the kids wanted to leave the love story
they wanted the media out

they said
let's bail

it was his ideas:
leave our real passports at the border
we'll buy new ones from mobsters
and then we'll run from them too

but can we? she asked
yes. he replied

she said:
you sweat in the coldest weather,
the dogs will track us down
this is crazy
you're crazy

and he said:
baby it's worth a try

so she took his hand
but past the border
where they left their passports

her hand fell from his
they parted ways

and invented a different kind of love story.

wrinkles

my mother stares at the mirror

lamenting her wrinkles.

she calls them 

ugly

and hides

her neck

because of them.

she wishes her face

smooth

and dreams it to be so.

funny.

because i 

can't wait for mine.

my wrinkles

my laugh lines

for my skin to grow tough

...er

because it tells the story of me.

one day i will sit 

and tell the children, 

maybe mine,

about them

and say with faraway eyes:

"this wrinkle is when i stood by jeff's bedside

praying he hadn't overdosed

praying he wouldn't give up

praying that praying meant something."

"this laugh line happened when mom danced around the kitchen with a towel and half eaten santa cookie to brahms' hungarian dance no. 5 because dad said she still had beautiful hips."

and so on

until i had named them all

all the wrinkles and lines

across the map and history of me

i would smile about meetings

and cry about passings

and love 

everything

in between

my wrinkles like badges

my lines like roses

all of it me

all of it beautiful

thinking all the while

"how wonderful to have my story on me and with me always and everywhere."

i just wanted to write

rain
brown eyes
warm wine

tonight
all the lights are shining
from the freeway the city looks like a sultan's gift
to a bride who refuses him

all those inhabitants
they all wear off on my skin
i come home smelling of
man
and
woman

i just wanted to write

the weather that makes me sad
leaves me loving the place
i was unsure of

i just wanted to write

thankful tonight
for

rain
brown eyes
warm wine

a fall from the highest beam
sleeping on cold ground
a blazing fire
cracked skin
born into the earth
green baby shoots
years
and
rain
and
sun
and
more
rain
and
more
sun
and
more
years
into age
into wisdom
and fallen
pulped
pounded
pressed
into paper

pressed
onto paper

it's winter

it's winter and i want everything in its place
the coat hung properly in the hallway closet
the little lace things in the top dresser drawer
i want the pillows on the bed arranged just so
as the rain finally falls on all that's parched below

i'm frozen on the edges
while just below the surface i'm warm
as tea and bread

this is runaway weather
late night car rides into nowhere weather
or
get in a fight on the front step weather
so we can make up and kiss in the rain weather
or
just stay home all day with paints and glitter weather
while you look at me as you hang the lights weather

it is the season as i remember you loved me worst
and best
with the most awful lies and weak excuses
and this year you are gone
with the old wrapping paper and promises
as i try to make sense of that
because
the rain is finally falling
it's winter
and i want everything in it's place

tofurkey day

yesterday was thanksgiving
or
national culturally imposed assimilation day

i am sitting in a house in virginia
next door there is a sign that says
"save yourself for jesus"
which is a block down from the
guns n' amo shack

after my grandmother explained to me that native americans had not done anything with the land so it was ok that we stole it from them because they needed help and civilization
she asked me to do the monkey impersonation
which involves a lot of spastic jumping and high pitched squeeling
and that made the dog bark and pee
in that order
fortunately
i was wearing socks
unfortunately
my mom was not
fortunately
she was three glasses of wine in and did not notice

four vegetarian explanations and three communist rants later
i am happily curled up in bed with the dog
who was not allowed to drink any more water
full belly
dry socks
it's a good day

phi

i have a new found appreciation for numbers

which is funny because

in school when i was smaller

i hated them

loathed them

i feel comfortable saying they were the bane of my existence

no really

they'd turn into spastic monkeys running amuck in my already "sorry overhead compartments are full those will have to fit snugly under the seat in front of you" brain 

later i would find out that the cramped room in my number section was actually a mild form of 

mathematical dyslexia which is really just more collateral damage from my not-so-cool-a-story concussion 

