perfectly [awake]

back in VT and updating the other one regularly ... !

my diaryland won't update; i have to come here to spill some words. just a few. it's difficult. i wish i could talk about kia, but he could come here. so. i have concerns. i am expanding and fading? i am quite stretched across the country with a toe not quite touching california ..

i don't really have enough money to go. not in february, not in seven months. i don't have enough money to move out anywhere, really .. i wonder if i ever will. there's a spiraling *hole* .. something else always comes up and i can't seem to get ahead. i'm beginning to wonder if some of this actually *isn't* my fault. that maybe not all of this distilled - distilled - distilled cannot be blamed on me.

i'm rather in need of another friend. dave was there for a little while, he made me feel collected .. as though i had someone to see me day - to - day and see me falling apart and pulled together and just be good to me no matter what. he told me he loved me in an email the other day. 'but not in a gay way!' he added, mystifying me.

i am a creature of perpetual doubt. since my teens and my first failed love affair, i haven't been able to take any compliment or 'i love you' without a grain of salt .. i can only surmise the whole thing must have hurt me so much that i just can't take anything seriously. so although i'm giving more than i normally would, i'm still keeping a lot of myself to .. well. me.

and honesty .. ? and uncaring? i don't care. if i'm not trying to make an impression on you, i don't give a flying rat's behind what you think of me. i say whatever comes out of my mouth. i blurt things about ex-boyfriends and stories from work, i tell too many stories. i have this terrible feeling that my bluntness, my uncaring, my unwillingness to give everything, my grain of salt, this watered-down version of me .. this terrible feeling that i will only miss being completely happy, and will be perpetually in search of it. even my hair is thinning .. my clothes have holes in them, my car is close to breaking down, my mail and my phone are just outlets for bill collectors to hound me, the medication i use to keep my flesh from being chronic-ly dry has left me with these premature *wrinkles* ..

if you were left with that description of me, all of those things, would you take me? would you make a bed for me in your brain and turn down the covers? i wouldn't.

now she's guilt-stricken, sobbing, with her head on the floor. .. i won't be held responsible. she was touching her face .. i won't be held responsible, she fell in love in the first place. for the life of me i cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise. for the life of me, i cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins: we were merely freshman.

pressing you there is only clear blue air andi (although i am here&
would want to be a pale grey feather on your windshield-don't
stand quietly and pause and be lonely-do
cradle clear blue air and mirror pale grey feathers with all
with everything
with that impossible opaque and pristine glass brown that is your

---

waves -
the horizon line from left - left -
to right - and -
crashing toward - foaming, curl -
there are - are -
like mermaids - green tails -
underneath each ribbon - each seaweed flag -
grains of - pearls of - shells on -
contemplate each grain - the arc
the charge - the reach of each palm -
(trees and those on - those on wrists -
take off - take -
take off your shoes - and warm -
and winter cool and wave - wave -
sunset - low clouds - low sky - high rain -
waves -

---

i have a delicate thought at noon which is that dreaming might create you standing
in the doorway with a smile and your arms open and maybe we'll sit down and have
a sandwich with our feet up and watch the grey fall farther while we laugh and talk
about fingerprints on seashells which are really some other version of bones. and
maybe we'll stay.

---

there is a rage in our grace.
a base surging something bearing teeth but not to break
to bite
possession
and be momentarily owned by seconds between minute markings
under hot water, blankets over floors beside walls which are mute
but understanding.
and solid for the minutes between hours in which we are graceful,
you*me.

---

goodnight
love.

last night you were my
paramour
and you turned the tip of your
knife
against the gold embroidered on my hip.
in the silhouettes of midnight mountains i see that your mouth is parting and the color on your tongue is the same shade as the tripled naked (leg-hip-shoulder-neck:edge above the mercury licking slick slipping against the sand and i have a full desire, a heavy longing
while i sit to have you with meyour hands
down where only certain tags and hems may see them
though all i have to keep me panting under certain curtains~ is your rusty digital tenor my fingers are not confused and you are
your knife is not
paramour, you are

ticket to your inner circle to cross the line at which point your mask is your skin and beyond is the roiling corn syrup barely viscous amber innards of you - i have my bags packed and i am waiting in my black dress with the lace collar and my hips flare like the '30s and my little belt with the white buckle with my hat and my curls and my black and white eyelashes waiting to be allowed - allowed onto the 20 gauge needle inserted in the valve they don't talk about and injected and although i have been a syringe i am not afraid of being an inoculant, you know, slowly drifting through your blood stream on plasma and digital telephone signals - curling in your ear tight and soft woman mimicking the curve of a bone white shell found in the pink before pigment becomes kiss - you are - you are terrible and wonderful and i am having trouble with this valise would you help me load my baggage or we could leave it in the millimeter where it belongs and the last drop of you could be the first relief i've had in an age of sundays -

