt.
"Or maybe it's the other way around. Whatever"
Her friend stabs her in the gut with our heroine's own knife.
"Someday you might find a way to forgive each other. But it won't ever be like it used to, 'cause that pain never really goes away."
She remembers saying 'you did it'.
"And in the end, no matter how many wicked good times you had together, you woulda been better off flying solo all along."
excerpted from Brian Vaughn's Issue 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future For You

4.
I read an astrological chart of my life. I read that I would become a leader of something, do something big when I was much older, and that now is the time for me to learn the lessons to make me into that bigger person, into someone worth being. Someone worth loving.
In the mean time, my current life challenge, up until I turn 29 is to learn to 'speak my heart.' And i realize that i rarely do, especially recently.
Now, there was a time I spoke my mind, but never an era where i spoke my heart. I don't know that I value it overtly much, seeing as how it seems to only bring trouble with it. But i'm going to try, simply because i want to, and because the few times that i have, i think it was a good thing to do. the most ethical, which is what i strive for.
we do not value friends. we walk through everyday as though work, school, traffic, television, research, readings, or a million other things were any more important than any other. Than each other. Than the planet and all its inhabitants. Which it isn't, outside of our being here, outside of us, but that's moot. we walk through everyday and pretend that we don't want to gush our hearts out on the floor and have someone clean up the mess, smile and say, 'that's beautiful, do it again'. so that we can gracefully admit it was all intended, which it wasn't, and that aren't we special? or not
maybe we just want to stop each other on the street and say 'hello, please, i'm all alone here and i don't know how to say i am' or maybe we don't care. maybe other things keep us occupied. maybe it's the small stakes of papers, rules, jobs, clothing, music, money. not that they're not valuable. but we act as though they replace family, friends, conversaiton, the objectivity only achievable through each other's eyes and hands to hold (not in a sexual way, generally).
we walk through everyday and maybe we dont' think about it, but we're all alone. and that's all right. but it's not sometimes. so stop acting as though you are so cool that you don't feel. stop looking at me like i'm strange for feeling this:
i am alone in this town most of the time and i don't want to be.
i know that you feel the same.
i see it in your eyes.
stop bullshitting me and look me in the eye with your mouth open wide and your heart spilling out, so that i can do the same.
so that, over time, over mutual good times, we can become good friends, strong friends, lifelong friends maybe, and when things get bad, broken, blue, good, great, greatest, we have soemone to turn to, someone to say 'hey, here's the truth, yo'
and when it falls apart, it falls apart
but in the meantime, we make life worth meaning, worth being made meaningful

what are we without friends?
i'll tell you, since i asked: we are hollowed out, living by small enough stakes that we don't notice we're turning our own lives into moot points

5.
"You won't find it by your self
You're gonna need some help
And you won't fail with me around
Come on let's go

I will tell you if you change
And who's been saying things
It's hard to tell who is real in here
Come on let's go

You know who to turn to
Now everything's changed
Come on lets go
Stop looking for answers
In everyone's face
Come on let's go

What's the point in wasting time
On people that you'll never know
Come on let's go

When you're looking for a friend
But it's empty at the end
When everybody's disappeared
You won't be alone

If you want I'll compensate
If you overestimate
So there's nothing left to fear
You won't be alone
You know who to turn to
Now everything's changed
Come on let's go
Stop looking for answers
In everyone's face
Come on let's go

What's the point in wasting time
On people that you'll never know
Come on let's go"

lyrics from "comeon let's go" by Broadcast

project 1?

among other things...

1. that post about being compromised, and being haunted by the DETECTIVE----just so we're clear, that was fiction(!)
in case you were thinking i was going nuts---not that i'm not, but not in such a paranoid delusional falling away from reality way

2. i just had another anxiety attack----leading me to conclude
a. i'm not doing anything ATALL extra tonight and i'm taking wednesday night off most likely
and
b. i am going to call sanshinryu to see if i can find a karate class around here, and if i can't, i'm just signing up for the next taichi class i find

