maudlin

bits of mullein in the light
my gentle promiss
persuasion song
hello?
it's my last time, roll a louisiana cigarette
some hickory street smoke
no
something about it
something about me liking
something about me
I'm liking me
the acoustics I'm all about
my environment, you know
my environment

I love Kyle
I love Kayla

but they won't be coming back
....................................................................
last night at 8241 Hickory St, New Orleans

what now

what did I do today. I went to westwego, la to the department of motor vehicles, it's in the smallest building and you have to walk around to the back where you're surprised to find it isn't at all the david lynchian experience you'd hoped for but a quiet smalltown city hall experience, endless waiting room all quiet with one or two voices on a cellphone and then the waves of murmur, people getting up to go because their ticket says J85 when we're only at J16, let's be honest. I was trying to read this ernest hemingway story called up in michigan when dan came traipsing through to say it wasn't going to happen today. or any other day, I didn't say. Let's go get a thanksgiving po boy, he sighed. and then he got on the phone with his folks and said he'd need a new birth certificate. this is the first time I heard the voice of his father. he had a nice florida drawl I could tell. sometimes I can taste it on dan, and it's like beach and it quicksands one in. sometimes I don't trust it, which shouldn't be, in fact I distrust that I distrust. no matter. but we didn't, we went to his house, we had to, he's getting $ in the mail and his peacoat, its 49 degrees outside, it's like burgeoning wintertime, louisiana style. it's alright with me, it really is... but for some reason I can't fathom it. I am a hard-to-please. I am like the version of me I regretted years ago. I watch myself with the hands on the wheel, no traffic to speak of. how hungry am I, will there be a second chance for a thanksgiving po boy? is it thanksgiving yet? 

I took some offbrand nyquil about 15 minutes ago. My left nasal cavity cleared itself. 

I went to the thansksgiving po boy place, I thought I'd get us one. I even made danny call them to order it ahead of time but guess what, me & everyone else. so I drove on over. I realized as I got on orleans avenue that I knew where I was, connected the 7th ward to treme to bayou st. john to mid-city to uptown. I keep blowing my nose against this hawaiianprint skirt I've been meaning to dye olive green. a sexy beyonce knowles song called speechless comes on the headspeakers.

The line for thanksgiving po boys snaked through the restaurant. way more people in line, reading menus, applying lipgloss, smartphoning than those eating po boys at tables. it felt almost empty of spectators, just mad paraders. I left. I wasn't even mad, but I did leave, it was like the dmv all over again but without numbers. this is a terrible lovesong but it's straight r&b '93 style but who wants it like that right now?

I went to rouses. I liked it immediately because no one cared about parking places anymore, everyone was shoved together against the yellow lined drive and I knew it was not the legal place to park but that no one would do a thing. it was a small triumph, the first of this holiday season. it's strange to think that I might have moved to nebraska. I almost never think about that anymore

In rouses I got cranberries which were floating in a red pool, scooped them up with a slotted spoon. some satsumas, couldn't find a fucking orange! save for a bag from- get this- california! can you imagine? with florida just around the corner? 

The drungs are starting to kick in. left nostril totally clear, right, hmmm... I lit the end of my hippie smoke and another shitty beyonce knowles song comes on- rather die young

Then I went back to dan's and I drank tea and we talked, I laid on his couch actually and we ate all these cookies his mom sent to him. I'm sorry I'm such a sobby I mean snobby person sometimes.

Anyway I hadn't had anything to drink since I had this one beer on sunday when we saw the puppet show about the history of the red light district of new orleans, which was amazing. and I only had a la 31 roasted dark ale and so tonight I dropped aja at her place with the firepit for tomorrow's feastparty. she made me a hottoddy and it was great... I only worry I might not be able to taste thanksgiving. but there are worse things.

stickygirl

get me! we made that allnatural health poison
the squitos drive around me, knowing I'm delicious
but knowing I've the poison skin
they land on my safedress
and I knock them dead
their striated legs in a little pile
on the ancient cement stoop.
I doubt I've ever stuck to the air
this much.
bye bye, louisiana
august

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.