compatriot sin i am your
idiot bliss i have for
afraid don't say i was your no
thing
stolen i wish i had that t-shirt which
threadbare you were so fond of
waiting on the table's edge i am your
tulip thumb -ing my clit- thumbelina
just a phonecall
just a fine edge
just a summer rain
just a thunder(head) away

dancing space you are in, you
similar animal on a similar plane
where you know i am lost on flat unagreeable softness and i wait
in time when moments spread the plates in my skull
for you - time is a bruise expanding -
sad that you might not comprehend
that to walk with me you need a knife
an inpenetrable silence
a life-like ungravity
a death-like responsibility

how delicately you recognize yourself
how your feet fit into your shoes as though they were made for you
and how at 9pm your cheek in shadow, -lost,i am-

that you look and you smile
and you are surprised by the appropriateness of my silhouette and the star in my eye
is my best wish, my most faithful dream

down the mountain without brakes
in sleeping bags, the firs, the furs, the fires, the pyres
that we would both be swallowed by constellations -

phonecalls as 'dates'
not one new adventure, but 2
selling my desk
selling my books
stupid broken window, interruptus
do AIM kisses count?
buyer's digest, $50, you disassemble
a woman in 10bed2 crying in her sleep
the noise the glass makes -
another shatter when i close the car door -
i'll have my own bedroom, it'll be ok
come over on friday, i'm giving away
my memories
take all the old clothes to the salvation army
use up all the rice
everything extraneous has to go
including me hating you, still
civil conversations, $50, you disassemble
don't be sad, all of the bits of your home will go in storage
'i could kill your landlords - you take those blinds with you - '
'can't do anything, the weapon they used is missing - '
'did they take anything valuable?'
'your mother called - 25 minutes - she said i promised - but they were your mistakes - '
'i was semi-away when i caught the music of your kiss - '
'let me go through your odds and ends, some of them might be precious to me - '
i'd forgotten how pure music with the covers over your head could be
'mommy, hold me like a baby - '
her mother is jamaican and she has a boyfriend with spectacular dreadlocks
join my candle club
happy father's day
this is the day aunt ginger committed suicide - took all of those pills - left me the bracelet engraved 'love derek' - mom still suspects foul play -
they say she was most like me
that she talked like me and dressed like me
i miss her and i never met her
i love you ginger, you were most like me and you're dead -
they played teaparty in the woods -
their mother used to beat them
my mother lived in a dust-free plastic room for a year
ginger was a hippie like me
ginger was the youngest
i remind them all of her, dead ginger
don't be sad, all of the pieces of home will be in storage
memories, $50, you disassemble

tracy said 'i was sicker than you.'
wondered immediately if
she realized
the surprise
in my eyes was
really relief?
(they said)don't be:
sad
lost
mad
pre-arranged
pre-disposed
undisposed
too disposed
strange
unlike
don't:
interject
intervene
interchange

reconvene a congress of thoughts all moving to strike down your amendment

do:

be like me
be like you
be like them
be like sunday
not like monday

what you do or don't
is none of my business and
what i will and have
is the good grace to know i'm just passing through
passing through
passing through you.

at 2am your eyes were black:
it was the hotel lobby lamps, it was your intention.
fingertips sank into the dramatic coated crescent of my
waist and i went left -
your lips were there to crush me.
you were savage and
i responded (times two)
and you took a step back and
your tongue reared down into me and
you reclaimed the arc of your neck with midnight pride.
my mouth is pink and thick but your hasty red slurping
left me wet from chin to nostrils ..
i said 'no' when i bit your lower lip.
you said 'i'm not ready yet' with the clip of your hip.
left you anyway but i smiled in the elevator.
how your scalp must have prickled -
and what would you say if i said:
if i'd been drunk like you wanted me to be,
i still wouldn't have let you -come- -in- to -play.-

winterblankets
summerlancets
fallpirouettes
springoubliettes

you're nothing if not your outlook.
lack of optimism = early impotence.

do you remember?

"come a little closer huh, ah will ya huh/Close enough to look in my eyes, sharona/keeping it a mystery gets to me/running down the length of my thighs, sharona .."