("i fell in the shower" is strikingly less romantic than 

"i was hit by a car when i was attempting to save an orphan and her three legged dog" 

but what can you do? life has no sense of the dramatic)

and now i sit here and wish my math and science teachers were curious

i know high school students are sometimes miserable 

and sometimes bored

but i think we would have felt less of both if we saw the beauty

and if we actually believed that you

teacher

cared as much as you did when you were small

but we saw your dim eyes and disappointment

so we played up to it

because we

too 

were tired

rose, the last supper, the stars, ancient greece, love and how we see it and find it in one another

if you told us that everything above this line is irrevocably tied with numbers

well

one number really

well then i think the monkeys in my head would have momentarily postponed their running amuck

hell

they may have even stopped throwing feces

which is

let's face it

an effective method of getting one's point across 

despite the obvious health hazard 

but teachers 

despite your obvious lack of passion and love 

and 

more importantly

endurance

i have reclaimed my love of numbers

because in the end

poetry

art

music

our hearts

can all be reduced to numbers

to phi

and equations

mostly phi

because that is the ratio of beauty and love and hope

because it's the artist's ratio

it's the bridge for us

for them

but 

still

you teachers

all of you

please do not give up

on those of us that have monkeys inside

fight it

this pain is horrible.

anyone telling you different hasn't felt it.

and that sucks.

undeniably. 

this invisible pain is horrific in its silence.

but

don't fall into it.

fight it.

fight it with every thing you have in you.

fight it with fists clenched and eyes burning.

fight it with the abandon of a mad woman's howling battle cries.

fight it because you have nothing left.

fight it because you will not be silenced.

fight it loudly.

demand it.

proclaim it.

scream and shake if you have to but damn it fight because if you let the pain come in it will claw its way out dragging every piece of love and strength you have left out with it.

so fight it.

find a reason to want to fight it and fight.

go on a soul odyssey if you have to but find a reason to wake up and go into battle again.

it is worth it.

this life that we have is worth it.

it is beautiful. it is ugly. it is ecstasy and it is soul crushing.

and it is worth it.

because it is ours.

so fight it.

fight it.

fight it.

history was made today

and i read books in a room aside from the broadcasts

swamped with work

and confident

that finally

good would happen

on the grand scale

even while

my little life

was all a mess

hurray for the generosity of the universe

for giving a country hope
and delivering on the promise

of setting me free
even if letting the bonds off
hurt like a band aid
being ripped from my heart

in the dream last night
we walked to this place that takes a hundred years to get back from
where you face your greatest fears along the way
and the heads of those who fell along the trail
now line the path and spit as we walked past

and i was the only one who was concerned
walking at in the direction of the door
on the sheer confidence of my companions.

it occurs to me now that it was all imaginary
a dream within a dream
and i was taking
an amusement park ride as reality

there's this thing in my throat

an intangible ball of rage

and fire

made of fists

it's this thing

that causes me to raise my normally calm and controlled voice

in the face of

ignorance

and blind hatred

and i know it's wrong to scream and yell 

and throw a temper tantrum

but there's also a three year old in my chest

that doesn't really know how else to react

so

she stomps her feet instead

and holds her breath until her face is red

and i guess the problem is 

the other side often acts like a three year old

so

how else can you respond

when someone says it's dangerous 

that a prince can marry a prince

what else can you do but scream

when a little girl is expelled because she dressed up as a prince 

instead of a princess

how can you respond rationally 

to the irrational?

love is a constant three year old. 

