have you ever noticed,
that after a smoke,
clamminess sets in.

sticky nervous nicotine.

my body, tired
worn out,
sleep encrusted lashes
and thoughts followed by dashes
--they're incomplete.
oh, sleep! sleep.

And so this love, intangible and yet more real than these hands, this body containing heartbeat and rhythm and exhalation, wells up beyond my bearing.
And in its fullness, brimming, wholeness it sighs. For it longs to be known. It longs for corporeal existence
that expression
that touch
touch making things real, making them known. To be known.
Lacking ability to embody immediate reality it moves restless, moving inside like a rushing and tossing, calm in its confidence.
For though it may not be known in that sense, that longing, it knows.
And that is all that matters.

heat

There is more to be said for heat than most like to admit. Heavy, heavy, oppressive wet and yet, liberating. Heat makes weakness that you can't fight.
Weakness. Infinite, unwavering, the very essence of humanity and the marrow of our bones. Porcelain, cracked and white, its fragility the basis of its worth.
And so we unwillingly surrender to weakness, the sweat running down our calves like tiny streams of admission. We wilt and relax under the reality of who we are. And we are freed from our pretension, our assumptions, entitlement.
We are weak.

He was beautiful. Sweet, sweet tow-headed and clear-eyed beauty and skin that loved hard work and sun. Hands growing in strength, size, purpose, voice deepening with the passing of time and an innocent sadness about the two. Man-child.
The other men-children, boisterously arrogant know-it-alls with their hands taking to far less honorable tasks, they cried, "Weak!" At the sight of those salty jewels on his cheek, kneeling near a dead rabbit in the dirt road so sad and lonely, they pelted rocks. And in the eveningtime he would whisper to the sky and hold tight to his honor like a blanket that is warm and only yours. The sky would whisper back, saying, "Sweet little son of mine, I am proud."
And one day those bastards stole his blanket. They shamed his name and took his honor with lies and deceit and words that ran like honey down a rock. Passing through streets and carrying those glances, those whispers and that dirty, dirty, sad pity, he held back vomit and fuck yous and sobs. And that night, laying down and whisper-crying to the sky, he heard the sky answer:
"Sweet little son of mine, I am proud."

copy right

Suddenly one day everything is blank.
Pages waiting to be filled without a writer in sight.
As in, no one writes.
So they stay blank.

And blank stares accompany my questions,
because since when do pages talk?
I mean, especially pages without words and commas and parenthetical shit.
They just sit
silently.

Here in the development room, I'm waiting,
because they started my character but maybe they got distracted?

I had a name and a job and an outline and really I was self-aware and saying my lines pretty well.
But now....
I'm a skeleton.
A well-put together puzzle of bones but there's nothing hanging on them yet just sitting there without a covering and are they collecting dust?

So while they decide what the hell is going on,
I'll be here watching the white stay white and pulling my hair out,
making outlines of letters with these thin auburn strands on the white white page.

twelve cigarettes later

I dreamt last night that You came to me.

And the clouds were filled with joy and in their excitement were proud with lightning and pink and greatness.

And the wind blew, trees bowing and shaking and shivering with delight.

Squealing, preening, grinning nature.

I was ready. You see, I felt it. For the first time. That feeling that there isn’t a floor anymore and that someone’s holding one of your vital organs far too tightly and your mind thinks everything is a trick and you can’t really see straight or sleep or eat because nothing makes sense and you’re naked. And then I understood, and I was ready.

Ready to be carried away in Your strong arms,

ready to run as swiftly as a jungle cat after You on hills and plains and mountain peaks.

Ready to make pies with You, fruit pies made from magic and colors I’ve yet to see.

But alas, it was a dream. So I woke this morning and someone was still holding my heart too tightly, and my head hurt from not eating and my eyes were heavy and tired. But don’t worry. I’ll keep waiting.

desk days

Her voice is jarring, dripping with some warm sticky substance.
And I try not to notice.
Because it's racist of me.
But that voice!

And those babies, the way they congregate.

My shoulders are sore
and my day is a bore
and I want something more,
perhaps a guided tour
of an ice cream factory, replete with legendary lore
of a snowman who loved sweets to his core,
and so he made ice cream.
(Except snowmen are inanimate.)

Instead of ice cream tours, I watch the congregation of babies.
And I listen to the sticky voice.
And I choose to be nice. Or at least try. Really hard.

watts

They are boys.
Hearty and funny,
smelly and nose-runny.
And they hold their beers like a child clutches a favorite bear.

My glass empty, they fill it with their hearts.
Pouring out story after story,
ache after ache,
rants and raves and resulting days of no shaves.
They knit dreamy prospects from their minds' yarn,
storing up ideas in a silly, hay-filled barn.

I sit and listen and their words permeate my flesh like the smoke in the bar permeates my hair.

And those words sink into my blood,
my blood carrying them to my heart,
and my heart hurts with their unreality and bitterness.

They don't see me.
I'm one of the boys,
a celibate priest, traveling confessional.
They think I have a dick, and had I, I would tell them to suck it.

But I don't, and I don't.

Instead, as a girl ought, I vacillate between emotions. Because I have them.
A pat on the back,
"You'd make a good wife."
"I can tell you anything."
"Yeah, man, you're not like other girls."
Yeah, man, you're just like all the other boys.

I am a traveling confessional, a celibate priest.
But one day they'll be shocked when they find a bra in my closet.

blank

It's white all around
all over the ground
and it's taken over sound,
made silent.

And so my mind is left to wander,
over blankets and white ways and sugar.

Made pioneer by necessity I am filled with courage and contemplation.