Wednesday, February 27, 2008

succinct

interviews, scrambling, tally marks. quiet lines. from your mouth. from mine. quiet lines. connecting, dividing, creating boundaries. quiet lines from which we hang, brightly. like explosions in the sky, in tiny dioramas, made of shoe boxes. suiting we should exist where so many people have dug their heels.

just as always, i get more than most, but never enough to satisfy my craving to get it all. to understand. to get around the get around and get to the point. the point which has stuck me, like a pig, over the fire. burning in rotations, in slow motion. so slowly, it feels good. so slowly. like love. and before you know it, your insides have spilled out over the table for all to see and rifle through.

it's not even necessarily a bad thing. it just is. we're not necessarily a bad thing. we just are. were. hanging brightly, from quiet lines, in tiny dioramas. succinct.

spring is here. people shed their many layers. i shed my many layers. and it feels good. it feels good to feel so light again. to hide my face behind sunglasses, and look out at the life that surrounds me. i open my eyes, looking up, i stretch my arms out to the sheets beside me. i open the blinds and let the sun shine in.

it's such a small town. we see people. all the time. we see people we pretend not to. we find ourselves disheveled, crossing a lamp-lit street, eyes on the sidewalk. it's such a small town. we see people. all the time. people we've never met, from places we patron. and we wonder when we'll finally meet them. or if we'll keep running into the people we've met. if we'll finally stop pretending not to see them. if we'll fall into each other like the lovers we were. like the lovers we never were. it's such a small world. quiet lines oh so everywhere, connecting tiny dioramas around a classroom. all these little people looking out, being seen.

and we think of the people we want to see. the things we want. the quiet lines we hope to speak. succinct.

Monday, February 25, 2008

solute

i am barefeet on hardwood floors, eyes locked on ceiling fan blades, exhales for the sails of ships, coffee brewing carelessly, singing along so quietly. i am looking up from the ditch i kicked up from the dust. i am looking up, with my hands tucked neatly into my pockets. in my subtle way. i explode in silence, in my subtle ways. you won't forget. you won't forget me. you'll try to get me.

i have a strong sense of self. i am always eying the lines. balancing upon them. stumbling in and out. stumbling defiantly, definitely, through the deontology of day to day. i do what i can. i make do. i make the most of what i can do, when i can. and what i want the most, is to lay and laugh in bed. to look up from the covers we've uncovered, and find our smiles beaming back down onto us. perfection only exists in dreams and moments. i've become a connoisseur and collector of them both. i pull them out of the air and tuck them in beside me. beside you. beside us.

i want to learn and love and learn from love and love to learn. i want homemade french toast. i want to do the crossword, while you read the paper. i want neat lines in static houses where we scream only above the roar of love and life. organically and orgasmically.

i know who i am. i found myself derailed. but i know who i am. i look up from the bed to the spinning of blades. the rotations we become. the rotations we've become. my arms outstretched. and i smile. i gave myself some time to be stupid. we all need some time to be stupid. you just need to know when to sober up. before it's too late. before you're looking down, digging around, while the dust settles around you.

i am barefeet on hardwood floors and ready for long baths. and i'll try to get you. i'm always trying to get you.

Friday, February 22, 2008

partisans of perpetuance

we get so stuck. in our fears. we see them everywhere, whether they're present or not. we're always looking for the opportunity to run from them. we're always on the run.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

futures

sometimes i feel like i'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. and it doesn't matter why or how or when or where. the whys and hows and history don't change the result. i think, maybe, some people are just meant for it. maybe we're just damaged goods. lessons to be learned. and i'm just trying to learn to be okay with that.
it's the hope that makes it so hard. i think most of us feel this way. half of us settle. and half of us find love, but are so afraid of it, we run away in fear, and spend the rest of our lives regretting it. and i'm just trying to learn to be okay with this. or maybe there's just something wrong with me that i'm not seeing.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

ionize

the first thing i ever saw was the opening of a car door, through a perfectly paned window, in a cell in a subdivision, in the autumn of the desert. everything that came after or before was simply a reverberation of this moment. of this first sight. of this first memory. the rings of a rock, dropped and drowning, in the stillness of the waters that surrounds us. life doesn't happen in any particular order. calendars pale in comparison to the values and the verdicts. time doesn't happen in any particular order. my past, present and future all started then. that day. peering through the shutter blades.