today i woke up to the sound of waves from the alarm clock
crashing into my dream
and pearl was dead somewhere in southeast asia
literally a big white pearl, and also this girl i know
it was relieving to wake up beside a sweet sleeping body
even if it was a time reserved for careers that have long been canceled out for me

the moon was still casting its glow across the ocean

i drank tea
i packed
he said, "i have a line for one of your pieces"
and i said, "what is it"
and he said, "you come and go by moon light"
it was true
and very sweet

i looked at him a long time
trying to see his face in all the different ways i can sometimes see it
and catch a phase of my favorite version
i did
and breathed it in
this man with the child so near

i wished him happy birthday
and left as the sun began to crest into the day

i drove for hours
in the predawn the mountains were magenta and red from the fires of the back country
mixing with the fog and the smoke
the air was thick and smelled like winter nights
unusual for an autumn morning
and it felt like i was driving my little honda civic into the hills of hell
and hell looked a lot like i had always imagined heaven to be
just black and pink
instead of blue and green

then there was breakfast and passing all the tiny towns that sleep in the hills beside the ocean
the carwash that didn't work
the food i spilled on my clean shirt
my hair amess
i listened to dreamtime music and thought about dances with chairs
and i made it to work

got offered a job i barely want
took it
to take it
filled in the rows and columns and then ran to serve pizzas for the rest of the night

so i served pizzas all night

and the dirty air of la is bareable when i breathe it as a free woman
done with work
and only writing to do
so i won't complain
i love driving home at night
through miracle mile
just the name of it makes it worth it
miracle mile

late night drives to silverlake
through crisp air
and a hundred years of hollywood history
making my skin tingle

how far i am away from home (and him)
where the hills are on fire
where i come and go by moonlight

my roommates are up late playing cards
it feels like a school night

my eyes are tired
my hair is still wet from the shower before work
and the kids keep laughing in the living room
about things only they find funny

although this time of night everything gets funny
or tragic

my friend is paddling his boat down a river
to the ocean
to adventure

on the phone he tells me about seeing the constellations he loves
and how he feels like he has no home

all i want is a home
and to wander
that is my delicious limbo

today i watched a girl eat an 18 inch pizza
12 spicy chicken wings
and
two glasses of sprite
no ice

all by herself in the back booth of the restaurant

she just kept reading and reading and eating and eating until it was all gone
the whole thing

for some perspective

three guys can usually take on an 18 incher

so this tiny girl was impressive
and also called for some concern

i'm proud that the seams lined up perfectly
that it looked as beautiful underneath as it did on top
and that we didn't go to sleep until the blanket was done
you used to joke in high school that i was the brains and you were the brawn
and while my brawn is fine and your brains strong
we really do make a fine pair you and i
things have a way of coming out beautifully
whenever we are together.

i'm proud that something i made out of paint and glitter and cardboard
looks like a magical thing
you might find in a hidden toy store
and it might just be the key to a mythical land
as i write this, the light from my desk lamp refects off its back
and i wonder if it might come alive tonight
after i have gone to sleep
i think you would agree

it is both those things
the straight lines
the neatness of the underbelly
and the magic of what i make when i dream
that i am working on now

it is craft
craft
refining
defining
and
finding my craft

i love silverlake

i love it i love it i love it

the way the houses are set in the hills
and the cool kids walking to dinner in the dark
where else can you see miranda july
and eat a vegan sandwich
at lunch
in a busy restaurant
at 3pm
on a friday

it is one thirty in the morning
and i have just fallen out of the zone
in the zone
where i have been for the last four hours
i have been gluing sequins to a cardboard cutout costume piece
that is going to look,
and forgive the arrogance here,
a-mazing

before that it was tofu at the tofu house
and the reassurance that i just don't like korean food
and it is ok

the light was falling so beautifully into the evening
and i felt hopeful and nostalgic at the same time
looking backwards and forwards
like christmas was in the air
excited to eat dinner alone
in a new restaurant
as part of my reclaim la program
a non profit research project for one
me

and now sleep
sleep
sleep

i think what i hate most about doctor offices is the attempt of care.

it would be better in my mind if they would just say:

"it is stark here. you will lose your autonomy here. do not fight it. we have paid for years of school that will leave us in debt unless we sell out and our arrogance assures us that we are right and you are wrong. your copay will be $30." 

but instead they try to hide fluorescent lighting with puke greens and sterile blues. 

