everything is going to be okay.

Eyes Open, Patiently.

2012-01-28T06:35:00.000-08:00

We have time. And enough space. There is room for everything,
there is room to live slow. Here is our opportunity to emerge on the other side, to witness transcendence; the change and kick and spark and Romance in action. This is our "to the woods"! This is loving.

Have patience with me, as I am trying to be patient with myself. In all capacities, even the one for failure.

There is no fail. There is only make. I'm trying to believe this. Perhaps I can teach myself how.

2012-01-25T02:28:00.000-08:00

i love you he says keep going

keepgoing

its always fucking ouch, as of late.

2012-01-25T02:14:00.000-08:00

oh you're standing on my sternum
don't you come down, darlin'

some days are easier than others. some days i have to take heaving gasping breaths just to sit still. other days i cant sleep. some days i feel endless boundless possibility. i suppose creation is not clean. i suppose genesis requires chaos. i hope that within this mess, i'll find the tools. but right now, its like one foot in front of the other blindfolded and in the dark. why am i walking away from home, burning everything in sight? what am i going to find? what sense does it make? how do i explain that i'm only following the gut feeling, the heart inside? i feel so much, i know so little. (and what about the days that i feel nothing at all?)

i'm reminded of mikey's stories about marine training. about being dropped into water, tied up and blindfolded, in a helicopter shell. i cant imagine surviving catastrophe. zombie attack, armageddon, i always envision myself the first to go. i'd probably just lay down and die. or shoot myself.

cant decide which it is this time.

and i miss and miss and ache and swallow, all the goddamn time.
and i mourn the home i've let go. the home that i was once so lucky to hold. to travel with. that home we built as kids out of dirt and tears and cigarettes and six AM's driving home from the night previous.

i mourn the home i've burnt to cinder.
what's my problem? who do i think i am?

a: shoot myself b: lay down and die
some days i never see myself pulling through.

2012-01-24T10:25:00.001-08:00

how to disappear completely...

2011-12-26T19:58:00.001-08:00

feeling catalytic.

2011-11-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

lunch beside the largest window the in the house. i face away from the street and you face the window.
we mumble half thoughts as our eyes dart around the room -- its so hard to be here and just be here.

up, up. repeat.

2011-11-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

2011-09-28T09:37:00.001-07:00

I need to know that what we do is not in vain.

2011-09-27T10:45:00.001-07:00

im leveling out to normal

2011-09-25T20:33:00.000-07:00

dont worry she says you'll be home soon.
but I suspect she may be lost, herself.

her hands smell like basil and cigarettes;
she is in her garden digging
and digging

I wonder where she's going but she corrects me
and calls her hunched and fervent endeavor building.

what I ask.
salvation! she exclaims

and she pitches forward, head and heart first
her small hands deep into the dirt --

2011-09-23T16:17:00.001-07:00

would love to meet anyone who is good at sitting with this
as i have been having such a hard time.

the others

2011-09-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

It rained today and the air feels clean and new. I walk home from town beleiving that once the rain subsides, everything will be back to the way it was. We’ll pack up and move back to before. Before we gave up on Brooklyn, before the old men disappeared from the stoop next door. Back to long ago where they will still be there, smoking and grinning and drinking ear to ear: not understanding one another, but happy in their stupor. I believe that the streets will teem with buses and millions of people beyond beyond these mountains instead of the small nuclear family I have come to know.

The smell of dog shit hits me at the bottom of the stairs. The odor is strong and familiar and I welcome the sting. It takes me back to Saturday mornings when not even the radio could wake us; not the sound of the dog scratching at the door and whining, only the acrid sting of her eventual spite and our guilty, sleepy walks down the block followed by dog treats and coffee and babytalk. We used to work so hard for her forgiveness. Now there is no forgiveness, there is no fault, and that’s okay.

Yes, the dog is still alive, and we can’t leave her to die. Grandma used to insist that we give her away. Take her somewhere and throw her away in her native language. I think she used to say that for attention. Now she’s gone too. Gone before this happened, thank god. When the people started disappearing, I thought to myself, at least we don’t have to worry about leaving grandma behind. At least we don’t have that guilt.

The dog gives us reason to feign hope until we don't have to. Because eventually she wont be and then we won’t. These days with Ben out for so long, I live in preparation of the day that he won't come back. And when that happens, I assure myself, at least I’ll have the dog to protect me. Funny how protection is first on my mind. From who else?

Before it became just us, I used to have the same fears - but what then was another woman, a better life, a lucrative career has now become a rattlesnake bite, a treacherous fall, or just simply giving up altogether. I guess these could be the same things: I guess giving up on this life can take many forms.

When I open the door The Dog welcomes me with a low bow, her haunches close to the ground, her head ducked. In the middle of the kitchen, a field of land mines, and the piercing smell. She hasn't changed her behavior. Its as if she doesn't know anything is different. Or maybe, she doesn't care. Then again what does it matter as long as your immediate life isn't so different - that your pack is still here and you know your place in the world; that your food is in your bowl, and even when it isn't, you can trust that there is reason.

Ben comes home later and later. Sometimes hours after the sun has gone down. He has started taking a flashlight with him in the mornings and I resent that he knows that he’ll be gone for so long. When he comes home, he falls into bed exhausted. He sleeps quietly until the next day, barely breathing. In the morning he is tired and wordless. Even when he says nothing, the mornings he does not leave are my happiest.

As usual I wake up alone. The normal pang and nervousness my alarm clock. I look for the dog, she's gone. Ben's side of the bed is cold. I lay quiet, this bed in this world is my tomb. The whole silent earth is a grave.

But there is noise in the kitchen. I climb out of bed and stumble toward the door. At the bottom of the stairs, I can hear the tea kettle, the rain outside sounds like traffic. I want to pretend, everyday, that things were the way they used to be. Will I always be so used to the old ways of describing my world?

