"Irena not only opens the door, but falls through, and the door only leads to one place, home; and home isn't safe."

Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

Visa

This is how the hand off went. My fingers faintly so faintly held the plastic square, and then the Starbucks cashier applied her fingers faintly so faintly to the other side, and we each for a split second held the card like daisy chain or a banner or bridge between us that would be incorrect to break. Like both of us believed the other had cooties that we didn't want to contract. Like touching the plastic was somehow more embarrassing than touching the other's body. This is the pattern of these transactions. And sometimes in these transactions myself, the purchaser, and the cashier of whatever business will both grip the card so faintly that it will flip between our fingers like a fish, like we had slapped it, beat it around, and then it will clatter on the counter. But when it clatters, it is such a soft sound of the plastic, weighing some micro metered amount. There is no damage done. I imagine that others' transactions can be different. Yet mine are all like the card: commerce and purchases, faintly so faintly mediated by light plastic, and if the eagle in the corner catches it, oddly pretty in the light.

beach black nights-- Hamptons, L.I.

Change

my favorite word used to be cathedral; my new favorite word is crypt.

Tonight I saw the moon

And I could not number the weeks it’d been since that last time I saw it. Is the world indifferent to the moon? As long as it’s there, does it matter if we see it or not?

I suspect all the things inside of me are dead and that’s why I can talk about them. Brave is only a way of saying callous. I think all that’s left of me is a museum, resurrected over the village of all the things that mattered once but are gone. And the museum is getting dusty and worn down with too many tourist visits, not enough upkeep and exhibition swap-outs. That is the pattern of things that grow. They must, by law, grow, diminish, then be faux-revered.

Jack 'n Jill

It's true we all know Jack 'n Jill to have both worn leiderhoesan. There may be small discrepancies over each's hair color-- both blonde? Or did Jill have damp brown locks curled clockwise from her face like, well, the supple clock towers of her tiny Austrian home town, and did Jack's green cap have a feather stuck in it posing as a charming afterthought? And did his chubby hands grab Jill's or did they instead hoist sail on his own leather suspenders as he said goddammit Jill I ain't going for no more fricking water? Was their hike up the hill a metaphor for a life journey or a quick run and endless plummet where crown doesn't mean a metal monarchy but actually a bloody coxcomb? If the hill is a metaphor for life, I hope Jack and Jill were sweet and gray when they got up there to the stone well sheltered by that little rooftop, pointy, with a wooden bucket underneath. Maybe they started the walk as baby betrotheds but by the top they were brother and sister, arms lattice-linked.

And I hope they admired the setting sunset there at the summit-- the sky embroidered the color of an old children's book page, and I hope they finally got a drink of water before setting back down the hill again. And I hope when they did fall, Jack's mouth softly O-ing and Jill's toe finding the same tough patch or banana peel or slick spot from the slashing water, that they had the gentlest of tumbles like lazy roses somersaulting, barely loafing the grass-- pulling down from the clouds.

tonight

The moon is half full...  thank you everyone one for getting  me to this point. chaucer once said (i believe) that man is aways keeping appointments that he never makes. For example, I am going to the  beach tomorrow. It's like I'm on that moving sidewalk at the airport and I just get off whenever it lets me off like it's saying "here is your activity go enjoy" and I say, "yes thanks."

POST SCRIPT

after David Bailey' Drun Sonnets

REFLECTING NOW, ON HOW CLOSE WE WERE,

I DON’T KNOW HOW ANYONE FINDS ANYONE ANYMORE

ITS LIKE PINBALLS SLAMMING AROUND

UNTIL PROXIMITY MAKES A COUPLE GROW 

COMPATIBLE 

AND THEN THEY ARE ALL LIKE

“WE ARE MADE FOR EACH OTHER” AND THAT’S BULLSHIT

WHAT’S ALSO BULLSHIT IS MOST OF THE INTERNET

AND THE SUBURBS.

BUT GROWING COMPATIBLE IS IMPRESSIVE IN ITS OWN RIGHT

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT

AND ALL THE TIMES YOU HAVE CRUSHES ON SOMEONE

AND NOTHING HAPPENS. OR IS THAT JUST ME?