the office assaulting you with smiles and understanding conspiracy winks from national health posters and drug company brochures that softly whisper evil advice 

trying to silence us

into a coma of numbness

promising relief while providing apathy.

the waiting room all bowed heads and restless bouncy shuffle caffeine feet

that tap and dance under reproductions of impressionism, or worse:

the stupid happy cottages that you half expect to swallow you. 

all smiles.

all meant to calm you.

all meant to assure you.

god how i wish for a che poster, an S and M magazine, a june jordan poem, with riot grrl blasting over the intercom.

i want patients who look at each other.

i want us to look one another in the eyes to smile

to glare

to spit

to scream, sing, cut and roar.

i want extreme.

i want my insides to match my outsides.

i want to see a room full of entrails.

honest entrails.

not rehearsed ennui and dispassion. 

not this study of perpetual cognitive dissonance. 

i don't want people to feel comfortable around me. 

i want to feel the pain. 

and i want people to hear me cry and complain about it.

i don't want pills shutting me up. making it easy. making it comfortable. making it fit into social propriety. 

i do not fit. we do not fit. 

i want the shuffle ruffle soft eggshell feet 

to be 

ripped out

and replaced with clanging banging warrior-into-battle march feet.

i want a sign in the waiting room that says:

"it is loud here. it is quiet here. it is anger and acceptance here. we sometimes know things. we sometimes don't. that is life. but we know pain even if it isn't our own. and we will listen to you, yell with you, cry with you, and hold you and rock you to sleep. because that, in the end, is all we can do. because we mostly don't know. we are sorry for the inconvenience. but this is a revolution."

and i still feel sick

even now

i have to count to survive it

i count my breaths. i try to remember sleep cuddle exhales instead of my paralyzed horror inhales.

in. out. one. in. out. two. in.

i count the seconds it takes my lungs to fill, remembering my 7th grade chorus instructor screeching out "diaphragmatic breaths or perish!"

i think about filling out my chest with breath, with life, with oxygen, with change as the carbon dioxide is forcibly removed, evicted. carbon dioxide, my biology teacher called invisible death. the trickster. 

i look around for a plant so i can think about breath cycles and life cycles and the beauty of science. 

hold on to that. one. two. thr...

but it starts to slip

and i fall into the bad place. 

the place where i can feel the sterility of the walls, of the tools, of the carefully rehearsed facial contortions of the doctor.

where i can feel the gaping hole in me. 

where life is supposed to breathe from. where it takes its first breath. from me. out of me.

i try to hold ont that. 

infinity. 

infinite breaths from infinitely wide and deep thrusting hips.

but then i think of its opposite

because you can't have the beautifully constructive infinite

without the devastatingly beautiful destructive void: zero. nothing. 

with every counted breath

zero takes a deeper one

blows out

and destroys the tower of cards i've built

falling in beautiful paper cuts as the tower collapses. 

there is an island in the middle of the pacific
where one country pays another country
to keep its unwanted refugees

they thought they were fleeing one hell
and landed in another
and this time
there is really nowhere to go

and sometimes i worry that the world is too small

in that same ocean there is a stretch of trash
that follows currents across the world
bringing bags and cups and things that float
to a great caucus
the size of Texas
in the middle of nowhere

since it is no man's land
since no country governs its waters
there is no one to clean it up
you can travel for a day and follow it
and it will go on into the horizon
and there are more
in different oceans

there is a girl
who works in my bar
who can make you a mai tai
split your bill
and serve your table impeccably
who,
after hearing that the first use of the government bailout money is being spent on spa treatments for executives
and hearing me say we all need to vote
asked me
bravely
to confirm that Obama is the Republican one

the prisoners
the garbage
the unstocked minds of party girls

the state of the world's financial future

and all this came about because someone thought,
"this is a good idea"
and the guy sitting next to him said, "yaaaay... it IS!"

