in memory of

I was thinking of all the mausolea
and each time is like the last, in only the fact
that it's artifacts collected, revered solemnly, or left to sit

the turquoise bandana I got you to trade me for my red
and then insistently switched, post shower, pre bed
in an effort to save our scents on each
to leave with the other after.
That turquoise bandana, worn by you, smelling of tiger balm,
and your body
well I wore it to a thing and we all took molly
and it was a million degrees and stagnant as a coffin
so I put it in the freezer to wear as a neck-snake
which I handed around,
and after
you were nearly overwhelmed by the others.

The pink lighter I got you to trade me for my orange
the one others pick up, light things with,
and I'm staring
for the fist that clutches
for the pocket it's sneaked carelessly into,
for the rotation of it paired with the bowl.
When no one notices, I snatch another lighter and pair it with the bowl
insisting, to all who ask, I can't find it? use this one.
Nearly overwhelmed by others.

The strength left on my bed of you, of us
the pillow your sweated head rested on, your neck
pungent,
pungented on
the sheets writhed in by you
the net, wound around by you
and my friend, my companion, someone other than you
naps there.
and you were nearly overwhelmed by another.

And then, simply, the objects left
the empty can of lemon la croix on the edge of a tub
from our shower, the
half-full jar of water (bulgarian yogurt) resting on the sill above the bed
these are not overwhelmed by others
these are the last touches of you
your prints on my life, my room, my house of intimacy
These are the relics, the artifacts of my mausoleum.
These are the last bits of your touch on me, now.
These are proof to me that you were in fact, you
here
earlier
with me, in total

these are the only tribute I have
And they fade with each movement of the others, of another,
  but you will not fade
                as they fade.

sober

I was laying in my bed trying to 

sleep and I was thinking about some things that make 

me sad. Im thinking about the time I got 

my heart broken, one knows the time. The one person who I loved and who left, twice. It was a relief to have him again this late night in Tucson over spring, over 7 years later. In the stilldrunk sunlight next morning I was barefoot and my face still reached to his chest, his button clearly still aligning with my nipple. and whoosh! I say it was a relief because I let go and remembered that we are older now, that he doesnot rock my world. But I remember it a lot. Not often But A Lot. Im thinking that I dont know who will care for Ida for the three weeks that I am away. That I dont have plans. Im thinking and I have chestburn and lonely contemporsry future. I wish I was asleep and it was later, I dont know. What I wish.

lately

elements of a day

downpour, palms asway, explosion on the wires. your grip on me.
laying in bed with the clouds
balcony
nevereat
benevolence
the perfect soup
mirepoix
driving in the rain
personal hell, snores in stereo, clock tick tocking, tick tick tocking, tick, tock
little roach
bigface, pockmarked
folding your sportcoat over the spine of the sofa
new cold wind
new baby asthma
fighting the funk
fortunate,
luck

I moved my goodnight

I moved my bed so it's parallel to the wall, between the two windows, still. I thought I would go to sleep with the red notebook, the one without lines. I used to write in it round my birthday last may when I lived at kari's club, and I was drawing pictures of flowers dying every day, and I was really stoned all of the time & I'd go to bed alone because I wasn't allowed guests. I would read kafka's blue notebooks until I got too bored or distracted or tired and then I would write a little something in the book and I would fall asleep. An example:

   19 May, bed

      You've a lot of work to do. Read    deal   finish/throw away  your library         move to New Orleans

I started again, writing in the red notebook, and it produces similarly, only I am not the devastated one I was in may. I am still sad to report that may of 2013 was historically one of the worst months in my recent years. it remains cloudy and dismal in my memory, and it has cracked something of my view of idaho or of impending summer or of love or hopefulness or something of those natures. I am still sad that I can't laugh at that. I had the sweet depressant in my skeleton. so many questions. I had begun to see luke and he knew me enough, made me come in the park, screams echoing and I snuck him in kari's club afterward but then in the morning I wanted him so gone. I was like that guy, we all know. I felt like the truest broken thing. it was late may by then. I was a dead finish. r

I made some apologies to them. I was sorry that I wasn't going to fall in love anymore. I was sorry that a whole, flat bland vacuum of the country was off limits to my wandering brain heart fingers breath. my best friend moved away, I moved away. I haven't smoked a real american cigarette in days, just the herbs of the world, it seems better for your health and for your pocketbook and for your roommates and for the smell of the world, right. I like to smoke while I cook, like while cooking things like chicken noodle soup for my boyfriend because I want to reach out to him, and he is sick, and I want to prove that I am good & careful & capable. there is science in the chicken soup thing, and I believe usually what I hear right away as the truth. why lie?

which reminds me I wish I had a cigarette paper. I would roll one of these good smokes. I have these little butts, but I, too, am ill. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be smoking, I almost almost even considered quitting smoking for someone this spring. may2013 killed notions of that, so I must have smoked 100,000 smokes over the last 6 months.