CUZ
i will NOT die in....hmmm, just to avoid irony and the irritatingly real way i tend to jinx myself...i'll just say i won't die now
or yet
whatever, the poitn is
KARATE

plus
FIBERS!! i have another indy study with a fibers prof here, but he's a HE and he does japanese religion and textiles in particular, which is pretty cool since that's what my interests fibrously are and have been
tho i do have to write up a plan

c'est ceci

"woe is me
i am so homesick
but it ain't that bad
cuz i'm homesick for the home i never had" - soul asylum

i feel like my friends are changing so much that i don't recognize them
like they're becoming entirely different people
from the ones that i knew
which is most likely true,
and not true too, as humans do remain the same
throughout the changes of our lives

but i also feel like i am small
because i don't feel as though i have changed very much
from who i was 3 years ago
but i know it's very difficult for the person looking out
to see how the landscape has changed, whereas the peeping-tom-outsider
who looks in can see every detail much clearer

mostly, this is the result of someone treating me like a child
at the same time that someone else was being condescending on a different front
(simultaneous student and friend emo assaults blow)
add the inevitable distance that distance engenders
and my only friend here being INSANELY busy right now, and that equals
OVERSENSITIVITY to all things

but what's good is:
person one made a fool of themselves and put us on equal footing,
fina-fricking-lly
and
person two is not someone that me, at my hightest realization of myself,
would regularly hang out with and want more than
mere fun----which is just what they want

so
i say
c'est la vie
and i'm going to run through leaves
then fall down, read, maybe take a nap, and read some more
of Southland Tales

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THANKSGIVING!!??
i'm going to a2--family and food! i have to get the tofu-turkey here though,
cuz unturkey stopped producing---TRAGEDY! NO!! anything but THAT!! but we deal, we vegetarians....anyway, the point is FUN, real, genuine like, with cool movies and maybe some thrifting, but at least some crepes from cafe zola and some real coffee that's not from soma, and my sisters, who i'm feeling strangely affectionate towards at the moment, despite their being my sisters

tell me what exciting things you have to look forward to....

news

i just found out i don't have a teaching job for the spring, and i don't know how i feel about that
on the one hand, i hate teaching sometimes, like right now when my students are flaking out, and on the other, i like it. on the one hand, i need the money and experience, and on the other, i am excited to just have classes and ONE job again.
on the other, am i loser now? do i need to stop spending any money on stuff that doesn't count as necessary in an absolute way? am i unemployed?
that last question is silly, but i am wigging right now, even though i hoped i wouldn't have a position anyway

stranger than fiction

i have been COMPROMISED

i have lost the ability to separate my own consciousness from that of others. when i watch television, i have a difficult time understnading whether i am the one watching or being watched, whether i am the man on the couch whose hands hurt though he continues to knit, or the man fighting demons while detecting a mystery.
The Detective.
HE haunts my dreams, you know. for i have become him, i have always been him, and i hope that one day i will meet him somewhere besides the bathroom or the bedroom. when i stare in the mirror. because he mocks me there, with his twilight eyes, somewhere beetween reason and emotion, capable of connecting past with present. we are living a social drama, the disruption existed before we were born.
our leaders have spoken. they have stood. they have been compromised. we have taken our last stand. we have been compromised. but The Detective, HE has not been so compromised.
while we have to live in this world, he lives in another, a different place, in the space between our ideals and the people we have become. between the person wondering what this means and the one who will rise out of sleep tomorrow to give into the tragic routine of this american life. HE haunts me there. speaks in my ear when i am about to give up, prods me to continue.
i am watson to his Sherlock. HE is the ideal that i attempt to live up to. why? why would i want to be like such a Man? poised between being real and living in our imagination. i can't tell myself from Him, but the REASON that i must follow Him is because He can bring us together. HE can collapse the facts into reality, fold time and space so that present and past connect, become woven into the experience of having been there and having never existed there at all. HE can make us feel even after all the darkness in our world has seeped into our bones.
who is HE? i have been questing after this knowledge.

the SEARCH FOR REASON is rough going. in a world with so many voices, where the only certainty is that nothing is certain, knowing anything at all is a dangerous business. and yet it cannot be. we know we are here because we are. we know the world needs to be saved because it falls farther and farther into the spiral that is our own teenage-like angst ridden struggle to destroy ourselves. for the sins of our fathers. for the sins of reason.
is HE our father? was his hand the one that dealt the blow, that attempted cruelty for kindness? or was it the right hand of God, the Invisible Hand that directs us all. Adam Smith, DETECTIVE extraordinaire.
No. NOT THAT> ANything but that. If reason was god we would melt in our graves and transform reality into currency and currency into our souls and our souls in the the malarchy that is corporate consciousness. corporations cannot make meaning; they can only take it away from us.
And I hold my head in my hands and weep. Because nothing is certain; nothing can be real without certainty. I cannot feel the hand on my shoulder, the voice in my head, I cannot bring the sense that I am alone to gether with the fact that I am SURROUNDED by so many voices, so many people, so many selves. I MUST make reason from this, make order, find the connection between where we've come from and where we must go, from destruction to rebirth, from death to the person that I am. I must MAKE MEANING. We must become the Meaning-makers, not the Destruction-bringers.

