we're uncomfortable

There should be some creation from a to z, beginning middle end.  The world isn't fit for consumption. A wrecking ball should sweep through the bricks and mortar of institution and impulsive wasteful inventions. For all the things we take for granted like toilets and contact lenses and 90 degree angles and thread and food that arrives in bulk on trucks from other countries which don't have trucks. Existence in comparison from face to face lets go of sticky connections, quickly moving apart, gaining momentum in disintegration. Disintegrating life as it fizzles out in one large electrical ball of organic fury. Human beings rage though their 100 years like terrorists raping and pillaging from their own destiny, taking everything away from it, leaving it to die somewhere in a back alley bruised, beaten, nodding off with a slur from the fatigue and toxicity which once kept them afloat with a puppet show of elixirs and secret potions designed to push the punch card at the library. Check out that book, that story of your life. Make it a good one. A real nail biter. Something you can't put down because there is no beginning or end. It's just hunting and chasing sprints of madness with crescendos of speed and lust. Sex and violence squeeze into the cracks of each brick crushed against another brick with any protruding concrete, anything to hold onto while climbing the side of the building waiting patiently for the wrecking ball.

get out

great escape window
so hard to open
look outside
see street people
lift with legs

crack with screeching
open window wider
painful exit
warmth into cold
breeze skin knees

last breath raising pane
effort plus control
no more inside
window go outside
scream silence
loud relief

Funeral

I spend more time in envy than I do in greatness. Hearing music. Seeing art. Enjoying comedy. Watching stirring film or television. Reading something great. Amazed by conceptual design. They live and breath it. I breath settling dust.

What I do is great. What I can do is greater. I am and always have been a force to be reckoned with even though in my head I am currently a pea under a thousand mattresses.

What I have will BAM! and splatter like a quarter stick of dynamite sparked by one solitary moment of ignition. Or maybe like cum on a celestial thigh. I don't know. At least that's the way I picture it will be while still melancholy in mourning the person I used to be, growing into the person I would be if I weren't the person I used to be.

I've got faith. I know I'm a great idea God had a while ago. There are a lot of bad ideas out there, like wearing white after Labor Day or eating a 2AM chicken burrito from Erick's. But this one. This one is good. I know I'm not here to sit around and punch numbers into a machine or mope around because I've given up. I'm not a pussy.

I'm 17. I'm an anarchist. I am a feminist. I am a ball buster. I am a dreamer. I am a fighter. I am someone who doesn't know what the real world is like yet. I'm a style monger. I'm a truster. I'm an ambivalent omnivore. I don't know what to say unless I'm around people who know what to say. I'm an energy generator. I'm a photographer. I'm a writer. I'm a good cook. I openly hate my parents. I'm a nature lover. I'm a spiritual searcher. I attract weirdos. I dye my hair every color and pierce myself. I get all my clothes at the thrift store. I carry a lunchbox. I write on my shoes. I get crushes on bassists and drummers. I drag my best friend around to awesome local shows; eh, most times by myself. I carry a journal with me everywhere I go. I'm a serial obsesser. My first love. Oh, my first love. I break in to the church house to make out. I want to disappear with razors and will kill myself, then I stand on dangerous cliffs and will live forever. I will tell you everything and not even know I'm doing it. I'm fresh out of the gate, smart as hell and I've got a future like an avalanche.

Listen to what happened in between that and this during the eulogy. I'm so tired of this funeral. It just goes on and on and on. If you need me, I'll be in the back telling everyone they don't have to go home but they can't stay here.

Spilling Over

In the bustle of city life constantly in close proximity to at least 20 people at at any given moment I sometimes suddenly get sensitive to the human condition. In moments of medicated thinking I look at people around me on trains, in lines, in public places and I start first sentences of stories. That old man fought in the Korean war. This woman fled Mexican slums with her blind son. That man is a convicted arsonist on probation. This woman's mother was Miss America 1980. Some are less elaborate. More about what she ate for breakfast or if he flosses. Usually a melodramatic story involving all of us ensues. The perfect song will come from my headphones and it gets even more intense because now there is a soundtrack. Then I spill coffee on myself and it's gone.