"everybodys watching, everybodys looking .. she's such a sucker, he don't want to fuck her. he is gonna kiss me, if he doesn't miss me .. i'm ready for it now, already on the ground .. five minutes in the closet with you .. spin it round again .. "

--

hardly i have stepped off the sidewalk
and you are in carpenters pockets ahead
gonna put my fingers -
deep into those -
hammer loops you keep -
don't look back, now, from the Red Lightbulb Non-Permission To Cross.
i'm watching the caramel muscle in your neck.
i'm watching the butterscotch swing of your hip.
don't stop converse to look both ways -
just keep your hands deep in your pockets.
i like the way your elbows are sharp.
love the denim wrinkles on the back of each knee.
now turn your head - as we stop together -
my sportcoat shoulder to your wheezy, thick, nylon bicep -
now you will smile bluepink and plump -
curved and linear -
(briefly i imagine how your tonguetip might glitter)

i've been dreaming about houses. houses with tumbling rooms, duplexes that are falling apart on my side but have a secret passage in the fireplace to another world on the other side, a perfect apartment with perfect rooms, seeming to lead to a perfect life .. when i'm in the tumbledown house i'm lost, the street outside is grey, i'm trapped in these rooms with no meaning and i feel as though the apartment is haunted. .. . on the other side of the fireplace: the babies that live there probably laugh, the couple that lives there probably love one another. sometimes i find a secret room on my side and i'm relieved i found it. an empty little room, it feels like my space.


i've dreamt of a victorian house, a suite full of rooms, i've dreamt that it has stairs, stairs, back stairs, passionate stairs, i've dreamt its attic is full of boxes of antique treasure .. i dream about going to the attic, going through the boxes, finding the diaries and the rings, the cameos of my ancestors, the death photographs, the hatboxes.


last night i dreamt of a circus as big as a stadium filled with people that seemed to be screaming like a violent colloseum .. there was trapeze, and the floor of the thing was covered in water. boats float there, tiny, white, helpless.


what does the circus mean? an evil circus, a world of sinister water.

my colors are blue and grey.
my eyes are half closed.
i’m quiet, my insides are pale butterflies, my guts are amazonian vines.
my vision is shades of i wish i were alone with a sleek lover wearing hemp.
kiss me on my throat, kiss me on my eyelids.
make love to me slowly with raindrop shadows on the shades.
with your mouth gaping ever so slightly.
your breath quivers, the sheet that covers you is indiscrete.
your colors are blue, and grey ..
your insides are pale butterflies, your fingers are carefully cultivated night lily stamen ..
waiting for you where the night is a bruise ..

i was in a skateboard shop and i smelled your old spice. you were putting trucks on a deck, you were adding wheels, you were telling me about bearings and all i could think about was the way your mouth might move on the hollow of my throat.

we were eyes for eyes.
your lashes kissed, your shoulders were square.
your t-shirt was dirty.
i was considering your belt buckle.
did you notice?

this was
all of
your fault

i had faith in your sidewalk chalk
your windy umbrellas
and every time truth winks i have
a larger epiphany -

---

yellow boots with hard construction soles.
a rainbow t-shirt and a coffee mug.
leaned to my car window at a stop light -
"i have a gift for you."
and i have never forgotten.
where are you now with your onyx stones?
.. . and why couldn't those daffodils be
so bright as your eyes on pavement at noon

puertorican plainclothesman:
i know your further complications are farther than me.
obviously, your shortcomings would be easier to explain away if
perhaps
they had something to do with the bronx in your blood
or the caramel of your skin
or the crude oil condition of your eyes in the christmastreelight.
wasn't prepared for the snarl you made while i was on my knees.
you thought you were letting go - vicious and free -
but the feeling was cadillac headlights on a desert highway.
you never made me stare down the barrel of a pistol -
but you *did* always make me take your coat.

all us daffodils are sleeping with our mouths open
knowing full well that we are yellow and gaping
organs laid to air for the bees - the bees -
tricky spring
raining one thing
snowing another
it knows the daffodils are waiting with our mouths
: open

and there are stems who were easily deceived
lifting from the ground, you'll know them, they're
green !

they are new, and they loved the sunshine too easily.
when it snowed they must have been
incredulous - frightened - then angry.
but when they turn into daffodils, they will
sacrifice everything for the sun again.
no matter that spring is inconstant.
to die quickly or to live brilliantly -

yellow waiting for bees with their mouths wide

: open !

you said 'i want to go home'
and, turned inward, my mind's eye cried