He is in the mirror again, mocking me. No, I have become him? In searching for meaning, I see myself truly. I have become the DETECTIVE, I have become HIM. I address the issue, I organize action, I find the woman with the short skirt and the long jacket and help her to become not-the-damsel-not-the-femme-fatale. I answer every question with due recourse and rational emotionality. I temper the voices with the uncertainty and recognize the best possible people we could be. I make meaning and see the past and present in the movement of our feet walking in the streets.
My heart quickens. My hands disappear. I have gone too far, I have become the symbol, the savior, the DETECTIVE of what must be done to find order in chaos. Like Ra, Maat, Yahweh, and all the prophets by whatever name, I feel myself disappear into the dark, deep night.
In seeing the inside, I have lost my place within. As I fall away, I glance into a mirror, see myself shaking his fist, and whisper through the fade-out-frame
'go no farther'..

Two Comments

1. a quote from the Indiana Daily Student, Weekend edition
in a review of Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Express
"Anderson uses the same devices over and over (artistically, narratively, visually) and it begs the question; If you're telling the story in the same way you told the one before it, aren't you just telling the same story with different people in different situations in different places, saying different things? If you're being something just to be, then there is no point in being at all."
which begs a few questions
a. Gee, I thought changing people, plot, setting, and words meant you were TELLING A DIFFERENT STORY ENTIRELY. I'm such a dunce...
b. According to this logic, aren't we all guilty of being obsolete? In other words, the author should go kill him/herself if they choose to follow this arguemtn through, which, thankfully, they don't have to.
It's just another example of stupid, insipid people who think they sound smart when they're just using big words to say something dumb, because in reality
they have nothing to say at all.

But it's pretty funny, eh?

2.
A quote from TWILIGHT WATCH by S. Lukyanenko
"WHere was the truth and where was the lie?...How many layers of falsehood had to be peeled away in order to expose the truth? Anton took a coin out of his pocket. He tossed it in the air and caught it, then laughed and put it back in his pocket, without even lookign to see if it had come up heads or tails.
THAT wasn't the right way. If one of two choices was a trap, then he had to look for a THIRD." (275)
If one of two lifestyles is empty, vapid, and makes me wanna die, then I just have to figure out a wholly different one that i haven't even yet considered. That's how to find, if not truth, then at least a little bit more of the realities from which to choose to make my truth.

the draft rough

(an excerpt from a weathered receipt in my wallet)
i'm done with make-believe
i'm pushing buttons
the neutron bombs, halogen lights
the neutral wrongs of living
my life. call me up on
the radiation detector, it's too late
i'm referring to your childhood
trauma

i've contracted what seems to be a sinus infection---coughing, ear pain, headache right around my right eye

i'm also grown accustomed to life again, which results in feeling bland, ok with not do anything, and avoiding trying to make things better---now i know why i was so unhappy this summer; outside of routine, i feel awful, sleep-deprived, and the pain of my body killing itself, of me
sad i know, but only because i'm happy, and i need to maintain the balance---without depression, without sadness, would there really be change? without feeling bad about things, would we ever try to change?

also, going camping
and i sent in two short stories to zoetrope-all story
hazaa

bears...

Dealing with recovering from illness, having too much to do, and trying to reconfigure my pseronal identity is weird. Yet more involving than other things, or times of my life. So whatefver,things are going ok, though i have to defend my thesis the day before halloween....argh!
Here's a poem that occurred to me in the bathroom at a cafe. Over the last few days, people have referenced Grizzly Man, The Bear Necessities, and many other bear-things several times. This morning, I unconsciously put on a bear t-shirt, which, when i saw it in teh mirror, reminded me of the many people who have related me to a bear or a teddy bear. So here's a poem on that.

Grizzly

brown hair, green eyes, hands that
rend the air, tear the flesh; the teeth show indications
of grinding vegetables and
legumes. fuzz-faced, bewildered
by technology yet
able to manipulate the concentric circles
of liife. The grizzly in spring feasts on madly
spawning salmon; i find friendship in the strangest places,
when parties gather chaos into
coordinations of parts, the friend from last year, the
aquaintance that laughed. green landscape,
populated by awkward beasts, antlers, ears, and black eyes,
brown defined in me. when it attacks, some say
roll into a ball while others would
run as fast as their feet will carry. I
would not respect either, though
my claws have been known to turn to shattered glass
and decomposed root structures with an offer
of kindness. when looked in the face, full
like the moon in my eyes at night, the threatened
creature bends, arbors in the wind, his anger
cracked by the sweetest wind. a breeze
in autumn calms the heat-driven hand of fury