Ben appears in the doorway. His face is dark and he is silhouetted in soft grey light. Everything reminds me of the end. He looks like some dangerous, treacherous angel. He holds out his hand: "hi baby" and folds me into a cold hug - he's already been outside and this makes me angry, for a moment.

I stop when I see her on the couch. The dog wont go anywhere near her. Bundled and wrapped desperately in blankets, she sleeps hungrily. She is blonde her hair is matted and caked. I look at Ben, he smiles and I feel a deep pang of jealousy. I have not seem him look this way in a long long time.

"Look" he says. "Look, I found her. I knew there were others."

2011-09-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

the face you make, the heart
you break

is mine to contend with. it is
mine and i am happy to keep at the
gates until you are ready. i am happy

to wait here, to guard to stand outside:
you decide. you decide. you decide.

2011-09-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

ghostly line on the black sea, the ground
in front, created
this monument to

momentum

the still, standing freight: the train cars swift or sleeping. their outline lit,
the spaces eased through and filled
faces moving backwards: piggybacked on their brothers,
carrying, carrying --

we made plans
we cross divides
we rename roadsides

in new mexico now, through a town called burning
past the places named for women - la verne, valmora, jena
the towns named after christ

drive, drive: we itch the deep down deeper still
(irascible me, insatiable you)

and the town on the border of canada: the dark wet slink.
neon refuge founded in rain. the fitful sleep --
the way your shoulders heaved and shoved their way through space, through --
i know you're in there, looking.

i could burn. i could purge i could keep moving with you
no yellow lines no road
ust two bodies hurdling --

(like shameful
lovers from a motel room)

let me and I would
move like fog, I could keep no record.
I could be swift and carry
I could follow

Say so and I will lay here: concede
and I will love the heavy gravel

Let me, and we will lay down like lovers
on this road.

2011-09-14T01:54:00.001-07:00

you know,
these days are all just melting into one...

2011-09-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

i usually sleep so well. i've never tossed and turned so much that i woke up before i needed to. im used to sleeping like a baby.
and then there are mornings like today where i am up before the sun. actually, it's never been like this until -- well, today.
i take this to mean that i am and adult (and that i shouldnt eat a del taco spicy chicken quesadilla just before bed)

hurricane irene is on the way.

2011-08-26T18:23:00.000-07:00

nine hours until sunrise:
eight hours, fifty nine minutes and counting --

there is a hurricane on the way; while other people are fleeing the city, here i am in brooklyn waiting. somewhere in the sky, todd is flying to denver, where he will get in a car and drive toward the eye of this storm.

i have never experienced a hurricane. i dont know whether to feel panicked (i do) or complacent (i do) over the weather. its only weather. all i can do is ride the wave and give in to the spirit of adventure.

none of this is slated to begin until tomorrow. until then, i have almost hours to ruminate over what the day could bring ; to obsess over todds journey, mine, the storms. and then the rains will come. and then we will see what the truth could be.

monday is projected to be full of sunshine. already, we can predict the future - the light after the darkness and the wind and the water. in fact, sunset will most likely be beautiful tomorrow -- if we can see it. now that we know what will happen after the storm, does it make the journey into it better or worse?

i'm diving in - all anxiety aside - im diving in deep.

NYC Day 2

2011-08-14T21:11:00.001-07:00

I dont think i've ever been so happy to sit and stare out a window. Its been raining all day. Tons of it.

Woke up at noon and went to brunch at a teeny french place with Ryan and Joe (who else?)

Guzzled coffee (typical) and had the best baked eggplant, goat cheese, tomato & egg dish. Came back to the apartment, and I've spent most of the day indoors, working... or avoiding work (typical).

Ate pain au chocolate. Drank more coffee. Saw Rob Bluemke and shared tattoos. This burg is so lovely -- everyone is so close by and we just roll around, visiting one another. Everything I want I can so immediately have: food, coffee, cigarettes, friends, outside, inside...

Its still raining out. Tons of it. A constant hum outside -- and at times the hum turns into a roar. I havent seen so much water falling from the sky in so long. The boys and I had take out from the Meatball Shop (look that shit up and DROOL) and ate it at the laundromat as we waiting for our clothes to dry.

I sit here in Brooklyn and my heart feels so achey for it, still. I just got here but already I'm thinking about how sad an eventual departure will be. I am trying to be present, but this wistful tug at my insides... I just FEEL so much about this place.

I wish there was a way to bring my two worlds together. Funny enough that they are on two sides of this country. Can I bring together my Silverlake life with my Brooklyn adventure? Can I put my dog and my yard and my jugs of fresh orange juice and stick them next to the industrial waterfront of Brooklyn, the bike rides, the food and faces? What about my evenings on Jan and John's couch and a summer driving around hot, dry, Los Angeles? Will those fit right under the rainstorms and the subway fare and the way it feels to be just one person in a manhattan street corner crowd?

Schmidty called the ride home from JFK electric -- the buzz in your gut as the skyline rises up across the East River. I agree.

There are so many heres and elsewheres that we have yet to explore. Where I am now isn't where I'll be in three months. How can I hold on to every moment, then, if there are so many to be present for? When I keep worrying about missing this feeling, or missing out on the next? I want to be there for every single second.

I also want to admit that I didnt make it to yoga this morning. I'm venturing slowly toward skinny fat.

NYC Day 1

2011-08-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

Landed here at 6am. Sea of yellow cabs at JFK. Rode into the city as the sun rose over the old skeletons of the worlds fair in Queens.

Crashed into bed at Ryans. Woke up and sucked down coffee and bagels in Williamsburg.

Later ate pizza with Alex. More coffee, cigarettes outside Oslo. The slight humidity, the oncoming cool breeze that signals rain.