Genetics

Some physicists say all life on Earth is comprised of how the elements of the universe have settled or are settling and changing over time. Understanding and explaining how all that works is a huge responsibility. The task is first being out-to-lunch enough to come up with something like gravity or relativity or a multiverse - unlocking some mystery long since unsolved by any other explanation. And then telling everybody about it. What a messy job. Part of it automatically includes admitting you could be wrong. There has got to be a chromosome linked to some fancy hormonal neurotransmitter that blocks the anxiety of admitting a mistake. I do not have these genetics.

Finish Me.

The secret was once hot and juicy inside a red and white paper bag now crumpled into a ball and thrown in the back seat. It was shoved beside the console making translucent oily splotches. It was being picked out of teeth by a tiny wooden spire controlled by nauseous regret. It wafted out of a car with the scent of hot fabric and vinyl every time the door swung open and slammed closed again.

It was packed away inside a neon colored thermal lunch-bag and floated above the parking lot dangling from a hand with short bloated fingers. It went into the community refrigerator and every time the bag came out and went back inside, it was lighter. The secret got heavier upon mixing with saliva, breaking down into less complex structures while shooting into mouth reactors that caused tiny explosions of joy, pleasure snapping and popping between ears.

Jingling money went into a slot on a machine with a clear glass window and the secret inched forward in a shiny bright wrapper, falling a few feet into a contraption where it landed with a crackling crash. It took flight through an escape hatch in the clutches of its defiler. It later got stuck to office doorknobs and keyboards and adding machines and made appearances during staff meetings while handing out documents.

It came to the doors of apartments and houses in flat square boxes and the gooey masses arrived in perfect rounds to deliver the secret on cardboard platters. Cut into various shapes and sizes, it was too hot for fingertips and burned delicate skin on roofs of mouths.

In every instance, the mechanical motion of jaw clamping and moist rapture mixed with salacious gurgling ...and the secret made itself known with a tiny voice whispering, “Finish me.”

Letting Go

Daddy never gave her no discipline. Daddy never gave her nothing to keep her there, to make her feel safe, to let her know that she was secure and protected in his house that he owned, not her mama. Daddy only gave her a ball of twine and a knife and said go for it honey I love you. Into the wild she went out with bushy tangled hair and a dirty mouth casting nets into every bay catching all the fishes she could, scaling them one by one and gouging out their eyes like $5 cubic zirconia studs.

Along came the man with the bowler hat and the walking stick and he said baby I’m gonna give you the world. I’m gonna knock you down and drag you back to my cave by those sweet silvery blond locks. I’m gonna toss you on your ass and hold you down until you surrender and beg me to give you the loving home you deserve. I’m gonna take care of everything, picking out one little thorn in your soul at a time.

She felt the sting of a strong hand smashing into her buttocks like a crash cymbal at the grand finale of a great symphony. Vibrations of the sharp cracking sound resonated through her backside up her spine to her ears and out in flickering sparks through the top of her head and she whimpered stretching her fingers like webs on the edge of the bed. Letting go with a moaning exhale, she felt it again. She was a bad girl wild child who needed to know her place in this world - right there, bent over and crumpled like a sleeping new born underneath his hot face as he thought baby I’m gonna make you come home.

Taking Hits

Dopamine, norepinephrine, oxytocin. All those. Mixing around, blending into long stares, sideways glances, meshed tongues, combined skins.

Neurotransmitters surging to the brain chemicalize the experience whether you've ingested a bottle of wine or not. You see that special person's face and all those little molecules create the miracle of euphoria. Engines fire on all pistons, lubricated by the flow of mojo juices and flirty words passed by ears in clever sentences.

