29

it's official

summer is here

I baptized everything

at do-it-yourself doggy detail

the proprietor is a giant man with dredlocked dogs of all sizes

he said, When you shave a dog like this, 

and we look suspiciously at the collie,

You have to go at it like you're scraping ice off a windshield

it's official

because Nickey made us a birthday salad

like she made last year, when I turned 28 

& discovered bulleitt bourbon

Everyone cries on their birthday

& I was in love again or still with someone I'd loved 5 years before

and I left the bar alone

so the bar could be alone

so I could be alone with my middle-aged present 

& my maudlin I-miss-you past

we drank the bourbon with salad sap,

rhubarb syrup

we took it to the river with us, 

and a shorn collie

and our beached chairs

and I climbed into the river, under the water

and while I was inside her for those seconds

the hard seconds, my being very much aware of how

soft & warm

my innards are

how they're encased in a thousand knives stabbing you all at once

not to beconstatly reaching for titanic quotations, but

it was a bliss

a true moment where I wasn't terrified

because I am 

soft & warm

at least inside, still.

and I surfaced, gasping, mouth gulping sun

my wet seal hair long down my back

the droplets on anxious tired flesh

trying, breaking, popping 

in the light.

When I'm 29 I will police my emotions

I will make arrests

I will cuff me

I will throw me in the back

I will read me my hurried rights

I will put my heart on a leash

in a chokechain

& demand it next to me

legless, dragging along

taught tether,

slack tether.

that water was life-affirmer

my river hair, passion-confirmer

vehement future-asserter

(The other day she asked, how do you pronounce that word, vehemence, and we said it aloud a couple of times

I don't know that I do anything with vehemence, I said, and there followed the scoff of the century.)

When I'm 29 I will write down the names of everyone I've been in love with

and the list will crush the planet

the names will fall into trenches

into little graves

with headstones in ornate decay

How many people have you been in love with

Are you in love with anyone, now?

I used to ask two questions

when I was falling in love with someone, I'd say

Are you in love?

and

Are you an alcoholic?

It used to be that I'd turn away when the answers were yes

which they often were

but mostly I'd stay. Else how would I keep it all so relevantly destructive?

There are new questions to ask

like,

Do you love

or

Can you?

How many people have you been in love with

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9

or

1,2,34

or never say forever, and never forvember me 

nevember me forever

list of things I wanted this year so far

I would give him real hair should I have the choice, but I haven’t, and I’m learning to be more accepting.
I want to quit smoking and I want to run, and to dance. For my whole body to be sore for days and I'll feel like a billionaire.
 Stop drinking the tea.  
Pay all outstanding tickets.  

Eat Food.

Go to all the things.

I’ve got to write, right now isn’t so necessary. Keep a clean room, and rid of the mold in my house. And get some time to be alone, alone alone.
I still have many things to do. But I know one thing. I do not think that… No… I erase that.  
 Find new place to live.  
I will move away.
I can see myself alone. I can see myself having sex. I can  see also not doing that.  
I want relentless passion, empathy, intuition, curiosity, creativity, understanding. Good lovely bloodflow.  
 I need my place, I need to have a home. My own home indeed. With my girlie, a consistent environment.  
And to be independent, I want to go off & do these things because I’ll be 28 this year and it’s time to grow up, to grow a pair.  
Make Boise work because you are here, and no matter the glory of it, New York City is very, very far away, and Ida is the best thing in the world and will she appreciate a New York City, I can’t see it.  
Make the art, work the places, show the things & talk to the people, and see what’s important & do it, and remain alone if you must, if you must. I want to.  
 I have to talk to him about it.  
 I will concentrate on maintaining my health & being strong for me, and making everything I want to be, be. I will be gone during days, and if to write or research or read, then so I will, here and away.  
The honesty I want so badly is only for one.  

slow

Wednesday, 17 November 2010, Boise Idaho (from leather journal)


"I think that job interview went really well," says Brittany, reclining beneath the bedclothes.

-Build a diary
-Dylan & Nancy
christmas
             Aubergine

Brittany's house, roommates introducing themselves to love of life. To get good at writing quickly again.

             Great.

     What are you guys moving?
           A couch.

and later...
              Magenta sky turns lavender. Brittany tells love-of-life to look up... I want to give a love the same urge! Too bad to be loveless. So I send it to the first of whom I think: but remember, this doesn't appeal. And if it does not appeal to him, why does it appeal to me?
        I try to say, it's worth it. If you feel appealed, and if you urge towards response.
But madly you do not. Madly feel nothing. With all the passion drive to feel nothing. If I would keep my mouth shut, my fingers from walking honestly, if I could keep myself from fishing. But with he I'm asking for something, for proof that I needn't be gone. It is so apparent, nothing to do for fighting it. Nothing to change. Yours & your way and nothing else. Forever and ever.
        Oh, day. Coffee, and pot, and a bagel sand? And a cookiedough brownie?! Of which I can only eat two bites. And games of pool, a salty dog, and coffee with whisky & kahlua.

The money I have is for keeping. The nails I have are for scraping.

P I Z Z A ! Michael?
How should we make him pay?

         Look at the sky,
       ? I think I missed it

You most definitely have. So much cheesy meaty grease congealing in a stomach. Who finds this interesting? Brittany doesn't feel good. Her boyfriend isn't calling. The pizza crust sits uneventfully on the plate.

Why hang out? because you can't say no? Even though it's the most obvious? I know how I'd feel if I felt this way. I'd like to say I can relate. I wonder if I should go buy more poison...
          But my stomach is full and all that's left is a walk. To find something better suited for something else.

          "I like Magma Chamber..."


Don't be Molly Molly Maudlin


Have you found a place to keep your face? In a large frame, hazel blue, narrow straight a point. A real blonde, but dark. Mellow monotonous moderately-pitched. The lean height. The oily aubergine curls. Dark eyes framed as always. Lips showing behind thick varicolored beard. The voice of an excited teenager.

           Respond to me, because I'm dressed for 1996. Black little boots, navy tights, gray Paris dress, olive & gray plaid pendleton. The new mittens exchanged; thumb fitting perfectly and rest of hand free & open.

           Exceptional things are happening to us now. The first seconds of freedom. And forgetting and forgiving.
           There are many of us for friends.

          A pledge
                  to never, ever live love in a sentence.