now and again i find myself peering out through blinds i've hung around myself. trying to find a familiar sight. trying to find a way to the door. people come and go, with greater frequency these days. i've come to expect it. i'm learning to accept it. i try to find in me, whatever it is i don't see, that propels this to sky rocket. that propels this radius to expand and demand i expect nothing from anyone. surely, there's something i just don't see. i trace the lines of my face, my tired eyes, straining in the dim light of the dank bathroom bursting in color i just can't define in the dark.

rifling through the remnants of my history, recently re-emerged, i found my old favorite book. wherein i immediately supplanted myself. getting lost in the lines i've known so well. the lines i'd forgotten, but still know so well. i take breaks to scatter through old photos that no one will appreciate quite like me. and i wish there were someone to share them with. someone who could appreciate them a little like me. and i think of perfectly paned windows, in the cells of subdivisions we'll always know so well.

the week ahead is busy. and i look to the changes that will keep me busy. maraud me from myself and the focus of my fears. i take my eleven vitamins and four spoonfuls of minerals twice daily. and i see the changes that have made me even more of myself. the ways the simplicity i once sought, now reverberate to expand. i look at all those old books, back on the shelf finally, read and unread. and i want to find safety in the old. i want to reread everything i've ever read and loved. the shelter in the pages i've found home. it's hard to have faith in anything new these days. i've grown to expect it.

and i think of that first sight. that first day, preceded by so many. followed by such flames. and every succeeding scar just a burn from that first fire. from that first day. i peer through the blinds and try to see beyond it. try to see beyond the opening of a door. because the doors, they close so quickly these days. with such frequency. i trace the lines of my face the way a lover once did, trying to find whatever it is i just don't see. trying to find how he happened. how he happened to leave. and i how i came to be. how simplicity has become so hard to re-inhabit.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

houses of leaves / hi, how are you?

in everything we witness, we look for explanations. even in our hands. manuals or reasoning. definitions. lines within which to bind ourselves.

and in the back rooms of dark bars we try to find the faces we've forgotten. ways to forge through the discrepancies we're facing. to forge through the feeling that we are all just really alone. but i know isolation well. well enough to know better.

we surround ourselves with faces. faces to witness all that grounds us. proof. pictures. lines within which to bind ourselves. so we know what's happened has really happened. so we don't have to search so hard for the explanations that get us through our days. the days in which we find ourselves alone, in bed, trying to make sense of the messes just before us. so we can say, 'hey, remember when?' as though we're trying to find the comfort in a moment long-passed. when really, we just want the comfort of knowing it actually happened, we were actually there, and that it was before we found ourselves alone, in bed, trying to make sense of the messes just before us.

we never know how to say the things we need to say. so we make the most of our actions and inactions. we make the most of our reactions. we fashion ourselves unwritten clauses, unspeakable truths we know we can never serve. we secure lines of translation, to travel across, arms outstretched. where we feel our ways around gravity, as though through the dark alleys of the ghettos of our hearts. we never know how to feel the things we need to feel. in everything we witness, we look for explanations. placations. vacations. quick fixes to get us through the messes we find just before us. we're always looking. as though through the dark, for that light to lead us into safety. the safety of knowing everything is as we hope it is. as we believe it to be.

Friday, February 1, 2008

and so it starts...

as i walked down davis, hands full of groceries, a stranger stopped me on the street and said i was beautiful. he then offered to help me carry a bag.

i think 2008 will be the year i learn from my mistakes, my many many mistakes of 2007. the year i re-learn how to be alone. the year i stop looking and start waiting. i've always been an impatient person, so this ought to do me some good.

of course, i did just get my ticket to korea emailed to me. this is... i can't believe it's real. i finally have something to hold on to. it's been so long since i've had much of anything to hold on to.

colette flies into town in less than a week. mostly to save me from myself and the minor freak-out i had last week. you know those moments when everything you've been trying to conceal under optimism catches up to you? i was so hell-bent on not moping, on being strong that in doing so i refused to let myself really deal with what had happened. a person doesn't just smile away contracting hiv from a date rape. nor do they just grin and bear a break-up with the first person they've actually, really loved in over 2 years. so, colette is coming to make sure i get it together and let myself be weak and deal appropriately. she's also coming to fix things and make me laugh.

eric arrives the same day, to look for a life here. and i have to say, it'll be really nice to have another sf transplant here. someone who knows me and my history. and yes, i'm aware of how selfish that sounds, but 2008 is also the year i let myself be selfish and let others help and do things for me. even though, i think it was purely selfishness that led me to believe in frank. such a fine line.

and for now, i'll obsess over my way-too-far-away trip, eat well, hang low, save money, let people come to me and make plans, and talk with robert. he showed up at the perfect time. and timing is everything.