I DON’T THINK IT WAS MY FAULT, THEY HAD G/FS

This is Coming a Little Late

after Drunk Sonnets by Daniel Bailey

AND I KNOW LOVE MAKES YOU DO CRAZY THINGS

I HAD A FRIEND WHO CLIMBED A CELL PHONE TOWER FOR THAT SHIT

BUT MAYBE I JUST WANT TO ELECTRICAL POWER OF THIS FEELING

TO HOLD ON TO LIKE WRESTLING WITH A DRAGON

DOES THAT MAKE ME ROTTEN? SOMETIMES I THINK YES

MOST TIMES I CAN’T THINK. BUT NOW THAT I CAN

I WILL LET THE DRAGON GO, WHEN IT LEAST COUNTS OF COURSE

AND ILL TRY TO BE A HUMBLE OLD WOMAN

WHO FREES FISH CAUGHT IN LITTER, OR MENDS

THE CHIPMUNK WITH THE BROKEN PAW

I ONLY EVER WANTED TO DO GOOD.

FORGIVE ME, FOR ALL THE TEXT MESSAGES I SENT

ESPECIALLY THE DRUNK TEXTS

I’M SURE YOU DIDN’T WANT THEM.

translated wiki page: franz paul

"Having been his sister Mary Herbert in 1803 , which is also in love with the Questions Immanuel Kant corresponded by suicide was divorced from life, so did Herbert."

babies

And then came the online obsession with early mothers. The girls from my grade who have birthed and raised kids. I click through their Facebook pictures,  the whole timeline as if maybe I can see some map of cause and effect.

compound words

voice mail box

voice mailbox

voicemail box

voicemailbox

I had a voice that I shipped in the mail via a cardboard box. Passing by, I heard a voice inside the mailbox so I left a voicemail about the cardboard box. Take the voice I mailed you in the box outside of the the mailbox with the voice in it so it's not threatened in there all alone with a disembodied echo talking to it.

Social Suicide

I would like to jump off the Facebook building to my own Facebook demise. But I'm scared.

re-do?

Maybe it's better to go through life like a knife blade instead of an empty basket.

Lost 'N Found

I.
My sister built a tree fort with her own bare hands. she rigged a platform and a rope ladder to scale the trunk, climb to the top and peek into the far off ocean. Inside the fort, a kettle sits at a small wood stove, but it's just for show. There is no fire in the tree fort. There is also a fake bathtub and a fake fridge-- a fake gaslight and a fake hose. About the only thing that's real in my sister's tree fort is a rug that we both curl up on, and of course the view.

II.
One summer, I went up to visit my sister in her tree fort. At first she would not let me in. She drew up the rope ladder like a draw bridge and said, "No girls allowed." I didn't say anything, but curled up at the base of the tree, right in the roots, until I looked like one, and cried and cried and cried. Then she let me up and fed me circus peanuts.

From that day on she let me tend the imaginary fire and send imaginary smoke signals into the air. (We weren't really trying to find anyone.)

And no one tried to find us.

III.
And things were fine, nay great, until my sister's drinking problem led me to sit up from my corner of the rug one pale, lukewarm night and exclaim, "Sister-- it's me or the booze."

She muttered that she didn't know what I meant, that I was naive, ungrateful. We shuffled around each other for days in the tree fort. Tequila dripped from the floor boards to the thirsty frogs below.

IV.
I am not a large girl, but I do not fit so well in my sister's tree fort. I stub my toes, and thwap my forehead, and rake my knuckles. The mini mirror, should it shine, reflects only my waist. The mini rug, should it have tassles, tickle my lip. The mini shower, should it work, wets only my shins.

I have some leaves but my sister says I wasn't born with those.

I like my hands; I order seven pairs online. My sister is going to show me how to fasten them all with her sewing kit. I have a squirrel tail which, to keep clean, I lick, like a cat. My saliva flecks the air and catches the light. I am very pretty.

V.
I don't know why I came here. I don't know why I show up anywhere. If I leave, I'd like my sister to throw her arms around my knees and beg and beg for me not to go.
"It will be terrible here with out you!" She'd say. I do not tell her my secret wish.
"Narcissist," she'd hiss.

VI.
Today my sister is kicking me out of the tree fort. She says I have the drinking problem, not her. I don't think that's right. Before I leave, she pulls out a brown cardboard box. LOST 'N FOUND it says on the side.
"Give back everything I gave you," she says, but I don't know what she's talking about. She shakes the box at me so I take off all my rings and bracelets.
"Such a selfless martyr," she says, and I am ashamed.
"The car keys too. You can't drive drunk." I throw them in there.

I peer one last time in the box before I leave. Little mice crawl around my things.

