supposed to be going out to play,
but this just can't wait:

i want to tell a complete stranger
everything about me.

that is all.

i will go in this way

the last time it happened, we broke each other's hearts. like arms. like carrot sticks, we bit them off and they made a sweet snap and for a moment the cold felt good, and it was nutritious. and then i got in my car, and you got on your bike, and we went in the most opposite directions, ultimately in a straight line, never parallel on accident or on purpose, but as lost as possible.

i spent hours in the coffee shop, waiting for anything to take my mind off of the red brick walls and painted bookshelves and pots and pans hanging over our heads that reminded me of you. the sights and sounds of coming home, the water pressure, the lost backyard and the unbearable empty stage beneath the roofs of our mouths-

don't take painkillers, i could have said
and don't throw up after you eat
don't forget to say hello, you could have said
and learn how to fucking love everything
and i didn't
and i still don't
but the last time i really tried
i wasn't sure if it even got through to you
i want to show you my tattoo
and let you know that
even though
i'm the same
i'm really very different

life is like having a dream, where you fall in love with the girl who grew up next to your grandparent's house. but also, your apartment is infested with crawling things that disappear down the drain and wait for your bare feet. so when you wake up, you're happy to have your feet but broken to have lost that love.

coffee black

the coffee is burnt
and tastes like
layers of paint
peeling off bridges
over brackish rivers.

missive

do you think i care
about they way
things are supposed
to be done?


you are:
homemade macaroni and cheese
really good science fiction short stories
my favorite episode of every tv show i've ever loved
turning off the porch light
the breaking of winter
and
a little bit
too much


i can't write a poem
to save my life.
i can't write a song
that makes you my wife
(or at least
the person
who drinks
the extra
coffee
that i make)
i want to do something
volcanic
magnetic
disruptive
hopeful
disinterested in
my own happiness
without borders
and
without
pollution.

i wandered through the town you're from, and heard about the things you'd done. just when i thought they'd said enough, i turned around and heard you laugh. the city escaped in your breath, and everything that was black and white found color again.

for uncle joe

my uncle joe went missing last november, and his body was found about a week ago. my family held a small memorial service for him tonight, and while i was unable to be there, i was able to read a little poem i wrote over the speaker-phone. this is for my uncle, of course, but also for my cousin joey, who lost his father.

I know some people like to pray, and some people like to go to church-
well, my prayer is writing things down
and my church is walking next to the ocean
so I did both of those things this week, for Uncle Joey.


maybe there is no place for the mad ones
the different ones
the one-of-a-kinds.

maybe family is the only place
and knowing that we are all knocked off the same block
of crazy granite/
with the same veins of purple quartz
but all in maddeningly different shapes.

the geology of us
is changed now
and will change again
and again
unceasingly
as the years bring
more rain and snow and hot summers

but it is all we can do
to love this tired,
flawed,
miraculous,
disappointing,
beautiful
life
as
the mad ones do

there is no perfection
no answer
and no secret-
there is only us
and our granite family.

unexpected

a late happy birthday shout out
to the most important little sister
ever invented

and a very, very early one
to the most impressive
older variety
a brother
could
ever
hope
to have.

Mr. Elizabeth Taylor is asleep on my bed, and I am drunk with the knowledge that I have finished yet another progressive draft of Attican, an old one-act of mine that has been breathing new life this week. I forgot how much I wanted to finish telling the story for the characters. Tonight I rest easy knowing that I have two fewer lost souls bouncing around in my brain. Don't get me wrong, there are a whole lot of lads and lasses with interesting names getting into all sorts of trouble in my head. But tonight, for Demetrius and Alma, sleep comes as last.

Can I get any more effin' dramatic? That's what you get when you write plays. I've been meditating on friendship, which is an interesting situation in Buddhism, because so much of what friends share is based on the past and the future. How much of it is in the actual moment? How much of it is happening right now, as I type this.

so many people have told me
'oh, i've never listened to the grateful dead.'
and i wonder how
that could happen
to someone
who grows up
in
Southern California.
so i've taken it
upon myself
to spread the world
of the apostle
jerry
and his merry
band
of
knap.

goodnight moon.

strange days, these days

on monday, i adopt a cat. his name is elizabeth taylor, but i'm going to call him albee.

tracy chapman, as confusing as she is to adolescent boys, should be sold in the produce aisle. she's as necessary as potatoes and bananas. it's like the goodness of the whole earth has been exhaled as music.

i don't understand key changes. something as complete as a chord, suddenly shifting completely different, but the same. so when i play guitar, i often stay in one key as long as possible. it's like i'm floating piece of the artic shelf that as broken off. and i don't want to jump to the next. i just want to drift in happy blue and white.

missing the people of home. missing people in general. staying busy, but having a hard time actually connecting. med adjustment? fuck that. a little bit of staying up late, pounding on a typewriter while the neighbors fuck each others' brains out- that's how i adjust my meds.

when i was a baby, and when i was a kid, i can't remember those things. my first memory is probably from when i was three or four years old. and they are sporadic after that until i was eight or nine. maybe this is normal. i think it must be. kids exist naturally, and are still part of the environments around them. why do you think they like ball pits so much? time moves differently for them. they almost never think about it. in fact, they probably don't even understand the concept of it. but as you grow up, it's taught to you. the idea of managing your life using time. and once you learn it, it never goes away. once the concept of death is introduced and understood, we begin to measure our lives differently. the past becomes supreme, and the future becomes sublime. we forget about the moment in between, the flash-second that is now, and how that is the only true existence we have. what we have, what we've done, and what we are going to do make absolutely no difference. they are created by us to preserve who we are. histories and futures are about as real as teenage mutant ninja turtles: innately, we understand their absurdity. but that doesn't stop us from making them the centers of our lives. (ok, so i don't know anyone who actually makes tmnt the center of his or her life, but i'm fairly certain that person exists, somewhere). there is a warped understanding of living in the moment that involves jumps out of airplane and canoe trips down the amazon. but all it really means is shedding the past a ceasing of forecasting the future.

jesus h. christ, i wrote too much about that.

going to bed now.