even if I try. even if I wanted toooooo

I'm sitting on the yellow house's stoop, again. This for the last time, maybe. It's an immanent tomorrow. Tomorrow is a better day to leave. The neighbor, not at pukeneighbor's house but at squat brick house, is listening to something punk or something, he wears a black tshirt when he smokes and looks at his phone, there's a tv inside, the neighbors watch it with the door open. He isn't doing much on a late Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? What day is it, Kyle asked some guys who came in to his restaurant tonight. I think he had some lines lined up, he probably knew the day. Kyle's good at being a waiter. I like the words waiter and waitress better than I like server. I like to sex things. None of that is particularly true. I'm drinking a watermelon beer again, we got them for the road. The car is packed. Save for the soda maker. We don't even know for certain that it works, but. What if it does? I'm going to make us sodas when we get to Louisiana, and Thousand Island dressing. I think I could make delicious Thousand Island. I like the name. Sometimes kids only want Thousand Island dressing. None of this is actually on my mind. Today a vase fell a couple of feet from the bookcase and onto the carpet in Luke's room. He hollered for a second, and later, on the log at Brody Beach, he surprise-gripped my sun arm and warned me that there is broken glass, to be careful. I thought it was funny because the thing broke, and also because he didn't pick up the glass, and also because he was being careful at me. The vacuum has been in his room for a month at least, a bunch of ants came in and we got the vacuum and had a great time sucking the ants up. So I had a pretty great time sucking the glass up. So he won't cut his foot later, thinking of me. And the little pieces I'll try not to leave behind. I'm sitting on his stoop sort of listening for his skateboard wheels on the sidewalk. He might be surprised that the car is packed. That I said goodbye again to John Shinn, and to Bri, and to Kyle, and Kari and my dad and to Britta, the last. No one is crying, which is a good sign. But smell makes me cry. The picking up of a handsome plaid shirt with sweetsmelling collar makes me lurch a little. But I'm more more more than ever, and it's ready in me. I wish I could write sweet notes for all over the cute yellow house. Maybe butter yellow is a forever reminder of the Summer of 2013. It has been a good one, thanks to many, and to one. I am glad it's true. All of the hugging is out, I've got it in. I've got a shower, I've got a salad for the morning. I've got an ear to the sky & an ear to the heart. I've shaken off the butter sheets with the black ink constellation. I've sucked up the glass. I've got me wrapped up. I've got me winding away, I think I think I do, now.

half a man

      if I only had one arm to hold you
      I would hold you at arm's length
I did cry a lot yesterday, this morning
I was a baby, it was probably 100 degrees when I woke up in your bed this morning
I was a baby when I left the bar
because I couldn't find kyle anymore
but he found molly
just not, me, molly
just the right molly
and I was angry that he left me there, the ravers allover the place
I was in the alley and I was walking and a guy chased me down
and said, Can I walk with you
but I was already done walking
so he said, Can I sit with you
and I said, No
and I was thinking, in what world does this make sense?
when does a girl ever chase a guy down an alley to ask if she can walk with him?
I mean, what?
some other guys sat down, and I let them talk to me because they had whiskey
so I drank a lot of that
and I wasn't so mad
but then I had to leave, and I was drunk
and I was sobbing, I had to take my glasses off because I couldn't see
and I was yelling a lot at myself
I was pretty mean to myself
and I was mean to kyle
and I was mean to the others
so I went to the other bar to see what I could see
and I got a cocktail & put it into my jar
and I called one
and he said he would meet me at the river
but then I got caught by some conversation
and I was laughing, not crying anymore
and the basque man followed me
and I gave him my number
so he could text me the most offensive things he could think of
because neither of us gets offended
and then I did chase someone down
we were walking the same way
we talked about making espresso
and about art school
and then I went to the river, and found that one walking toward me
he'd been waiting for half an hour for me, I felt badly about that
we went to his house
we went in there
and we were in, for hours
and I was glad
I had stopped crying
until this morning, when he got out of bed
because he is passionless & silent
and I was wondering where all the feelers are
where are the ones like me?
I left, he didn't know I'd been crying
he doesn't know about my bad brain
he doesn't know anything
he doesn't know that I write about him sometimes
and that I am more than I let on
but I'm glad I got some human touch
some human struggle
some interactive strangers
some surprise journeying between tears
and it's hot
so I'm going swimming
and I think the tears
are done for the day
WHEEEEWWWW
thank my brain is starting
 to grow back a little

chamberpot

sitting in the dark of the culdesac,
it's funny bc it's halfair of night summer birds and
desert flowers & perfect roses
but half also the foul sewage some nearby place, human waste afloat
we're human wastes wafting, too
long arm me
say, I'm sad that you're leaving
so I can say, No you aren't
how could you be?
how could you know I'll never like you enough
how could I teach you what dtf means
how could you insist again, thrust the acronym on me
tell me I'm a really cool girl, okay
let's go with that, it gets me places
impress people with my lightness? a quickness
I don't even notice it
it's 3:33 am, repeating
& if you hadn't danced like that,
I wouldn't have attempted such an acronym myself
I'm trying to acroname me, here
but the odors of the earlymorning on the foothills' roots
of the way things have always smelled there
and new miasmic winds from this recent development, the upturned earth, the toilets & bowls for our newrich filth,
are reminding me too much
of all of the world's beauties & disappointments
I've got an appointment with alone,
with the softbodied dog
with the blank page
& by the time I'm in bed, staring at it
I've forgotten the inside letter I've composed to you
bc of course I still unreadily compose them
(you know).
I am not sad I'm leaving,
your long limbs longer
just longing at my acronyms
I'm just sad to still
be here, in the fresh in the gross
composing at an invisible dead eye, ear, heart
& to hear you say that we were once in love
is like the crush of night
and the wash of earlymorning birds thrusting their calls at me
and I want to tendril down the drainage, too
for you
and very, very away from you
at a ravaging pace