L train to the city. Music in my ears as I swayed through the tunnel in a packed train car. Strolling down 1st Ave. Dinner at Cafe Mogador in the East Village. Chicken Tagine, merguez, cous cous, as the sky turned dark blue. Pistachio ice cream sitting on a bench. Musing about love and life and sex and and and--

God, so many good looking faces in this city. Not the plastic kind but the lived in, real kind.

Started the night off at the Cubbyhole a lesbian bar in the village. Note to self: do not go to lesbian bars with gay men. You will get no love. Wait, maybe I'm ugly.

Then we went to Marie's Crisis where old gay queens sang show tunes in a basement bar around a piano.

Music spilling out of establishments, people littering the streets. Dancing, bars, queens, rain thunder lightning, taxi cabs, and the boys I love.

Back in BK now, going to sleep with Ryan and Joe. Claps of thunder outside. Yoga in the morning.

Its only been one day? Did i really get here this morning? I feel like I slipped into rhythm so seamlessly.

Meet me in the City. You can make it for brunch tomorrow of you leave now.

I think I might be home...

2011-08-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

knees tucked up
under your chin
your crumpled,
broken
wing

your ragged, baited breath
clenched teeth: secretly, the way
sinners must
pray

I must give you time, I
think
and it reminds me
of our last night
at county

where you felt as though your heart would burst
and mine beat so quietly beside, knowing
how unfair --
where the young man stumbled in, cursing
and left his bloody handprint in the revolving
door;

and this was enough to illicit a healthy
gasp
in what had been hours, this
after all
my waiting --
the blood that rushed back, the heavy
thudthud
the color and the flood

I must give you time, I
think but -
you were always set to go,
somewhere between
sitting
and standing,
for a wing
to heal for a breath
to catch

for reason to be gone.

digging back into my emails i realize the theme of our meditations will always the same.

2011-08-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

two years ago dana levin wrote to me:

"...Prevailing metaphor: in the process of metamorphosis, the larva completely dissolves its own body---if you were to open a cocoon at this moment, all you would find is goo. Then, miraculously, the goo starts to form into a butterfly."

My body, dissolving itself. Trusting, that it will re-assess and reform. No one suggesting that this is how things could end, though. Ignoring that such a possibility could exist.

2011-08-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

- my tendency to rattle off my thoughts without thinking them through
- my other tendency to overthink and then blurt out the wrong, albeit highly edited, thought
- my penchant for doling out unsolicited advice on the regular
- my irresponsibly high standards
- my tendency toward stuffing my real feelings deep down inside while expressing them in a clear, concise way that makes everyone think i have a handle on the situation.
- my other tendency to let these feelings come to an explosive head.
- knee-jerker, hair puller
- my easy switch from serious to flirty when things get too complicated to handle
- my tremendous, blind confidence
- (to mask my) my tremendous blind, fear

2011-08-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

gonna add you to the shit I miss.
One of these days the list may get unbearable--
From overloaded to breaking.

2011-08-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

I worry often that i may be a monster. And, I read my horoscope daily. I wonder whether or not I'm a liar, both to myself and to those around me. I fear most deeply though that I am lying to myself.

I worry that I may be tipping a certain balance in my life. Blurry, gazing up through a haze of cigarette smoke and those beautifully orbed street lamps, I feel the familiar need to dive in to this feeling, and this feeling alone. I've spent so much time building balance: seeking out the middle ground. But somehow, with my hair in my face, and my body contorted, I feel so much more free.

This is a lie, I know it is. I know in the fog of the next morning, I will regret. And then I think "even this regret is freeing." At least its feeling.

I caught the sun setting last night from my porch. Deep blue, to deep orange, just behind the silhouetted hills. I've been feeling such transitions lately -- the frustration that day has turned to night, the sadness between morning and afternoon. The hot, stagnant midday that will not end ...

I used to be so much more present than this. My head and my feet have not been in the same place for months, now.

need to know --

2011-08-03T18:09:00.001-07:00

i want to know who you were before we met. dont you want to know the same about me?

future perfect.

2011-07-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

when you were fifteen you cut into your left side and found your insides. you said this was the only way to justify the crying. to explain.

at twenty six you started a list of words you like and found a man for each. you said that you'd accepted your difference. that you might have been built for destruction. you were never very big but you were a destroyer of worlds.

at thirty you will find your place. you will look up and accept. you'll find science and love it for its words and its latin. you'll find the holocene and think: really, what more magnificence can any single one of us achieve?

2011-07-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

i have to keep believing that i am here for a reason. that while i am not happy here, my happiness was dwindling where i once was, too. maybe this is time for me to re-evaluate my happiness. maybe the universe is offering me a shake up.

2011-07-26T22:32:00.001-07:00

oh my GOD WHY AM I IN LA OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?

2011-07-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

you were never very big
but you were always a destroyer of worlds.

