formatting life

2009-09-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

you were right
about the end
it didn't make a difference
everything i can remember
i remember wrong

how can anybody know
how they got to be this way?
you must've known
i'd do this someday
break my arms
around the one i love

2008-06-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

swelling river bruises banks
_________recedes
leaving only dirt and blackness

july.

2008-05-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

tubes snake
their way in and out
his mouth, his nose, other unspeakable places
one to release pressure
another to breathe life
into a nearly still body

silence... hiss

beep

chest rises
falls

silence... hiss

beep

chest rises
falls

a methodical rhythm so seductive
it seems almost right

rise and fall
such unnerving little lies.

2008-05-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

the black crows
in their nests
beneath a sliver moon
they sing for me

2008-05-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

i wonder if you know.

2008-01-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

i can't look without seeing.

that's the whole point of drawing.

but i also can't unsee
what throbs behind my eyelids.

dark water.

2007-12-25T00:38:00.000-08:00

it's almost as if
you are
being swept along
with the current
your head bobs
in
out
in
to
the black black water
like
tar
covering
every necessary part
lungs
never quite able
to regain breath
again.

bob ross.

2007-11-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

for some ungodly reason, i was flipping through canadian television channels today
and stumbled upon good old bob ross, painting palm trees with his cure-all fan brush.

it's hard not to be mesmerized watching someone paint.

he chattered away as he worked
and told a story about a woman
writing him a letter
telling him that he should've at least bought a wig which matched his greying beard
so ross responded by writing a letter, telling the woman that if this was a wig
he would've returned it the second he got it home and tried it on.

thanks for your honesty, bob ross.

2007-11-12T21:34:00.001-08:00

i looked and looked
but i didn't see god.

2007-10-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

god less you all.

2007-09-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

sliding
down
no footholds
in sight

2007-09-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

driving home
staring into the setting western sun
everything shifted
just a bit

the cave floor.

2007-08-31T21:20:00.000-07:00

she let her hair and his
the black and the blond
entwine and spin
a yarn across the cave's damp floor
- one-ply, two-ply -
a braid, a knot
that no one could undo
or cut.

2007-08-31T19:47:00.001-07:00

there are days
when i can't seem to help anyone
including myself

2007-08-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

the meaning of the phrase

'when the shit hits the fan'

has never been as clear as it is
this moment

2007-08-04T19:27:00.001-07:00

a surrealist painting

2007-05-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

this is never
ever
going to work

2007-04-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

if i am lost for a day
try to find me
all of the things that i thought
were so easy
just got harder and harder
each day
december is darkest
in june there's the light
but this empty bedroom
won't make anything right
but out on the landing
a friend i forgot
to send home
who waits up for me
all through the night.

2007-04-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

if there is an ocean in front of you
blanketed on all sides by dense fog

do you blindly careen forward
risking a swim in the unknown

or

do you stand in your safe place on the shore
and refuse to get your toes wet?

[and, at this point in your life, you are not a very good swimmer].

2007-04-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

numb words form a long letter
in my head on the drive home

[i know them all by heart]

things i will never say
until it is too late.

nobel intent.

2007-03-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

an army of lamps light the room
as i stare through you

i am not truly looking
because i am thinking about the universe
and space and time

and a point of singularity

i stare through your jaw of jello
atomic clouds erupt from your lips
mouthing silent words searching for answers

such wishful thinking
all for nothing i'm afraid
because no one knows what really happened
before the big bang
anyway.

a room in a house in a storm: 11 days later.

2007-03-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

i have been here before
in this place

in this light
cream room

where words swirl
and bite, ripping through flesh

with their hungry little teeth
i am sure

i have been here before
standing in this very place

as rain pelts glass, and
lightning creates blankets of white

like a polaroid flashbulb exploding
for the longest second in the world.

2007-03-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

sometimes doing the right thing is so difficult
because even the right thing seems wrong.

eclipse.

2007-03-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

tonight a red moon rises
turning shades of brilliant copper
and i wonder if

my dreams will be red, too.

2007-02-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

i wrote the same letter again today.

2007-02-13T18:56:00.000-08:00

in the car
on my way home
i wrote you a letter
in my head.

black night.

2007-02-11T19:29:00.000-08:00

a child cries
in a house
behind a locked door

as bats cling to the walls
like black velvet breathing
and an intolerable screeching
fills the room

no one will ever know
if it was the bats
or the child
wailing.

2007-02-10T21:23:00.001-08:00

what is left is not right.

2007-02-02T07:41:00.000-08:00

'Even people whose lives have been made various by learning, sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible - nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas - where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished.'

