sadalone loser lol

I went to a babyshower on sunday, I walked in the backyard but the fiance had to lift the gate for me, I sat with my dad, he liked my shades, said, Very moviestar. He asked me how I was doing as he ate spinach and strawberries, salad on a stick. All of the women told him to eat everything, he was taking it down. I told him three things. I struck him within minutes of the babyshower, but I was guilty

I don't care that he knows these three things

he's my dad,

I guess he wants to know them

The punchbowl was right in front of us

I had been imagining this punchbowl all day, porcelain, with 8 tiny cups, crushed ice & berries & what my grandmother would call a nice blush to pour in

Small cups make many trips to the bowl so dad & I were interrupted and at one point instructed to Smile and look happy for a photo. What do you say but oh god and smile the only smile you know? Irony corners. Dad always has watery eyes, so might just look happy, not definitely teary. Poor dad. I'm sorry I have lain you on.

But he wasn't even invited! no men at showers. just guess how fat mom's uterus makes her with this ribbon of twine. I apparently know not the width of a pregnant woman, I lost desperately

He just stopped by to say hi & was instructed to Eat EAT EAAAATTTT

so sorry, I sat down & wear it on my face, three things

I tried to get the punch down but the berries were froze, not for teeth

I didn't have any of that cake

  but no one did save for the pregnant woman and the bride

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

it's a great big world

someone today told me she had a feta fetish

and I was like, girl, me toooo

I didn't forget to mention that I've been watching this hit show, & finally today it ended

just the season

but it was supposed to be an "explosive finale"

and I was so unimpressed

relief when it was over, like I could have my life back again!

but! 

not so fast

I started watching something else

and I was laying in my bed, thinking of all of the clingwrap

laying around the room

because I get these gourmet sandwiches

that are as good as they sound

and the collie finds the wrapping

and rips it to shreds. But I wanted one of those sandwiches

to be inside some of those shreds

and I went furiously on the fridge

and found all of the world's vegetables

and 

and all of the world's oils

and vinegars, what did you just say?

and nut butters 

and nuts themselves

and no hardboiled eggs 

so I sort of cried out

hard

boiled, I cried sort of out

because wouldn't that have been what I most want in this world

to eat right now

my salad, so trashy, so desperate

o god, o no

things we talk about 

sex, quesadillas, nostalgia, shirts, buttons, sweat, hair, sandwiches, swimming, drinking, dogs, smoking, love, breakingup, drugz, shoulders, legs, popmusic, lust, depression, beards, loneliness, julia roberts, sleeping, comfort, salad, tuna melts, football, stars, family, shoes, feet, eyes, bazooka joes

when i am 28

fortunately, placed

cat
cat cat
cat cat cat

cat cat cat cat cat cat
cat cat cat
cat

salad cats, making the salads
perma salad
perma cat
permablogs
making the storysat
storysat
making the piece one