a camel is a racehorse designed by committee

it was perfect weather today
in la
and i played a zombie covered in sugar blood
dancing for an hour in a backyard in the valley
and i also went shopping for shoes

had lunch alone
and took a nap in my parked car

last night
my friends got married
i danced with my shoes off
i drank too much wine
and it was all insanely beautiful
so i cried a few times
for a few different reasons
but mostly because here two people are joining
and making that agreement public

i see that as beautiful
and foreign
because i could barely decide on a pair of shoes
and kept the receipt just in case

and then tonight
in a totally appropriate turn of events
as i got out of my car
covered in fake blood
hairspray from last night still sticky
i saw a coyote in the yard across the street
we stopped and stared at one another
he walked away
and i realized that must be why all the dogs start barking
at all hours of the night

Thank you for the way you held her today in the grocery store
She was so small I didn’t see her in line, but the way your arm was pressing something to your body
I knew she must be standing beside you
Then I saw her. tiny. Just the back of her head and her face tilted up to you.
And I thought
My man holds me like that
It helped me to remember
Because sometimes I forget how he holds me
As we are so far apart so much of the time
Seeing you let me remember how he touches my shoulder before he walks away
Confirming that he will return
And how he wrapped his arms around me in the summer sun chair on the lazy Sunday as we listened to music with friends
The same way you pulled her towards you in the check out line today.
I smiled loving that I didn’t know you
And that I caught that private moment
As if nothing could be smaller than that moment
And also nothing could be greater.
How lucky I am to watch people love eachother
(I love the different way people kiss on the sidewalk and how old men open doors for old women and how one time I saw my friends mom dancing as she chopped dinner and her husband came and stood behind her and as they moved together I understood what marriage was for the first time)
How lucky I am to be loved.

It is bedtime in the city
Where if you squint your eyes real tight
The lights are pretty
Fireflies
Making moving streaks across the skies

I want my own magical compass in this dense population
I want to follow a philsopher
I want my hairstyle to be such a statement that no one has to ask what kind of music I listen to
I want my sneakers to announce what I believe, what I do and where I go

This city where everyone has an agent to speak for him
Cuff links and stripper heels that take ten percent

I don't
I get my hair cut at Fantasic Sam's for twenty four dollars I don't follow anyone, no philosophers no sneakers no stripper shoes

so guys always open with, what music do you listen to?
Sam doesn't help me make it obvious
if it ever could be.
I always answer
Everything


It is late at night
Bedtime in the city
And the heliocopters pass overhead
Touring these hills for insurgents
Or traffic

Or both

i keep finding
that as i do what i do to the best that i can do it
and then move on

i look back and want to apologize
to those people and projects i was back then

want to say i am sorry for being unaware
or scared
or just bad at art

and i want to be proud
maybe someday i'll be old enough to know i can be proud
or to know at the time that i should be working harder
and it is funny because the things i feel the worst about
look the best on paper

i'm sorry zeta
and my thesis
and that dance show i did
i'm sorry brick
and the crucible
and rocker bangs
i'm sorry santa cruz
and savings plan
i'm sorry silverlake and
burning man

i'm working on being better
at what i do
whatever it is that i do

(and what's true. what's really really true. is i am finally getting pretty in the photographs i used to hate. maybe i just need more time with it all. )

that is today

even at 300 miles
i feel like the fire
is burning
right here
just at the edge where i can almost see it in these mountains too

and he is there
where i can't be

while the burning mountains are making eerie magic of the sunset

and if i feel this way

like my heart is a millimeter from bursting through my chest
like i put lead weights in my overcoat pockets and wear it as it pulls my shoulders down

then what must it be like to walk
as i read she walked
through the ruins of her home
or stand and watch
as i hear they do these nights
the fire make a light show for all to see

but i almost think it would be easier to be there
to be dealing with all this there
rather from here
where i am so far away

the cat toy at the party is a bear in a fire fighter hat
and my breath speeds up
my eyes go blank

someone says big sur
and i want to scream

that is today

correspondence to mary:

i am having a hankering for long train rides today
and my thoughts go to russia
and the plains of africa

and she wrote something like:

hell. yes.