2007-01-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

the moon, a gaping hole
punched through the black-purple sky
sheds light exposing
crimson smears
from fingers
to lips
leaving trails
of things lost
again.

snarl.

2007-01-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

iron metal
and magnolias
twist and turn
as he throws burrs at me
getting them stuck
in my hair
the irritating teeth causing
knot after knot
after knot
among blonde-brown strings
impossible to untangle.

2007-01-04T15:54:00.001-08:00

...how could you even know what a whisper sounds like?

12.31.06

2006-12-31T19:42:00.000-08:00

in a short while
a new year

a chance to start over

or give up.

2006-12-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

tiny princesses all around me.

how jealous i really am.

ash.

2006-12-14T16:51:00.000-08:00

salt has turned
to coal dust in her eyes
leaving ebony rings
like shadows of night
on her pink flesh, hiding
scars
of memories
her steel blue eyes
have seen
blinding
white diamond salt
stings while coal
only clouds vision
leaving a haze, and
making stars blur
still obscurring
her path home.

2006-12-07T20:47:00.001-08:00

without sleep
things begin to spin

spiral
ing

down

2006-11-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

no escape hatch. no morning light explosion.

define: sadness.

2006-11-24T18:47:00.000-08:00

lunch with a woman
who rarely leaves
her house full of silent reminders

and

a visit to a graveyard
where my voice was lost
to a slight November wind.

2006-11-23T12:01:00.001-08:00

cutting onions
for a dinner
it was hard to tell
if i was crying or not.

thankful for:

2006-11-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

JS.

his family.

grandma's hugs and kisses.

my grandfather's hands [and the way i would hold onto his fingers].

the job i have and the wonderful people who i work with:

MF | KK | LBM | WS | BH | CW | MM.

friendships with amazing, smart, talented, sensitive people.

the experiences i had at MIAD.

DM | MM.

having a home.

the person who takes care of [her]. always.

define: fault.

2006-11-21T15:56:00.001-08:00

apparently, mine.

define: secrets.

2006-11-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

The sound of his voice carried throughout the house. Down in the basement, from the bottom of the pine stairs stained a rich honey color, he would yell up to my grandmother and ask her if lunch was ready. In my bedroom, at the end of the hall, I could hear them play their back-and-forth game.

"Is lunch ready yet?"

"No," she would yell back, "but it will be in five minutes." She never stopped what she was doing to walk to the basement door. She would just yell from the kitchen sink or through the back screen door where she picked fresh cherry tomatoes. Each year their multiple gardens took up most of their time from early spring to late fall.

And he would yell back, "What did you say?"

And this would go on for the next five minutes until my grandmother finally told my grandfather to come up and wash up for lunch. My grandfather was hard of hearing, such a silly expression. I often heard my grandmother remark that his hearing was more selective than 'hard' and that my grandfather was able to weasel his way out of many situations by seeming not to hear the questions (or demands) asked of him. I always found it funny because it was like their secret code. My grandmother would ask "can you take the trash out, Pa?" and he would respond with "what?" or "eh?" or some other grunt or noise that my grandmother miraculously understood completely after years of marriage. I would laugh and he would turn to me and wink the moment she turned back to the stove or sink.

*

There was something about his hands, like the buzzing of a good piece of writing, that told the story, his story.

*

As a small child, I had a love-hate relationship with the mornings that I awoke in my grandparent's house. My peach colored room with the double bed (which seemed so enormous to me at the time) is like a vault of stored memories. I just want to go back there, to the mornings. My grandfather would knock on the door to wake me for breakfast. His hands could be gentle; I remember how softly he would knock, saying something about how he would have to eat all of the pancakes when he received no response from me. And I would always wait, cherishing the warmth of the bed, the covers pulled tightly over my head to block out the morning sun. I would wait, thinking that I had waited long enough for him to walk back down the short hall to the kitchen. Yet every morning when I crept from my bed to slowly open the door, he was always standing there, smiling.

*

I could sleep, in that bed, in that house. Just sleep. Lovely, silent sleep.

*

I can remember the way the kitchen smelled of bacon popping and frying on the stove as I padded out in my slippers and pajamas.

How the laundry always seemed as fresh as the day it was hung out on the clotheslines my grandfather built from 2 x 6's and generic, hardware store white rope that frayed soon after it was up. You could smell the air in those clothes, the scent of summer in all its glory. Sometimes like fresh mowed grass, other times it was as though the sun itself had baked right into the fabric eminating a fragrance that can be described only as childhood, captured and contained.

The lines hung just yards away from a pear tree that blossomed every spring, and further beyond that was the large garden my grandparents tended on a daily basis, like a job, a habit, a responsibility.