I liked smoking and cooking. I spent four hours in the kitchen, four hours at least maybe more. we have a nice big kitchen, and a table ben secured from a house where he was working, it came from someone who overdosed, he told us. it in the sorry for him, lucky for us voice. it's nice to sit at a table. I watched project runway and I ate sweet potatoes and rice from louisiana, and arugula from louisiana. I asked ben & colette to get me some rosemary from the store, and kayla looked at the show with me and we all tried my smoking blend. dan came in and he tried the soup and he told me not to overdo it with the parsley. we don't like to fight but somehow we are fighters.

I'm listening to rumours, which I'm waiting to remind me. ever listen to music expecting it to shock you back into something? after justin left boise I listened to all of the music he sent to me. he sent me music over the internet, and he sent me flowers once, which he probably purchased over the internet. we had an internet relationship & so I listened to rumours on the internet. it wasn't ruined for me, I keep waiting for that. I don't feel anything about it either way, the sting is gone. somehow that's a little disappointing to me, like it felt like so much back then and now it's almost as though nothing ever happened. like it should remain important? sometimes I'm such a dreamer.

I haven't been drinking or doing drugs or anything. I am trying to drink tea & lemon & ginger from louisiana. I have never lived in a place where I could eat ginger grown from my earth here. it feels lucky, but also like an of course kind of lucky.

I think the cigarette paper is the toughness I appreciate. I really shouldn't be smoking, but I feel justified. I still wonder. I met someone in florida named justice and I told him about things a little. I'm glad I love the south, and even though it bums me a little to feel so little, I'm glad to not feel the pull sting anymore.  goodnight

give it a week

I'm actually wearing wool. I'm actually final, here. I am surrounded by the latenight drilling of the roads about. I was sad and awander, I fell into step. I felt time dally around. I make the most of it, child's bed. Make me. 

We picked up a hitchhiker, we were all going to New Orleans. Danny came back to the car and said, He's pretty dumb, but he's harmless. He introduced himself as Christopher, then interrupted himself to say in drunk drawl, But erryone calls me MISS'IPPI! Y'all mind if I DRINK? and I'm sprayed gently with beer. AW NO, this un's sprung a leak! So he chugs. He's made up a song he doesn't mind singing over and over. The chorus says, simply, and straightforwardly: Ga pocket fulla LINT. Pocket fulla LINT. Pocket fulla LINT. Danny says, Aw man, yeah I already heard this one. He puts his hand on my leg. I'm driving. Missippi ain't talking to me. He's not talking to anyone in particular. But I'm at an advantage because I've got the window down, and I'm smoking and drinking coffee. We're outside Mobile by now, Missippi HATES MOBILE, ALBAMA! MO-BILE ALBAMA CAN DIE, KNOW WHIME SAYIN?

Well, shore enough, he passed out for a spell. And we made it to New Orleans, Louisiana. Passed through & over Lake Ponchartrain and it began to rain a bit. We got rid of our traveler but he left in his wake a bottle of smartwater, empty save for the dip he'd been spitting. Bye bye.

I was worried three, four, five six weeks ago. Wondering, will I? I read aloud to him the poem I'd written, we were at the bar neither of us really likes but the one that's close, and always has an empty patio. At the picnic table. He was tired but I read it anyway. I was worried but I'm not worried anymore. I'm a weepless one, now.

wasp

"Last August
  I Gave you My Heart
  and The Very Next May you Gave It Away"