Internal Monument

2011-07-23T11:38:00.001-07:00

Internal Monument

A man was sad—for himself, maybe for someone else, maybe he had lost something, or someone—so he hired some workmen to erect a monument. He was not surprised when they came calling early one morning, while he was still in bed, but he was surprised when, with a practiced slash, the foreman opened his chest. "We build the monument inside," the foreman said. "But who will see the monument?" the man protested. "It's a monument for feeling, not for seeing," the foreman replied.
The operation was unpleasant but was soon over. And sure enough, after a brief interval of recuperation, the man felt, he thought, a little less sad than before.
This lasted a while, but then he felt the sadness returning, in spite of the dark, heavy space in his chest where the monument rested, nestled in flesh. He called the workmen again. They obligingly came and repeated the procedure.
Over the ensuing months and years, the man had cause to call upon the foreman and his crew repeatedly, as new life brought new losses, new sadnesses. His chest became a jumbled cabinet of monuments, the fatty tissue of his upper arms and thighs, his bowels: even his fingers and toes felt weighed down by his commemorations. At length, it was all he could do to lift the telephone receiver at his bedside. He called the foreman. "I can't get up," he said. "I can't even move." "An unfortunate side effect," the foreman told him. "Really, there's nothing we can do."
Bedridden, the man felt deprived even of what had been the most mundane pleasures of daily life: strolls down the avenue, the smell of bread baking at a neighborhood patisserie, autumn leaves. It was not turning out at all as he had expected, this life.
Inside his body the monuments huddled. Mutely, he thought, though sometimes, late at night, when he tried to shift position, they brushed against one another and made what could only be called sounds, though no one else could hear them, and he heard them, if he heard them, with his body, rather than with his ears.
When the man died, his landlord, his executors, eventually the city authorities all attempted to wrest his body from what had become his deathbed. No one could move it. Finally, they called the foreman, who agreed to try one last procedure on the corpse.
The foreman unzipped the body like a flimsy valise and, with the assistance of his workmen, slowly, carefully turned it inside out. Now everyone could see the monuments, but no one could see the man.
They were beautiful, his monuments. People traveled into the city from miles around to view them. The city graded and graveled lanes in what had been the sad man's body. Clerks and engineers began to take their families there for picnics. A bandstand was built. Lovers gathered at dusk for concerts and, later, laid out blankets on the generous lawns, over which the monuments stood like sentinels. "Look at the stars," the lovers whispered to one another. "Look up at the beautiful stars."
G. C. Waldrep

Michigan Quarterly Review
Spring 2011

2011-07-20T10:14:00.001-07:00

some mornings i feel fearless.

2011-07-19T22:27:00.001-07:00

...where the sun sets down that city line.

some days

2011-07-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

barely above water. bodiless and gasping.

2011-07-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

looking for a place to hide, i found the deepest part and jumped. not being one to consider my own safety i sought love in a place with no corners and no structure to cover my ass. a fool, i sought a round room in which to hide.

i want to be more image conscious, i think, and i lather my face and i pick at the tiny in-growns.

I am happiest when I am alone, or when I am cleaning a body. joking that i could have been a doctor now wondering if mine is a morticians calling. there is much beauty in foresnics. the altered body, the unanswered questions. the shocking departure.

the heres and theres and in betweens. the discomfort in knowing that the dead know more than we do.

when i think about being a child, i think about my grandmother's belly. the sound of her voice through a wall of water. last night, in a fog of smoke and television, i felt through my body the structure. i am a skeletal structure. i wondered what other has so much access to their underbody?

the sound of the television through your body. my head in your lap, and your breath in my ear. the long thin sliver, and your digging digging.

some music to take you into the weekend.

2011-07-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

in southern california we've been batting the term carmaggedon around. with armaggedon in may, and the impending redux in october, i am coming to realize that the world is ending and not at all times. so up and down, yes; so what else can we do but hang on tight to those we love most ...

hang on tight to love, babies.

2011-07-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

all the photos of you smiling tight lipped, hard eyed. your new girl's arms around you reassuringly squeezing you're safe with me.

you're still wearing shirts i bought you. and the shoes. good.

i remember the dirty sink, and the half turned kiss. i told you so, in pantomime, that i'd come in and turn your life upside down. i told you, and you kissed me. you took stake, too.

i was never able to protect you. im glad you've found someone who can. im sorry, im sorry.
i launched you through fire, into the dark.

2011-07-09T22:02:00.001-07:00

love of mine, someday you will die
but ill be close behind, ill follow you
into the dark.

brooklyn

2011-07-09T11:45:00.001-07:00

people, last night i felt this ACHE for brooklyn. and i have not been able to kick it sense.
there is a peace that comes with cradling a heavy feeling, i think. the gravity of emotion can be so grounding.

2011-07-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

all i wanted was you and all you wanted was san francisco,
a space i could make, i thought.

2011-06-26T10:36:00.001-07:00

coming up from the past you are
crawling toward a leaning and i am
pushing through the clay wall toward
the future.

i fear we'll never meet in the middle like this
and that i'll never see your face but
i can feel you. i can feel you. your fingers and toes
made just like mine.

2011-06-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

and every once in awhile i feel so stupid and so unaccomplished that im not sure i can drag myself back out of the hole.

2011-06-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

the time we drove up to san francisco on a whim. we smoked a joint and laid in the grassy median on the interstate 5. the sound of cowbells and the animals rustling through the dry brush around us. we woke up in the backseat of your car, watching the sun burn through the bay fog. my mouth was dry, my contact lenses glued to my eyeballs; we were covered in sweat --

you opened your window and the cool salty air rushed in. there was no one there, on top of the world, except us.

somewhere between the hotel room showers, and chasing train cars. somewhere between the cow shit and the rainy drive through oklahoma city. somewhere in there, sleeping on scratchy motel sheets and screaming in the back of your car, my life became the most whole it has ever been.

active reactive radioactive

2011-06-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

everything i do is in a direct reaction to something else. like a ping pong ball from one thought to another, someone keep me grounded so that i can move forward. something keep my mind here so that i can focus inward, and stop avoiding. there are things to be done that i am neglecting!

very few things keep me in one place as t does. im not sure anything else does, really, more so than this rock solid love. how lucky am i for such a strong partnership? :)

being back in los angeles is scary as it brings forth aspects of myself that have been dormant for so long. after all, this place is my playground and my warzone. i have memories and ownership over every street corner, every thoroughfare. no challenge (and so many challenges!) so i create my own internal drama: does it always have to be such a struggle?

how dramatic, i mean things in much easier terms, i promise. you dont have to worry about me.

last night at dinner grams told me that she's been praying for me to move back since the day i left for new york. as my grandmother has a direct line to god, i cant help but fault her now for this return. is this the best thing for me? can prayer be so selfish? i remember saying that i wanted to return to be closer to family...

family: i realize i have my own now. one apart from t's and the one from my childhood. everything is different, even in familiar surroundings. thank god for that. but i am still understanding this, getting used to this.

although he's been in thailand, i've been calling t's phone so that i could hear his voice when the message picks up. with such limited communication (apparently they dont have internet in remote thailand) i feel like he's disappeared from my life. is this life without him? i dont want it.