*

At the end of the house opposite my bedroom, an antique aluminum screen door masks the inner pine door that separates the garage from the house. From the first sixty degree day in spring to the chilliest days late into fall, the inner door was always open, revealing my grandmother through the mesh screen busy in the kitchen. My grandparent's garage was also my grandfather's workshop (although I'm not sure how much work he ever really did out there). Additionally, it served as the spare kitchen at Thanksgiving time when the pies needed to cool and the countertops were already brimming with my grandmother's creations. The garage was frequently deemed the 'patio' for setting up plaid lawn chairs to watch summer thunderstorms roll through without getting wet. On occasion, it was a place for my grandfather to park his truck (and my Hot Wheels). In many ways, it was the heart of the house.

*

I would stand in the garage and admire his tools, looking at them hung on nails on the walls. There was no real pattern to the way he arranged them other than the system of one nail for screwdrivers and files which had a hole in the handle, and two nails for items like hammers that would be situated between correctly spaced nails. It was sort of like an art form.

I was never allowed to touch the tools without my grandfather's presence. It was kind of the "Christmas Story" phenomena. You know, the little boy wants the Red Rider but his father keeps telling him he'll shoot his eye out. My grandfather never said that, but he implied that a similar terrible fate would meet one of my appendages if I touched the tools.

Not to mention all of the tools looked barbaric. He called them antique, 'built in the days when men were men and knew how to build a tool right' kind of tools. They still looked barbaric, and now that's the only word I can think of to describe them. His hammer looked like a stone-age club without a sense of ergonomics or efficiency (although, I suppose, when you're going to pound the hell out of something, it doesn't really matter how it looks).

As a child, my fascination with the tools grew until I couldn't take it any longer. I had a habit of picking up rocks and stones from around the neighborhood and cornfields surrounding my grandparent's house. I would choose mostly smooth stones, and carry as many as I could fit in my pockets. The bottoms of my pockets would be full of white, chalky dust from the street, and chucks of dirt from the cornfield.

[to be continued...]

2006-11-18T19:40:00.001-08:00

i prayed
for help

but it never came

even in a dream
with pierced hands
and blood running

so i stopped praying
long ago.

2006-11-17T16:50:00.000-08:00

if only
i could take a breath

and understand

which direction to turn
and how many steps it will take.

2006-10-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

when it all started, i looped my thumbs through fabric, too.

2006-10-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

a red tree glows fire
while birdsong echoes
in a silent field
as i wait for understanding.

2006-10-17T16:31:00.000-07:00

she said to me,
"it's in the north building on the other side of the campus,
basically where jesus left his shoes."

and in my head,
i thought,
it's already been a rough day.
god's really pissing on all of us.

2006-10-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

haunted
in the darkness
of night

a different kind of weight
pressing down on my chest

pressing

on my wounded heart.

2006-10-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

acid seeps up my esophagus
as anxiety swells.

there are things i miss greatly.

2006-10-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

07.03.06

'don't blame yourself for the evil in this world'
said one of the smartest people i know.

2006-10-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

if someone believes in you
and you can see it in their eyes, truly see it

sometimes that's all you really need.

room no. 147 redux.

2006-09-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

same hotel
same room

as one year ago

give or take
a few weeks

same jade green curtains
same porcelain sink

and white, white sheets

as though nothing
has changed at all.

i tried today.

2006-09-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

there is a moment

between saying everything
and saying nothing

where i inhale

in hopes that something will spill out
from the deepest place in my belly

that words will ride my tongue
and roll from my red lips

finding their way into your heart
into some kind of understanding

but it is the breath between words
full of fear and anxiety

that leaves me voiceless.

2006-09-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

the brilliant blue-green
has turned back to red clay

it stretches as far as i can see
running over the edges of the earth

flat and empty
and silent

life at a stand still.

2006-09-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

if the thundercloud
passes rain
so let it rain
let it rain

rain down on him

2006-09-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

without

a father or
a mother
[for different reasons]

but

for the most part

alone.

2006-09-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

last night

i dreamt
of a terrible thing

and also
the end of the universe

i was disappointed when i woke up.

2006-09-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

metal collides with porcelain
vibrates teeth in soft sockets
forcing jaw to clench tighter

even in dreams.

sunday morning confession. part II.

2006-09-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

crisp september wind carries
the ringing of church bells
through the full open windows
of our small house with wooden floors
and white white walls
but when i close my eyes again
here, under mountains of blankets, bells
have been replaced by words
ringing empty steel echoes
reminding of the Saviour
who will never come.