so i wrote back:

seriously

and then since i had more time i added:

trains across russia
across india
across africa
plumes of steam
books to read
and the gentle rocking of the cars at night
stopping in cornfields for hours
arriving in foreign cities in the hours before dawn
when everything is silent

that is the kind of day it is
like i said before.
the world is wide
and endless
and also fits on a map on my bathroom wall

some days i find it hard to imagine
that anyone was ever the first person
to arrive anywhere

train rides
my mind whispers
train rides east
as my eyes eat the ocean and sinks in all the mystery that lies west

i am wasting my time with television
rather
my reluctance to do anything else is the problem
i stay up late
to watch john and kate plus eight

then find lost love letters online
and scan through postsecret.com
i would write love letters myself
but to whom?

i made a list for my wall of things
i want in my life
tomorrow i will sew
and work out
and find lost money or a job
tomorrow
i will write what is really happening

its much too much
as it is right now
i feel like a boring broken record
a story that is always the same

i hate sleeping alone
i am learning to take up more of the bed
to lie in the middle
that is my right
i bought the damn thing

i never hog blankets when i sleep by myself
never toss and turn
i wake up and the sheets are as they were
before i got in bed
the night before

i'll chop all this up later for other pieces
about loved ones
and lost ones
and what was i thinking ones

there should be a book
or a show
where we can go
and reenact the best and worst moments
i guess that is called a wine night
or a drunk fight

i stay up late so my head gets foggy
better than drugs
or alcohol
so i can fall asleep as soon as i lay down
and not have to think
about thinking

to remember you
it would take a journey
a pilgrimage to forgetting
everything
that has ever been
walk footsteps like black ink over the pages of the
diaries of a young girl
years and years
blotting out what may have been
and
at the end of my walking
i would find my home at the end of the world

and paint a sign above the entrance
ALL THAT IS LEFT
and this would be true
and after everything else was erased
there would just be an unmade bed
and a pair of worn out shoes
old french newspapers and
an open jar of peach preserves
and that would be me
the shoes the sheets the jar of jam
with a notebook
and poetry


my home
my cloister
and without giving it the weight and importance of a name
i would know it as the empty place

at night
by firelight
i would trace on the walls the continents from memory
while the sea crashed at my gate
and the wind howled taunting contradictions
sleep and wake
remember and forget
kicking purple sand across the far laying beach

in this solitude
in the emptiest
lonliest
most far away place
i could find

where i could scratch 
THE END BEGINS HERE
into my sandy threshold
and it would be true
when
i am only
old bedsheets and shoes
newspapers and jam
items
so inconsequential
so silent and still
that i am translucent
and the moonlight could fall upon my wrist and find no excess of life there
to stop it from shining through

only then

i could
finally
slowly

quietly
gently
allow back in 
with its mighty thundrous footsteps
the memory of you

you the world
whose map i draw from memory
you 
the notebook and the poetry

you and me
the marked up pages a song
sung alone over years of walking
with lines
of the old sheets and newspapers and jam
and how they once were new
and then
and in the chorus
wholly silent
i could finally remember you

then the bluebirds went ballistic
and all the kids in the park
cheered for the five who were running down the field
the fat one left standing alone in the middle
half bent overhis fingers splayed on his knees
his breath having taken him as far as it could go
half watched them runhalf cheeredand half stared at the grass
considering the possibility that it might be his final resting place
and then turned his eyes back up to the sky
there was a stain of blue on the side of his tshirt
and i thought
either his mother was careless in doing the laundry
or he had to wash his own clothes
and that thought
since he wasn't more than eight years old
and his shoes not as nice as the other kids
made me feel bad for calling him fat

but the bluebirds went ballistic
and i had to notice the rainbow
they seemed to be pulling out of the cespool of downtown with the strength of their beaks and
tiny hollow boned wings
you bluebirds
i thought
put me to shame
with your pride
and follow through
with chirps like that promising rainbows
and then here they are
my own rainbows
for me and the fat kid
the only two who missed the winning goal
because we were staring at the sky

roadtrip

Looking over the hills tonight
Hanging low in the sky
I imagine her pregnant and barely able to stay there
So full of blackness
With a sexy silver sliver shining through

Writing about the moon
I always feel like a third grader
Just learning how to craft haiku

And think about the word pretty
With angsty haughty self loathing twenty three year old distaste.