2011-06-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

he had these big hands and long fingers. slender, gentle though - and he held me this way, as not to break.

like im a girl who could break.

2011-06-05T22:33:00.000-07:00

and just when you feel like you've figured out all of it, even just some of it -- god, oh god you havent.
i just want to spend one day, asleep. i am convinced this will help me sort my head.

2011-06-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

its been a long road to motherhood, and yours is one we walked together.

i miss brooklyn. i miss my doggy daycare people. i miss my corner store guy. i looked up today and realized i hadnt been home in so long. and with t*** out of the country, i suddenly feel so displaced.
today someone asked me how i know. i know because at my ugliest, angriest, most sabotaging and most repulsive i feel safest with him. i feel like my true and inevitable self, always.

the idea of home and abroads, of travel and feathers and skeleton keys have been playing on my tongue, lately. not birds, only their pieces. all these ideas of oneness and aloneness and yous and mes and as always, the limits of what this skin can hold. .. how far a body can stretch, how much one can accommodate...

dog is asleep by my side. you're on a different side of this planet. i have never felt such distance from all things that have so far defined my home.

and, i miss brooklyn.

2011-05-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

some women are born beautiful. i've always had quite
the personality.

2011-05-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

g'ddmnit im anxious. im not ready to go. this feels like i'm being broken up with.
i love you, forever, temperamental city. i know you wont remember me, but thats okay.

2011-05-05T13:04:00.001-07:00

asleep in the bathtub.

2011-04-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

everywhere i go, i'll miss you still. i'll nurse this loss and wear it like a badge like a pin like a string around my weight, to remember.

2011-04-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

next year i will look back at this moment from a place of stability. this might not be the case, but at least next year i'll look back at a moment in which i did not know where i was going to live, next.

the bank loft has denied us because of the dog. their loss.

tomorrow morning, i go to see a loft downtown. today, i spotted a beautiful blue cottage with a yard. there are two different very specific forces at work here, and they are both wanting me to commit without offering to me much more than themselves.

2011-04-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

finding a home is a hard thing. driving around los angeles, i resent the hell out of my sublessor, the distance, my suitcase lifestyle, everything that puts this wide wide gap between myself and brooklyn in the spring. but i am here for something i hope is larger than myself and i plug on.

there is a loft in highland park -- the ground floor of an old bank building. but there is another part of me who wants a craftsman and a yard and coffee on a porch in the morning.

something will manifest. the dog will like it. it will feel right. so feelings forward, i drive and i drive and i drive.

2011-04-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

im sick as a dog and spending my day at home reading food blogs. and throwing up. i have this dream that we'll be old together and all i'll do everyday is make you delicious food. and all we'll do together is tinker around in a garden. and our dog will still be with us, happy for the space and sunshine.

2011-04-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

dear world. everywhere i go i am missing you elsewhere. this is what the sun must feel, or the moon.
how can i hold all of you at once?

2011-04-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

i used to look at photographs of other women you said you loved
because i wanted to compare; because i liked the ached and gnaw in my chest.

2011-03-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

what if i had done something more tactile, like had become a photographer or a chef?
i am turning 26 on friday and i have no plans or aspirations. all i can think about is the now, and really that feels pretty good.

2011-03-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

when i went to janice's house to play with her new kittens
and how they squeaked like toys in the garage where they lived -
i wanted to bury my face in their softness and i did
because as children we only know to enact want.

when i came home your gnarled back was home to me, the trunk of a tree
where i hid from the scratches
the hot tears, the wheezing breath, the fever that
ran; where i slept in your cool shade until i could see again.

2011-03-18T00:06:00.001-07:00

my home is mine to hold. how lucky am i?

2011-02-23T11:29:00.001-08:00

Brooklyn longing
Brooklyn hopeless
Under floorboards
Under foot.

Threshhold between Mourning and remembering. Looking for the line crossed. Looking for the place we crossed over.

I am interested in marked crossing. The bridges over nothing between countries. Boundary lines. Border states.

I am in border states. I am a small border town.

Remembering when you were a child and wondering how much more your body can take. that must sound so brutal but I mean something different.

Somehow I will find a way to cross. Through Canada through Mexico. There are places we can go and not be found.

hug life.

2011-02-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

2011-02-03T11:31:00.001-08:00

what if you knew you were dying, and you could minimize the world to only the people and places that you loved?

Having a Coke With You

2011-01-31T20:02:00.001-08:00

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

-Frank O'Hara

2011-01-29T18:42:00.000-08:00

there is someone outside screaming: its not fair over and over again.
winter is long, but the days are getting longer. i am hanging all of my hope on this.