this written on a sign above her bed. this lighting the afternoon cigarette, but they won't sleep sober so it's noon when a roll-out can happen. it's august & maybe it's assumed but the shortening of days can be assumed. there is a broken sprinkler head just shooting out little waterspurts. she went home drunkenly to care for his dog, she was being funny at the time. one can write paragraphs for another so long as they're cryptic to let the other roll eyes because their meanings are decipherless, meaning-less. a long white limousine driving by, the pound of bass in some other car in vicinity. tap your dog out of the bushes. don't touch those eggshells. wen't isn't a contraction. it's august, we're leaving tomorrow. go back three months ago & say so. may was a shell looking out of it at an august too far away. but here we are! sleeping in your bloodbed, all of the dreams bad ones. we aren't sex. se'x isn't a contraction. moving all of the cups in to move them out again. a view from before. tears dry, little cheeks for washes all dry. I made you oatmeal, I invited you disinterestedly. I'm back to disinterest, aren't we proud. wad up in my arms saying nothing but that. is it bass or bass? I guess I've the things to go through, I want to be alone in my own arms. to share my own anxieties with my own disinterested self. dis all over me. give me my push-me-away. give me fortyeight hours, push me away. fuck my eyes open, shower me, my hair to grow long outside from me. look up from your paws, feel the breeze on your pretty cinnamon back, feel the scary unfamiliar humid real in front of you. I'm excited for next may. I'll be such an alive thing then.

2:49 am voicelog

the even like you
fleshbrain
sketch my feet in the sand
wait for me I'm on the salon
laying here legs outstretched feet taking
a little diff in the forever from forever ago
I wanted to read you but then I remembered
that I don't even like you anymore
but if we're still on there, that, I like me more
everybody knows I like me more what's not to like me more
so I'll try
with my voice with my feet in the sand
I'm out so its legs pointed toward the river
to the dark water and the swish of it and the glow from the streetlight
in the dark of everything in front of me from the trees below to me
waiting for someone to show up so I'm not around here
anymore
surprise me forever for the middle of nowhere
come at me in the dark of the water
learn me learning tell me
your whole thing to me stories
we're at the gas station what are you going to get
I'm going to pick up some beer and some condoms
do you need anything
no I think I'll be fine thank you
its 1:42 a.m.
I'm standing in the light at the Maverick
I'm watching our bikes
I'm watching that easy cab
listening in the lights the gas pumps, right musics
deal homeless in the cars with a truck
  fun sounds on
its 1:43 a.m. and I'm still standing in front of the matter
what you get at me now
your pain in the grass
I'm sitting at your picnic table in your yard
at the stars come out
we'll have a beer and the end of it
what's going to bed now
you and I
the morning jinx me
good time on that long
long night with you
I don't cry dude
dude I'm a dude
I wouldn't say anything in front of you
Evernote
music notices me hiding
let me stand, boy
I'm to end
catching
me, you never will

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

regretless

I fell in love with a lithuanian name
he was my best friend, he shared his xanax with me from time to time
I would have anxiety attacks in those days
we would dress up
in ponchos
and feathers
and we would play pool and ride bikes and drink mountains of old style and sing karaoke everyday
and we'd have sex in soapless showers
he would sing, wouldn't it be nice? by the beach boys
but he had a longdistance love
and we both knew our time was short

on his last day in town
I discovered bloody marys
they were $1 at the bridgeport sports bar.
we stayed there for hours, playing pool, drinking thousands of bloody marys
the bartender stopped charging us for them.
there was a thunderstorm that night
and I knew I was going to cry
so I took off my shoes and climbed into a tree outside the bar.
I sat up there for awhile, screaming with the wind
& it was so loud I couldn't hear my voice.
I couldn't wind my thoughts & goodbyes.
I watched the lightning all around me.
I waited until I was finished howling
before I came down
my knees were bloody from scraping up the bark.
I went into the bar and borrowed a pair of scissors.
I cut the button I'd had dangling from a string around my neck
and I gave it to him.
he knew I was going to give it to the next person I fell in love with.
he told me that he loved me, too.
I cried all night while we laid in bed together,
he took off this grubby tiedyed shirt that I'd given him
so I could blow my nose on it.
I found it a couple of days later, smashed between the bed and the wall

I saw him again, 5 years later

his band came to town

it was my 28th birthday.
we sat in someone's convertible in the parkinglot outside the bar
and we talked about how we loved each other
and how we were
and how we were.
I wonder if I'll ever see him again

bros

boys chugging wine out of a jar in the cabana parkinglot
boys getting nervous before going in the bar
boys being disinterested & brave
boys acting cool when they see the girls they came to see
boys getting cocktails
boys getting handed a matchbook with a phone number, an address
boys being glad the girls are stupid, too
boys texting boys first thing in the morning
boys driving to sad breakfast with other boys
boys listening to that girl's alt-country band
boys laughing
boys smoking pot in the car in front of the house
boys smoking smokes in the sun
boys hiding from their neighbors
boys laying in platonic bed together
boys eating cold fries in bed together
boys listening to all of their joey-exgirlfriend CDs in bed together
boys talking about how gay their exgirlfriends are
boys in purple, lavender, blue, chartreuse
boys suggesting that maybe the next girlfriends they have won't be sad, or broken
boys laughing because that will never happen