2006-09-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

i had gone
so many days
without fucking up

but now

it's just the same old thing again.

sunday morning confession.

2006-09-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

she sits

in a room soaked in sunday morning light
which streams through glass panes
creating not-quite square patterns
beneath her pale feet

while she rubs her hands together, weaving
aching fingers in and out of one another
interlacing past with present

as tides of guilt wash over her
carrying last night's dream out to sea
but first giving promise of its incessant return.

2006-09-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

'maybe in that moment, he wanted to bury his life alongside his past.'

2006-08-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

the soft, pink flesh
of the palms of my hands
reach for you through the thickness of the dark

in this city that never sleeps
in this night

in this bed
we lay our heads upon
in white-sheeted Astoria fashion
like a blanket of snow covering our most delicate parts

i hear the sound of your body aching
your deep, slow breaths

lulling

promising me
dreams of solitude

but still i cannot touch you.

nyc.

2006-08-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

i love the rain
but mostly

when it stops.

another weekday.

2006-08-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

tuesday

is the beginning
of knowledge that could be

                  the end
                  of giving
                  of breathing

life
into an ancient ghost
with her tiny breaths
and delicate

pink hands

                  the end
                  of a chance

at redemption.

swimming.

2006-08-24T18:49:00.000-07:00

you can either rush
toward the cyan surface
with all of your strength
and take a gaping lovely
mouthful of air
and light
and life

or

you can hold yourself down
until your lungs feel
as though
they'll burst in their hollow cavity
forcing your mouth wide open
to relieve the burning pain in your chest
realizing that the water you let in
is going to drown you.

2006-08-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

soon.

2006-08-03T22:35:00.000-07:00

her hands suffocate god
turning his neck raw
and bruising eyes shades of blue
not that unlike my own.

2006-08-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

sauna hot wind
flat slate sky

quiet house
torn cavity

empty.

2006-07-27T21:57:00.000-07:00

i'm sorry
that i can't be the strong one
who stands up
speaks
gives some explanation

but you can't fit your hand
up the gaping hole in my back
to move my jaw
either.

2006-07-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

today

my grandmother, wringing her knotted fingers, said the funniest thing:

'my hands are so bad, even my arthritis has arthritis.'

i laughed and she said, 'see what you have to look forward to?'

maybe i do, but my handswristsarms will never be as beautiful as hers,

arthritis and all.

burden of guilt.

2006-07-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

the words
fell from my lips

turning to tears running
down my belly my legs turning

to glue

as they surrounded my feet
sticking me to the floor
unable to move

a reminder

of my attempts
to help them.

nosedive. part III. [rev.]

2006-07-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

the other possibility is that the ledge upon which you stand is slowly crumbling beneath you. you're losing your footing. you can feel it happening, the slipping, your feet no longer firmly planted. it's a slow-motion landslide.

in the freefall, your body spins in lovely somersaults, the wind and salt caressing your hair on the way down. in the space between the land and water, you gain a certain, clearer understanding.

unfortunately, you realize, you can't swim.

2006-07-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

dark red lines over a deepening yellow bruise

lessons.

2006-07-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

she is consumed
by an obsidian gulf
churned in its irregular currents
while the black glass water's edge
eats the shore
regurgitating white sand
and conch shells sing
their hollow song
determined to redeem her.

nose dive. part II.

2006-07-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

standing on the edge of the cliff, your body inherently begins to sway. you rock, ever-so-slightly, the kind of sweet lulling that you knew only as a baby. it is in this moment and only in this moment, on the brink of everything and nothing, that you are again allowed to experience this. a strong gust of wind could take your feet from under you, ripping you from solid ground and thrusting you into a tumultuous freefall, and you are fully aware of this because you have nearly gone over on many occasions. but you are no longer afraid. you've been here before. you know this like the back of your hand. so, you rock. in this calmness, this methodical numbness, you hear the water below whispering your name. what you want, more than anything, is to step from the edge on your own accord, leaving the land, leaving so perfectly that no one will know you've gone.

you will fall into the ocean.

and you will let it wrap you in its waves, quietly pulling you under.

the anarchist's schedule.

2006-07-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

today
i read the writing
of a seventeen year old boy

chicken-scratch pencil words
silvery grey in a tattered sketchpad

written like a schedule
date and time stamped

a list
to wrong all the rights in the world.

2006-07-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

you're right, dogs are suckers.

under any conditions, good or bad
they keep coming back hoping for love.

2006-07-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

in my sleep, anger blooms like white moonflower.

churn.