But the moon makes me think of you
So I shift my thoughts to
You
With your moon belly
And deep sea eyes
And the way they are always tilt up to her then past her
Past planets and stars
Towards home

I had wanted to take you to open sky
I knew the place
Packed the car
Set the music
Two and a half hours out of town
To the desert just beyond the rolls in the road
To where it is flat and boulders take and make a new definition for
Slow dance

(had we known each other when we were younger, had we been closer in age, we would have been friends then too. Me in my duct tape pants and poetry, you with your fashion and shy ways. Yes I do believe that it is true. I would have dragged you on to the dance floor at thirteen. I would have been the only girl you talked to, until I taught you how to talk to girls.)

But it wasn’t as I had hoped
(sadly hopes are not plans, although sometimes we wish they were)
Two and a half hours out of town
To take a walk off an empty road just before dusk
Towards giant rocks beyond
You flinching in the cold
And me saying over and over in my head
Yes, this place, I missed you place, dirty dusty dessert town and endless vastness
You again remarking on the weather and me thinking:
Want to sink down here and evaporate like water on this rock

Wanting to cry like a baby when we had to leave
Wanted to pretend to lose my shoes
Like I could do when I was younger
Just to stay and play a little more

Instead I got real quiet as we
Lay down side by side in the seats to stare at eachother across the cup holders in the Center console
No tent no stove no money no where to go
(sadly hopes are not plans, although sometimes we wish they were)

So we just drove home
Two and a half hours
To fast food French fries
And fast flashy cars outside coffee stores
To home in time for dinner

But before
Just at the edge of town we stopped the car
And stared a good long stare
At the black sky stars.

My arms around your moon belly and you tracing the lights
Past planets past stars
Towards home

I just don't...

want to sell out, buy in, or grow up. I don't want to be more, be better, greater, smarter, prettier, or thinner. I don't want to aim high. I don't want to succeed. I just want to be and have that be enough, be good enough for everyone...including me.

Hips at 126.8 pounds, 23 in L.A.

Some days
To me
My face looks like
A rubber mask
And some days also
Dried with sandpaper
With war wounds from battles fought and lost
And I see words and events carved in there along the edges

In the bleakest of times
I think
You smile too much

And in the best
I think it is a dream somewhere between good and bad
So smile anyways

I can see my bones there beneath my skin
Iron mountains in a landscape of soft soil
Dense liquid shapes
Just fragile enough to
Fear

In the hardest of times
I can hear them snapping inward
From too much pressure
Misaligned in a body out of shape
In a body pushing too hard on itself

And in the best
I press down and rise up
One big graceful lever
Dancing called walking
My hands folding around the hardest edges of the softest body
Handles to hold on to.

My bones reaching up
(even in their liquid state)
To give me (this me, the rest of me, not just the bones of me) something to hold on to

showers in l.a. rentals

The faucet in the upstairs bathroom won’t stop leaking
Even after the plumber got here to fix it 2 months after I moved my boxes in
And had to rip out the wall to get to the rusted busted pipes
Patching it all back with the not quite right white paint

It behaved for a while
On and off well mannered like it should be
Its new knobs basking in new knob vanity
How shiny how new how lovely are we!
A chorus in the shower
On January mornings when that window on the broken track let in just enough of a chill
To frost the surface of my steaming just awoken skin

But last week
It started up again

Just a drizzle at the moment
But I see the rushing gushing coming in time to come
In days and weeks and months and call the plumber I called him we really must call the plumber I really did call he will come tomorrow next Monday over the weekend I forgot to leave the key
And forgot to take the trash out
The landlord doesn’t care