sadhand

let's fuck

the world

I made myself a reasonable cocktail

in a yellow siesta-ware cuppy with a wooden handle

I made my outside bed

as if to suggest company was coming to see my new setup

for only the next two days

I made my permaoutfit on friday

it's the dragon tyedie spaghetti strap

with the skirt with sailboats that look like shark's teeth

and the child pink sandals

and I am longhaired

but I do, honestly, supercare

like I'm the supercaringist ever

but my friend is coming over to tell me about him

and I will shut up for five seconds 

to remember that there are other people

and if I really am the nurturing type

I will hold & love 

if you need to rain out

this 98∘

evening

THANK YOU, 

dear, 

for making the soup

that you won't be here to eat.

You are a Love

& you frustrate me

& make me so angry

and I know I return that on you

but you made me able to not have to do anything

save for write

with a lefthand nailpolish (called Jaded)

and a right hand crumbling nails,

sadhand. 

it's sadder

than the left

chipping paint reminds me

well, doesn't everything remind me?

it reminds me less everyday

but everything does forever remind me.

Of a future I'd invented, I've seen it

Of a past that did actually happen for a second

my weddingring finger is on a happy hand

the decal you put on it the night we met irl

fell off, finally

that one day

that is finally 

awhile ago. Awhile ago helps, doesn't it?

it can, I mean, it should

but I keep making the past so very now, don't I

in classic Molly Merrill Stoddardstyle

D R A MA
       R A MA

ohwhell

I kissed five people in the last 19 days
but only one of them came
and one of them is out of the state
and one of them is out of the country
and one of them is desperate every night
and one of them is in "an open relationship"
and one of them I do like I think
but it isn't inevitable
with one I got undressed
with one it was slowmotion
one kissed across a bar
one was sober
one was gay
one was fat
one had beautiful dark eyes
one was tall & ugly
one had the palest thinnest hair
one had the softest beard
one can't grow a beard
one could never look at me
one could barely touch me
two of them made my bed the day after
but none had breakfast with me,
because I had to go to work in the morning

poem(s) for cleanliness

The kitchen is clean.
My room is very clean,
I took hours to clean the bed of debris.
the fresh clean air
I guess I will go & try to clean up this little life of mine.
very clean in my little atticroom.
The room is so perfectly clean & adorable,
in some clean girls' house,
to clean a large tent.

from momentos preciosas

a good soul-cleansing trip to the Tropic of Capricorn
I have a near perfectly clean attic bedroom  

enter enough, tip of true

prettylittle, 13 - 14

Enter tip of tongue, temperature as the gazing fact: I’m sitting alone, at or on or near the sun. And the hands on him now would be large.

Ameliorate the sun. Hips to go against, I keep thinking to make something care. Waist, neck, and everything I’m attempting. Someone will see better. I’m sweating myself, a finger behind the ear. At just this moment, find me. Amity explosive. Stroking a stubbled chin, it would be interesting friendship. Grease congeals me cleft, to lower myself to myself and begin anathematic. To this and then that, the most useless of positions, strange & heated, relating. Spills, drips down, goes away and he shouldn’t have given me his conversation. Something me, onto me. Remember me with me. Vehemently hurry before I bed true enough.

orange cream mimosas

Just a silent winter I let about. The pretty shrinking nights capsize by a snow bout, fluff about a dark wind shorn the night gown down. It is for all the languages we speak. For all the feathers shred. The dark underlined paths, and the red fallow splits in snow-breaks. Hellow, tingling caller. Tingle thing collar.

nice in bed
knives in bed

meanderings

don't know why I'm listening to it... nostalgi. Leaves on the tree outside drooping, sad. New york cried yestersday, sits silent, emotionless now. Only I know there's a missing. My own spirit heavy. The heft aware of it I am and also that to work hard & up I'll have to. Just to not sorry myself away, oblivionwards. My little room scented still so thickly, my bed still sunk in the middle & sanded, crusts. The little articles laying about. Dropped & left in their places like to walk in the room he will @ any moment (just noticing the sand lizard & the sand turtle in an apparent 69, a yin and yang), the musics, my unsmilingness can't help it. You are too worthy for let a haiku to belittle you.