The Books ft Jose Gonzalez - Cello Song - (2 of 31)

2011-01-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

2011-01-28T00:13:00.001-08:00

i want to go to a fun party
i want to meet someone new
i want to have a good conversation
i want to cook something with layers
i want to visit a new city
... to be continued

2011-01-27T20:39:00.000-08:00

everyone says go west
but the girl traveling backwards
the reckless decisions, the matchbooks soaked
the water pooling around her ankles, instead
makes lists.

the wetness between us makes the loneliness bearable
the wall of water, the hollow sound
you: the murk the echo and the weight

but when we are together, our bodies
dried
fissures trembling as though they may crack
or combust.

move: when there is no salve. move

go west

for air. go west for room --

there is the linear thing
she believes exists in everyone else:
the single line, a word that will save us, not her

her own feet caught up and broken, muddied
the clumsy fault and loss her own --
leaves imprint when; each stumble a
prayer for grace

one step
two (makes lists)
strikes match &
sobs.

reminder

2011-01-27T20:26:00.000-08:00

Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem

My left hand will live longer than my right. The rivers
of my palms tell me so.
Never argue with rivers. Never expect your lives to finish
at the same time. I think

praying, I think clapping is how hands mourn. I think
staying up and waiting
for paintings to sigh is science. In another dimension this
is exactly what's happening,

it's what they write grants about: the chromodynamics
of mournful Whistlers,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of Old Battersea Bridge.
I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish.
My hands are webbed
like the wind-torn work of a spider, like they squeezed
something in the womb

but couldn't hang on. One of those other worlds
or a life I felt
passing through mine, or the ocean inside my mother's belly
she had to scream out.

Here, when I say I never want to be without you,
somewhere else I am saying
I never want to be without you again. And when I touch you
in each of the places we meet,

in all of the lives we are, it's with hands that are dying
and resurrected.
When I don't touch you it's a mistake in any life,
in each place and forever.

Bob Hicok

2011-01-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

today i realized that maybe running away isnt the answer. maybe steeping in this weather, in this loneliness is so much more than "okay"; its necessary.

i like walking alone when its cold out. i like being alone in the apartment. i like warm music and i like that my dog knows how i feel. i like the lights in my window and how snow reflects the streetlamp outside.

2011-01-16T13:47:00.001-08:00

dear world /
hanging on is hard to do
you know.

my mother's english.

2011-01-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

this is the world around town she says, not making sense, but making enough sense that i dont want to correct her. instead, i sit in the dimming light of the kitchen, after dinner, and contemplate her own adaptation of the phrase while she talks; new, as if to say that this has created an all consuming bubble in our small town. considering what a small town we live in, filled with our family and generations old neighbors her phrase seems more right than the original. this new phrase, more poetically, to say: everyone knows what you are doing, and they've created a fishbowl, a new world with all their talking.

or the time she called the sales flier for the big-box electronic store in the paper, the appetizer. How, while she insisted I get the printer being advertised for one hundred and fifty dollars, I could only picture fancy plates doling out newsprint - the appetizingly bright reds and greens of a newspaper salad.

Home - Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros Acoustic Cover (Jorge & Alex...

2011-01-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

oh home, let me come home!

i talk much of love.

2011-01-12T13:41:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 06, 2010
i'm going to go to bed soon.

i've been thinking a lot lately about how much magic used to exist. how in those times of magic i was pretty certain this floating life would continue. i was also fairly certain that as i grew more busy, more adult, my world would still be built upon this sense of magic.

the magic of walking out of a bar at two am and into cars. the magic of cigarette smoke and dark bars and the floating world.

i've been so tired lately and afraid. every time i sit down, i fall asleep and the day is over. everytime i intend to lay in bed and talk, i shut my eyes until morning. i feel so drained! there used to be this world of night and love and youth that im afraid im not allowed to play in, anymore. maybe this is the winter talking. maybe this is the east coast talking.

i have been afraid too to exercise access. i have been afraid to access the west, and longing, and the chiaroscuro. i miss the warm ground and the orange sunsets. i miss asphalt and long stretches of road. but i cant access that longing like i used to -- or more importantly LIKE I KNOW I CAN.

i feel as though i am a series of doors and windows -- open and shut without rhyme or reason. locked and ajar according to whim.

help me be open. i dont want to be a door or window. i want to be a sponge.
POSTED BY NO. AT 8:18:00 PM 0 COMMENTS LINKS TO THIS POST
TUESDAY, JANUARY 05, 2010
im pretty sure that had we not fallen in love, if we were not so tightly tightly woven together, we may never know eachother. or anyone else for the matter.

we have so many loves and our days are so jam packed -- and by night, we fall into one another, exhausted, quiet and grateful (happy so happy) to have the solace.

i miss you i miss you. i am amiss without you.
POSTED BY NO. AT 1:29:00 PM 0 COMMENTS LINKS TO THIS POST

MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 2009

whenever we return from walks my dog always looks intensely into the basement of our building (where the laundry room is) and i have to give her a tug to come upstairs to my apartment. this scares the shit out of me. i never want to do laundry again.

today, instead of going out to the bar, i am opting to stay home to work. i feel a little older and a little more interested in my career. i want to really start putting myself out there - looking for smaller jobs, interning, looking for MONEY. part of me feels anxious about being "boring". but i realize that im building a LIFE now. This isnt college and my education is nearly over -- its time to be a more functioning member of this world. hopefully, i'll function in it doing what i love.

2011-01-12T13:09:00.002-08:00

looking for a rightness in all things. the best word, the perfect moment before

or after.

something to show you how the dog feels. what i feel. how the the flies feel between myself,

the curtain, the day.

i would make a bad housewife. i would make no clay foot goddess. i would sit for too long

and stare and stare and stare --

(as though staring would set this house ablaze. as though staring would figure this mess.)

the drawn curtains, the flies, the window pane, the day.

the distractions, the list. i could go on and on --

this is an ugly thing with no end. this poem is an ugly unshowered house.
not the girl i want to be. not the poem up all night, not the poem contemplative.

but this is the room ive found myself. this is the crumbling house i'm unable to clean.

there is music in here, there are the dirt roads i've traveled. there are lists entombed --

where are my slant rhymes? where are the stanzas and the pictures -- the bed i once made with my bare hands

where, in between things, i could sleep.

may the bridges i burn light my way

2011-01-12T13:09:00.001-08:00

i always fight time to myself. i am afraid to think for too long because i tend to overthink, over-justify, over-rationalize, all the while under-fighting that voice in my head; that deep baritone drag through my seat - that feeling that i'm a failure.