flew the storage coop

i hate opening boxes with secrets inside

but only when they are my own; i opened the box i keep my photography materials in, the negatives, tripod stuff, plastic envelopes for large prints, spare camera parts, cameras i don't use often, and photographs
so i figured, after my gathering (the one i referred to in the blog i just deleted), i would just look through the photos to see if there was anythign good in them---and there was, a few cool nature shots, a pic of ML from OH in a really cool art deco pool, a few of my graduation party after undergrad, and then a pic of one of my friends
normally, i might have been able to shrug off the nostalgia, or even just the sad little bit of regret that bloomed when i saw said photo, because it was just a particular moment, the kind of moment where you look up and see someone just EXISTING at the same time that you are, someone who makes you feel comfortable, like there's nothing you could do that would be unexpected or strange or at least humorous

looking at that photo, i realized it was gone, that sense of a home without boundaries, a home that never dies, a space where you can scream and breathe and live, just because someone somewhere understood
i feel like, in a series of missteps, i have lost that space, that sense of trust---it was something i never thought i would have, something i never thought I could feel, that i was beyond it, that i would never be so emotional or blinded by life's goodness that i could ever trust anyone---i found it so quickly, so unexpectedly, with so many people, and now i know it's gone
i've known for a while---i think our whole lives are just a half-hearted search for not being afraid, not feeling uncomfortable with ourselves and the people we love, and we so rarely ever feel that sense of just being able to exist, of feeling like there's something worth living, fighting, loving, or just getting up in the morning for---the sense that you can sit in the same room as someone and be heard when you speak

and i guess i lost mine; maybe it never was, maybe i was blinded by the sense that maybe someone, someday could deserve trust, or maybe i'm just wishing i hadn't trusted the people i trusted
because no matter how hard we trust, no matter how much we love, whether friend or foe or fuck-buddy, it ends----only a fool would think it didn't, and i think i was fooled because i thought only a fool could value something transitory
but i did
and i will, and i do right now---after an evening with friends, i feel good, i feel stronger than yesterday, because i laughed and let go, because i didn't have to be in charge of things
i could let things slide and they wouldn't get out of hand; i could stop being in control
which is a feeling i haven't felt since a few christmases ago when i fell asleep in someone else's basement

there's no conclusion, just a reminder that no matter how hard we fight, the dark does come, most times sooner than we think, but that doesn't mean the day is any less worth while---for the ancient Egyptians, the night was the time when the gods of the day fought through the netherworld to rise again, to be reborn---after all, what's life worth if it's handed to you on a platter---what's a friend worth if you never get to watch them fly away?

Left the Centrifuge at Home

i wake up in the archaeological remains
of me. Sun spinning through the sky; watch it ark
in space, spy through my looking glass heart;
see the world my way. Pick up
the glass plates on the microscope and cut yourself on
the shards of what i did, what i failed
to do. Take the grains of flesh
and mind, dissolve in salt water, spin at a distance
to locate the time and the place, the lightyears
of distance to stars burning through my lenses,
my hope. The sun's zenith above becomes
the veins in my chest, the arteries of blood,
memory, and thoughts thought long before. Ancient
languages run like fibers through my being. I
touch the grass but it's barely there; break it down,
tear it apart to find the evidence that we were here
before, that what we do matters. Cut up the world
to find myself standing, stars-collapsed in my lungs,
breathing the sweat-drenched death of hope
until I start again, shudder, and walk forward.

HOLY SHIT

MATER LACRIMARUM
IS
GONNA KICK
YOUR ASS
or not

a realization

i realized that the reason i cannot chill out or be happy with my life in general is that:
i feel like i'm responsible for my family and friends.
if i don't constantly take care of people, myself, and everything in my life, then it will all fall apart---if i let my guard down, shit gets fucked up, from diseases to friends to medical problems to the world
i can't relax because i have yet to do enough to make sure everything is gonna be okay
unrealistic yes, still a problem though

Pricked my finger on the spindle

I'm spinning in my head
a child's solar system that breaks
and then evolves, sun of recycled
styrofoam, a thousand voices
once called home, the cool
incandescence of the space held in the hand,
a palm covered in string and pin-dots
the scars of speaking and
being spoken to, of being formed
from the nebulous clouds of creation

Unlike the science fair exhibit, I
am unloveable, impossible to
deconstruct and then fill up again,
no cardboard box of marker stelae made
with sticky fingers. I revolve, yet
no wool forms over these words.
If I am the spinning wheel, then where
is the spinner? If I am a solar system,
what then is my heart?