VII.
Down in the forest, I weave among the trees and miss the parties with imaginary tea I had with my sister.

Cloth in the Sun

I don't want to write about Childhood, Autumn, or Morning Smells.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to write long hand on paper when, my whole life, I've typed poems on the computer. I get what they mean about distractions and the internet, turning your phone off ect. BUT at the same time, why would I ignore digital technology? Yes my attention span is impaired... but it seems untrue to write my observations down in a hand-made journal in the woods rather than pluck my ideas out of my iphone notes and type them out to my blog. The critic in me is persistant.

So today, in the workshop, I am writing (long-hand) my page-long shpeil about a charged kid memory about a kitchen, but it doesnt interest me, no matter how "real" or "honest" I get. It might be interesting, but not to me.

Instead, I want to write about this folded cloth on the porch across the street from my sister's apartment in Bloomington, Indiana. It met the sun just so, that I thought it must be a cat-- the intention that it sat with, when the rest of of the porch was shaded.

But instead of just saying that-- I am qualifying it with contexts and complaints because I feel the creep of preciousness encrouching in from these workshops about The Senses and things we Remember.

Maybe it's becuase I'm looking out whats coming out the end of my pen like its some fecal dung thinking "what the fuck is this? is this my voice? so lame" I'm thinking that because its not actually terrible, or great. It's fine. Which is unnacceptable. I want different standards.

I missed my blog today.

Who are you?

I'm...

Who are you?

I know who I am.

Yes?

I'm. I feel weak.

Spit it out.

I'm a season that hasnt been invented yet.  I'm spring falling backward into winter. So sudden, I feel the rug pulled out.

Don't say that, you have websites and blogs to remind you you are beautiful with confidence, mascara, and a few well coordinated clothing items. Repeat after me: silly, fierce, beautiful.

This might work.
(and
I think this these words, once well meant, have fashioned into commercial vultures-- or deer (over run, and stripping off the bark of unpecked, unscathed langauge)).

Until I wake up at age 85, as if untucked from my bar booth. I'll look around and rub my eyes.

I'll wake up my husband, but he wont wake up no matter how hard I try.

Don't die. You can't die.

How did I get here? I'll say over and over to myself. How did I get here? I can't believe it. I'll hold my pale arms up in front of my face turn my hands around and around.

My husband wont wake up. How did I get here? I say.

I bang my knees on boudair furniture as I clamour,
crawl away from the bed. It's not morning then.

But it's not dark--
Just dark wood.
I am an umbrella with sun on the inside, I wash
out nightlights left on for passed out drunks.

How did I get here? I just can't believe it.

Is Jess in a Cult?

Three girls sit in a living room. Eva has just had her wisdom teeth taken out.

Eva: I am not seeing him. I am seeing him insofar as that we are hanging out, but we're not dating.
Sal: But you're kissing him.
Eva: Ya'll! He's kissing me with my puffy cheeks.
Sal: Post-surgery? Ewww.
Eva: Yes. He's like looking in my eyes and kissing me, but my face is swollen and my lips are numb. I couldn't feel the kiss.
Sal: That's weird.
Taylor: Jess is in a Cult.
Sal: Oh my god, Taylor.
Eva: What?
Taylor: She is.
Sal: No she's not.
Taylor: Jess is in a Cult. I yell it out like I'm joking, but I'm only talking about it all the time becuase I'm worrying about it. 'Jess is in a cult' haha but seriously... Jess is in a cult.
Eva: Why do you think she's in a cult?
Taylor: I looked it up online and what's she's told us about her "group therapy" fits almost everything. Loss of ego... cutting ties with friends and family.
Sal: What I think is going on here is Jess is doing something not considered normal. But that isn't bad. We just don't know.
Taylor: You heard her talk about it when we visited.
Eva: This was going on when you guys went up there?
Taylor: Yeah, and like, people can change a lot and I get that, but Jess has never been a "group" person, and now she's relying on this group-
Sal: We don't know that.
Taylor: Yes she is! They told her to give up photography, and she did. Giving up your passion for the group is a sign.
Sal: But was photography really her passion?
Taylor: I think she really liked it.
Sal: And they didn't tell her to give it up, they told her that they didn't see her passion in the photographs that she brought in and then she decided to set it aside for awhile.
Taylor: This isn't a photography group. So why are these people even telling her stuff about her art? They aren't even real physchologists-- they're like people who think they know how to help. But they're not even educated--
Sal: We don't know--
Taylor: They call each other names like Laughing Dolphin and Red Bear.
Sal: This might be a positive thing for Jess if she's feeling lost in the city.
Eva: I mean I know the difference between doing something different and outside your comfort zone and... drinking the koolaide.
Taylor: Jess is more... susceptible... now, to this stuff. she's way wrapped in it. They told her to cut her ties to her friends and family.
Sal: No they didn't.
Taylor: Yes they did, didn't you hear her say that?
Sal: No I don't remember.
Taylor: Look there's a deer.