& then im afraid i'll run out of things to think about. that i only have fragments of sentences to go on.

i want to feel as naked as i once felt. and comfortable. i want to stand in front of the warm window and feel the light through my legs. the imperceptible warmth on the insides of my thighs. i want to lie down on the highway with you. i want to count the cows. i want to recapture the dimming memory of that hidden field, the paw prints in the mud, and the trains we chased as they passed.

i want that pain in my chest - the ache and throb of my insides. i want that throb whole: not only the bits i've got.

2011-01-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

some days are foggy. i look into the kitchen, through the living room: did i leave the oven open, is something on fire, haze. these days i feel like the dog understands me specifically so, and i feel bad about teasing her.

other days it isnt so bad. most days i can ignore it - find something else to think about.

2011-01-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

i feel like i havent worked as hard as i should have this weekend. my mind keeps drifting to other things - youtube videos and thinking about food are the majority of these things - and i have a hard time settling myself.
even now, i should be doing other work. i should have been doing other work all day. at least i am writing down my thoughts, which is work enough.

two nights in a row i have had dreams about sundance. each dream circles and circles around my want to get in, my uncertainty regarding the quality of the film, and my deep deep fear that it wont.

most films dont get into sundance. why should mine be any different? my experience there last year, and my boss' work and relationships with the festival make me feel like i have somehow vicariously earned a right in. but i havent. i am still a small fry. and i can be happy with small fry. i just need to relax.

there goes my blood pressure. there goes my heart. thud thud thud.

we've got to get back on the road.

2011-01-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

2011-01-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

the thousand blackbirds that fell over the arkansas sky.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7010UO20110102

funnest life ever.

2010-12-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

2010-11-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

there are days when everything
tastes like blood. and i have to reach past my teeth to
grip the jaw ; to dig and pull out the reasons why.

i have been writing for ages, trying to transcend the
body, lift the body bare -
and still those mornings, somehow so full of blood
and retch

santa fe

2010-11-09T12:04:00.001-08:00

big moon
big sky
you give me all sorts of reasons to write,
and i miss you.

2010-10-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

another thing:

i woke up this morning SOBBING. dreamt that the one i loved the most, turned off and loved me the least. in an old house full of bad memories, my boyfriend was leaving me -- inexplicably and efficiently. i kept trying to ignore it until i couldnt stop crying. when i turned to ask "why" he threw up his hands and refused to listen.

i opened my eyes and it felt like i was breaking the water's surface and gasping for air -- i looked and saw his real, sleeping face and the tears came in gasps. he woke up, and made sure i was okay and the tears turned to those of relief.

(my worst nightmare is losing you and the love we've worked to build together!)

2010-10-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

there are days i wish that i could move to san francisco and start a new life. on these days i believe with everything inside me that if i could wake up every morning and see the fog rolling across the bay, or the orange sun burning a hole through grey, i could be happy -- my life could be new again and again. i could equate this with newness - the fog like the film over my eyes that burns off the moment i wake. the city and i rhythmically interwoven...

i am disappointed in myself these days. i moved here last year with so much hope. sure, my life has changed but the newness is gone. just goes to show that i can go anywhere and leave all sorts of places behind, but i cant ever lose myself.

i can settle, i can settle; but right now i feel like im halfway between sitting and standing, and not sure how much longer i can hold the pose.

2010-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

regarding the night i woke up crying,
thank you for holding on
and not letting go.

2010-10-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

in my dreams my father is walking the side of a mountain road. he is a freight train. he is a young sapling. in my dreams he is a crowded airport -- and i am there waiting.

all the men that i have loved have had nothing to do with you. they are men and you a sapling where i wanted a great tree.

i want to find a place to bury my dead. the ones who want the ocean; the ones who want the desert floor. i want whats best for everyone.

i could find your body, anywhere. where your sons would not know where to look. you are a tree. you are a sapling. you are all things in between.

you are a train ride. you are your linen pants. you are the summer mountains; the moisture. you are the temple grounds. i am your temple's lazy keeper. you are your face unchanged at forty. i am rapidly forgetting.

all i remember is the lazy train rides. the bus rides holding your hand. the lion asleep next to the train tracks. the big brown mane, the bushy tail. later i knew there was no lion, but in those moments between wake and sleep, that kind of magic was more than enough.

2010-10-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

poem is a holy thing.
(and holy the sacred thing you once knew so clearly)

intangible thing.

a woman you spent the hours, loving
who asked for life back --
the same face the same hands the same body you cant
remember touching, try as you might.

the map you know you've traveled. the lines familiar, and not.
the long lonely bridge, the riverbed
and nothing.

I want the shock of poetry
like that of an old lover,
waiting at a crosswalk, erupting with life.

those wild remarks.
weathervane. where are your dead buried?

i believe in recompense. i believe in a way out of this mess --
i believe in the do and can and will not.

i will make you a promise.

2010-09-22T07:09:00.001-07:00

and today, i feel completely untethered. the inexplicable tears that come at three am.
i'd like to rent some space - to advertise my failure.

prayer.

2010-09-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

may i make a confession:

i pray. i pray to god. or rather, to whatever and all incarnations that he/she may take. i pray to them. when i bow my head or close my eyes, i pray to god and i pray to myself. some people call it projecting an intention, some people call it meditation or being quiet for a second, but i always find myself in conversation to the great big question mark unknown-yet-really-so-well-known sentience within and around me.

my grandmother tells me that she prays for me, all the time. she always has done so, since i was a little kid. she would pray for me. my grandmother and i never had money (my mom is a different story, and why her money was never anyone else's money is also a different story) so she would always say that she had nothing else for me besides her prayers.

her prayers: her thoughts, her great intentions, her asking of the higher universe to take care of me. just me. all that love and thought and heart for me. thats so much more than i need, isnt it?

even to this day, she tells me: "you're going to be okay because i pray for you every day". and i believe her. i think about her prayers as these magical thoughts that are so good, so good that they come true.

i guess the praying rubs off. because lo and behold i do the same: i pray walking up and down stairs. i pray in the subway. i pray to the gods and the saints and the statues and the universe. i pray for my dog. i pray for my heart. i pray to the thin that attaches my heart to the world.

i always ask for proof that magic exists in this world. i forget my grandmother is the biggest magic.