This city is supposed to be hot
It is supposed to burn
And I am facing freezing air
And vain flooding faucets
Who never knew about a drought

just before sleep

Just before I fell asleep
Two women I had seen on t.v. earlier
Had a fight on the backlit screen of my closed eyes

Tearing and ripping
Almost to the point of feathers flying
The light from the streetlamp pushing
Red and black bolts mashing and slashing

While a dog barked outside
Yipping yapping
at something from the yard

they were fighting about this:

we should not fight to show how smart we are

(from a day of me thinking: I can’t spend my life poured
over books and blank screens trying to prove some thing to some one

It must be a non thought.

But of course that is true
I must not think)

And one said yes
And one said no

the world is wide
and fits on a map on my wall

i can't believe i still miss india

I was just twenty

I don’t remember my birthday that year. There wasn’t a party or anything. Too much else had been happening to stop and eat cake.

And I was in the Himalayas
Sitting five to a seat in a jeep taxi
Barreling up and down mountain roads muddy from the monsoons
Horns and lights blaring around corners
Because the breaks had lost reliability years ago
The tires with layers of re-treading like rings on an oak

And like a scene in that movie about the girl who finds herself in India

I was standing there alone
On a dirt road
In India
Facing a driveway that led
To the monastery

dinner with an old friend/ 14 year old kiss

I had dinner tonight with
The only boy
I was ever a first kiss for

And he still smells the same
Even from 3 feet away

The way he did when we were fourteen and
Wearing Halloween costumes
That last year we could go
Trick or treating
Before it was considered
cheating

I remember we were holding hands
And it happened
Like that

In different places and different times
We might have been married

And maybe I wouldn’t even notice that smell
That is so distinctive to me
And for some reason
Reminds me of holed out cardboard
The way I imagine it would
Taste on my tongue

today i am missing trains

Today I am not myself

I do not recognize you self
With your weepy eyes and
Pressed in heart

This is not the girl I know
Who has already learned to love

***************************

I miss trains she says to me
I miss India and
Paris

I miss Morocco and I have never been there
Some day
I long to miss Tunisia
Desert places

I miss who I am on trains
She writes
Endless trains
She writes
Endless trains

When you came home from India there was something so strong about you
He had said
In that coffee shop in Manhattan
And now you have lost it
It has worn off
Scared little girl has
Returned

Now three years later
Still feeling my hands on that paper coffee cup
Scratching to find something that was lost

Now three years later
Eighteen months since the last big train trip
The wanderer
The romantic
The exiled
The hungry
One beneath the skin
Is still breathing deep notice me breaths

Older
Wiser
And still
Loved
Loved
Loved
(three different ways)
And
Still
with feet on the ground
And map in hand
Lost
Lost
Lost

love

I long for a miracle maker in the family
Some woman
Who
Did not cede her power
Some woman
Who knows
Who
She is
And why she is
Here.
(to have you
my mother said once
and i wanted more as i filled out the college applications
what more could i want even now as i write this
more than love?)

They don’t exist
Here
At Christmas
This odd holiday
That has nothing to do with me

I would rather
Make my own
Rather than
pay homage to
This prophet
I don’t think was any more a prophet
Than

Than
I don’t know any prophets

This is what the graffiti on the power box says:
This war for oil only
Makes blood boil

Oil from the prophet’s land
Happy birthday jesus
I don’t know you
And never did

But i don't buy the father story
And i don't know you because
The women taught me to love
beyond all things
although i was never dressed in my sunday best
i learned in spite of some dark rules
past letters and grids and wheat
vast oppressions
(however slight, however much i want to roll my eyes at this, i must admit- yes! we overcome)
past the reconsecration of goddesses to saints
past the slavery and the witch hunts and the strip clubs
past all those filters that were made
to make it possible that no national holiday is held solely in celebration of a woman
that
love
love that great glue of the closest kind
cannot be changed by any church book story
love is a mother
love was
is
will be
a woman