They all look.


Taylor: It ran away. She told us that they straight up told her to stop talking to her friends and family back home.
Sal: I mean her mom is actually crazy.
Taylor: My mom is actually crazy, but I don't need somone saying, "you don't need to talk to her anymore." Friends wouldn't do that. Eva wouldn't do that.
Sal: Yeah.... We just don't know how they're talking to her, what they are saying. We could have found out if we went to the meeting. She asked us to go. She wasn't being secretive. That's not cultish, being... unsecretive.
Taylor: I'm glad we didn't. I asked like can we just listen? Because in highschool if I went to those bible studies where people talked in tongues, Maggie told me I didn't have to participate. Maggie is the one who brought me. But Jess said that if we went, we had to talk. And I was like, I don't want to talk. I'm freaked out that they would... like attack me. Like whatever I said. And I'd probably just blurt out oh my God you guys are in a cult. And if I said that I don't want to talk, then they would talk about why I didn't want to talk, and ask me questions about it--
Sal: Like "Why do you feel uncomfortable sharing with strangers? Why do you assume that you will be attacked or critisized if you talk about yourself?"
Taylor: Yeah...
Sal: (to Eva) Do you think its weird, to make everyone one-- strongly encourage everyone, to participate?
Eva makes a face like 'thats drinking the koolaide'.
Taylor: I am just freaked out if I went to something like that, they'd make me feel like the crazy one and they'd be the sane ones.
Sal: We just don't know. We don't know what's going on.
Taylor: You don't want to know what's going on. You are not thinking about it at all so you don't have to worry.
Sal: There is a thin line between cult and... say in Eastern philosophies, in Buddism, when you have a spiritual guide or a guru, they run your life. That's a path to enlightenment, and brainwashing to others.
Taylor: I've read that book too.
Sal: What book. There's lots of books?
Taylor: In highschool... Mrs. Hughes, Siddhartha.
Eva: This is like Waiting for Godot, except it's waiting for a cult.
Taylor: I hate that play.
Sal: The cult is everywhere, the cult is nowhere.
Taylor: I just feel like a bad friend, the cult thing makes me want to run away and have nothing to do with it. If we were closer I could talk to her. We used to talk a lot freshmen year right when she moved out there, but in the last two years we havent hardly at all. And I can't come out of the blue and say hey we haven't kept up with eachother, you are in a cult.
Eva: I've got to run.
Sal: Okay, see you soon?
Eva: Yeah, I've got a job interview tomorrow, so after that. Tylers driving out there with me. You know, just pecking kissing is getting boring. We can't do more than that because--

she gestures to to her mouth.


Eva: You know.
Sal: Ew.
Taylor: Tyler is a racist. But I love you.
Eva: I love you too.
Sal: See you soon.
Eva: Okay bye!

End.

my new BFF

My petsitting ward, Oli the teacup poodle, occassionally makes little growls. Today, while working at my desk, I heard him growling behind me. "Why are you so grumpy?" I said. And then-- ohmygod. I just completely had that moment when the herione talks to her companion animal (which happens more than people realize). Like Alice conversing with her cat, Dinah. Or Jasmine sulking to Raja. Life imitates art (or Disney), and how did I get here-- being the cool teen girl in the cartoons, Sabrina scolding Salem? I'm so lucky. Oli is more than just an accessory. He's an accomplice. Who occasionally farts.

Do you get it?

If I wiggle my eyebrows at you and say "do you get it, do you get it?" Would you get it? If I nudge you and open my mouth, shut my mouth, roll my eyes, flop my hands like soft hammers, huff a frocked and frilly sigh and stare and stare and stare would you get it? Do you get it? You either do or you don't.

Maybe one day you didn't get it, but that can change, and you can get it. Sometimes it never changes and you will never get it. Once you get it, doesn't mean you always got it. But you can never forget it. But dont trust remembering it. Try to forget it. And get it again. You can't get it from a person if you don't have it. But you can't have it unless you get it from a person. Sometimes.

There should be an eyebrow/handshake code so those of us that get it can find others. We can take turns running towards each other, then running away.