2006-07-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

lightheaded vision spins the room
as nausea rises up through my throat
toward the opening of my lips

it attempts to swallow my tongue
before

sliding back down, defeated,
falling to its dark, dank depths
of stomach matter and intestine
to the place where only
guilt and shame can live.

2006-06-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

clawing
with
tiny
fingers
she
buried
words
in
the
dirt
of
the
hard
hard
ground
like
a
hidden
treasure
chest
except
the
map
has
been
lost
for
some
time
now
leaving
the
words

unspeakable.

nose dive.

2006-06-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

the cliff's edge becomes more intoxicating each time you inch toward it.

the wind blows through your hair, the smell of the ocean envelops you, its salt licking at your lips as sun glints off the slick, black rocks enticing you from below. light gets in your eyes as the pale blueness of the sky caresses the ocean. it's no longer clear to you where one begins and the other ends. you squint, unable to see, but recognizing that at this moment there could not be anything more right than this.

you know, if you jump, at least there is the euphoria of the free fall.

2006-06-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

remember:

you taught yourself to do this long ago.
you know how it works.

it has to work.

2006-06-26T19:08:00.000-07:00

sometimes you just wait
for the snap of the rubberband.
it welts your wrist a deep red.
it radiates heat, as the blood pools
beneath this armor you call skin.

sometimes that is the only thing that exists.
the only thing that can exist.
the only thing that you can handle.

and so you wait.
snapping.

2006-06-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

___ help me, if this all goes wrong.

2006-06-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

every thing has a facade.
every person a dark side.
every mouth a lie.

there are people i know
i have slowly grown to hate.

the world spins on center.

2006-06-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

sick of the center i wonder if
we could tweak it a little to the left

a slight nudge, a dainty hip-check
so that it might be
just different enough

maybe then it would work perfectly
like it used to all that time ago

but i have decided
i am tired of trying
to move this for anyone.

(under the same sky)

2006-06-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

the stars you see are the stars i see.

2006-06-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

metal tube makes
ears ring

rattling teeth in their sockets

while searching for
invisible

poison.

2006-06-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

i am impatient with living.

2006-06-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

exhausted
spent | sick of spinningturning
revolutions
like

the rubbery blackness
of mytiredcar

clouded.

2006-06-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

salt piles lick
our open wounds
as we slide down hills
of magnificent crystals
like diamonds without edges
you cry out
that it's burning you
somewhere deep inside
and white dust
pours from your mouth
your nose
your eyes
leaving ghost trails on your skin
so no longer can i tell
if you've been crying.

dream incubator.

2006-06-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

sweet
like hard candy
from a crystal dish
an episodic dream
of you and i
promenading in circles
while a mocking birds sings
a song decipherable only to us
as hollyhocks bloom their luscious purple-red
in the kind of garden
we once got lost in
and outside crisscrossing clouds cough
the thunder of angels bowling
as we read from a yellowed copy
of Robert Frost poems
and me in my white dress
covered in seaweed up to the neck
and you
you in your suit with salt on the arms
from pulling me out of the deep end of the ocean
and i promise i will teach you
to excel brilliantly at sleepwalking
as we wait for constellations
to tell us why
the world spins so recklessly.

if only

2006-05-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

my conscience would call in sick for a day.

lacking redemption.

2006-05-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

at three am
in a san francisco hotel room
blackness blankets us
save the glowing monitor
playing reruns of the jesus channel
sermons of wrath, greed, lust

and i have fallen

back asleep dreaming
of peter, paul, and luke
riding an escalator to heaven
ignoring the temptation of apple martinis
and joking of a messiah
who will never arrive.

2006-05-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

he says to me, 'i am two-thirds the devil.'

woven.

2006-05-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

common thread
ties
your ferocious anger
at the sun, the color of rain,
to my attempts
at deep tunneling to China
to your grandfather's horses who are
the definition of passion
and together we will play telephone
discontinuing our narrative
who knows
how these things work,
anyway.

[re]construction (stills).

2006-05-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

silent | still | image.

2006-05-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

this morning
between four and five
in the breaking hours of dawn
i awoke, startled and breathless,
from a dream of

an abandoned farm house
with a dirt floor beneath
a formica top kitchen table
littered with remnants of a ham and potato supper,
the dining chairs pushed back
in the slightest disarray and

in the next room,
three wooden coffins sat
where the light of day
streamed through a dust-covered window
glinting off the golden crosses
atop each coffin
but one.

a chance of rain.

2006-05-18T17:22:00.000-07:00

across from you

at a table i sat at years ago, i watch
storm clouds making their way home

i secretly ask
if they will
rain tears
for me

and i wonder
if you'd catch them when they fall.