2010-09-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

i have to get this off my chest.

i have gone to "donation" yoga two days in a row now, and i feel extremely guilty that i have not donated a cent. i look at the donation box after class and theres nothing in it -- this i assume means that no one else has donated, but thats not the point -- i look at it and theres nothing in it and i dont want to be the first one to put *gasp* too little in the box. and then, i kind of hang around to see if anyone else is putting anythign in and just as i start to leave, other people start to donate.

what is this timing?!

2010-09-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

i remember how i used to crave a big bowl of noodles or some piping hot street snack, coming out of joelle collier's hong kong cinema class in college. it was always later in the evening so it was dusk or dinnertime when i entered, and night when i left. i dreamt i was maggie cheung, descending the steps slow motion in her beautiful dresses. i dreamt i was rose byrne dancing in an outback jukebox bar. these days, i dream i am blondie or the beautiful stewardess in chungking express.

i dont really know what i look like. granted, i do know what i look like every morning when i look in the mirror -- but i quickly forget. the woman in my head is always larger or smaller or sharper or flatter than the person i see reflected. im not sure the person other people see is the same me that i see.

these next few months calls for a new me. the change in weather: fall - the middle season. there is something precarious in the air that im not convinced is exciting. but i am going to know it. i can be ready for it this time.

2010-09-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

driving through the north was different than driving through the desert. the quiet of the night was dominated by forest and woods and as long as i could see the red, reflective eyes of something something in the dark i was not alone.

i was always alone in the desert. just you, me, the headlights. just us. in the north there was the fog. there was the sleepy small towns, there was no outward danger.

atleast in the desert we were wide open. anything coming would have to tell us in a kick cloud of dust, in a coyote laugh. but in the forest: the thick fog that would pretend not to, the obscured faces full of teeth.

i dont care though, as long as the sun was out i was happy to amble through the meadows of the north, happy to stare across the bay and imagine the other side. there is so much water in the north.

tonight i listen to music that reminds me of the desert - that reminds me of the welcome smell of rain, or the sky on fire, or the dusk. tonight i welcome the desert as an old friend's voice. i miss the neon lights that illuminate the dusty darkness. i miss the dirty bars and the desert people. i miss who i was there.

gone four days.

2010-08-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

already day five on the lake? day five tomorrow, not today. today is still day four.
i have new dreams every time i switch beds. i hate these soft beds -- i miss the floor mats of my childhood. i miss holding my granmother's hand when i sleep.

gone four days. i have been gone for days. i could die out here and no one would know. (how dramatic).
today is sunday. i spent the day eating junk food and fighting with my boyfriend. i have given in and bought another pack of cigarettes. to this day, i dont let myself feel good and healthy, i guess. i need a good dose of bad for me feelings every once in awhile. tomorrow, i will be more productive. tomorrow i will try to be better. tomorrow i will not eat potato chips.

i like my cigarettes though.

remember

2010-08-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

remember, you alone are responsible for your happiness. <3

2010-08-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

i've put on some weight in los angeles. i know everyone thinks that i am tiny but from the inside out, i feel like i am brimming over with excess skin. i used to be so much bone.

my best friend and i often talk about this -- how having grown up in los angeles, we are so critical of our bodies. i have no idea what i really look like. i only know how fat i feel. my most active meters of accomplishments and failings are those surrounding my weight.

i'm not sure this is any sort of body image ISSUE, per say. i am not unhealthy and im not destructive. i am just so goddamn conscious.

leaving for montana tomorrow. we will have john and charlotte and patrick visiting us there. might be a different trip this time around -- interested to find out.

please please wish me luck.

some days its

2010-08-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

like trying to build a house sideways
like talking sense to a brick wall.

like running in place, eyes closed walking in circles.

2010-08-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

i have been walking in circles since you've gone. circles from the bedroom through the hallway into the bathroom. The dog joins me in the bathroom and we look at one another. Together we cross the hallway, into the kitchen where I turn the faucet on and off and note that the cold and hot spigots are switched.

There are flies in the window. I take the trash out and put some water on for coffee. I havent had coffee at home since we've moved in -- I'm always out the door too early.

I put the radio on and wait for the water to boil. Garrison Keilor is on the radio about San Francisco. His voice is particularly awful today and I hate him. But I keep listening because I understand the jokes and it makes me think of the weekend we went up north.

I mill the living room and back to the bedroom I go. I open the curtains and I pour the contents of my shopping bag onto the bed. I bought a pair of pants yesterday that i now hate.

I dont like the bedroom without you. Back to the living room.

Back to the kitchen.

I've dreamt so hard of one weekend at home with you. Now the want has grown and I want years with you on our own island. I want to speak to you without speaking. I work in circles and get nowhere. You wait, and wait, and when I'm ready you're gone.

Travel safe.

2010-07-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

i want to place my poems like dickman does. i dont want to exist in this netherworld. i want to exist either here or there.

2010-07-19T17:36:00.001-07:00

sometimes i am sure that if i dont get to montana in september i will erupt. i will implode. i will not be able to get up from my seat.

2010-07-07T06:44:00.001-07:00

you keep doing this and you wont remember anything at all.

2010-07-05T14:09:00.001-07:00

i am having a hard time with this