The pinball machine score of the random miracle sets your sights on that certain someone and the whole world drifts away. Passion evolves into a mood. It focuses everything on one person, in one place, makes your heart pound, your hands sweat, and there is only one way to get what you want: lock eyes, make some conversation and hope to God she's into you.

Things go well and over time, the frying nerves are chewed, savored, swallowed and digested, and something new happens. Peace, stability and attachment creates companionship and lifelong commitment. You care for each other in good times and bad. All fantasies are exciting until...

Where can they go? What can happen to all those chemicals, all those firings and misfirings that sent you into the spiraling and tumbling madness of love? Do they end their squirtings into the hinges of the relationship? Why can things dry up and disappear? Resentments, fears, hesitations, all leading to the aloof desperation of trying to find someone else, someone new....and you never saw it coming.

Romance. It's a clever cocktail that can only stay full forever if the chemistry happens at the right places and the right times, directed by an equation only God can dictate. You can be a scientist and try to figure it out for the rest of your life, but you'll never know how it works. All you can do is live your life every day as if the Earth wants you to be something amazing. As if you're the greatest miracle that ever happened to the world. Because you are.

On Time For The Last Time

The ambulance pulled up slowly without lights flashing or sirens blaring. A kind looking young gentleman in an EMT uniform stepped down from the driver’s seat and shut the door of the cab, sighing.

Inside the house, the old woman died. There was a 911 call in a calm and iridescent voice, floating through telephone wires on grumbly vibrations to alert the world of its weight loss. Twenty-one grams lighter, the body felt like a thousand pounds as the EMT picked up her stone cold stiffness. Her eyes remained open like black sea-shell marbles. Her chest was still wet with her husband’s tears as he watched from the corner of the yellowed living room with his elbow connecting to a hand hovering over his eyes. He wept.

They were married for forty-one years and never had a baby. Their house was a grandfather clock in the neighborhood as they exited and entered the garage in a blue 1984 Cadillac Seville. They would return with groceries in brown paper bags, silently lifting them with spindly arms. He opened the knob, she went through the door, and it clicked shut behind them. They wouldn’t come out again until the clock donged next.

She left the house for the last time on squeaky wheels under a white sheet. The Seville hovered closely behind her as they went soundlessly in the direction of the hospital. And the neighborhood was five minutes late forever after.

I paid good money for you, but you're priceless.

Oh, little muse. If I want to see you, I have to look in the mirror backwards. We've only been friends for a little over a week and you're starting to itch already. I know not to scratch because you will fade away and need attention later if I do. Ever since you've been under my skin, I have sensed a new found inspiration. It's amazing to me how the smallest people in our lives can sometimes be the biggest. I know you will hide under layers of sweaters, scarves and coats this winter, but fear not; you will be set free once seventy degrees makes a come back! Even though you're in black and white, I might some day add neighbors with a little color. You look so good backwards. I think I'll take off my shirt while the radiator ticks and look again, for fear of forgetting what you're like. I never want to forget your form, oh you of inky darkness. Now that we're friends for life, we're just going to have to get used to each other. Let's make the best of it.

I'm Just A Little Person

Sometimes, I like the window seat so I can scoot across and feel where cute butts have warmed the plastic and fabric underneath. I don’t know what they were thinking when they put fabric on those seats, but because they collect little prickly ions of warmth from little people with infinite possibilities, I know it was the right decision.

I try not to be obvious as I scan for a face I can trust. Every time a new body walks on with a morning coffee, I can sense a phantom tinge of caffeinated bitterness on the base of my tongue. I wonder if he grinds that coffee himself. French press? I wonder if he is growing his beard out for the winter or just too lazy to shave. Either way, it’s very attractive. Scratchy soft.

My pin-up red fingernails extend a little further than usual from the book about spirituality that I so meticulously covered with bright paper as not to get dirty looks from anyone who might think I’m crazy for liking those kinds of books. A dirty look is like a laser; if you happen to catch the direct line of light, it can cause major damage. If anything, they should think I’m crazy for liking to feel a warm seat after another little person gets up and walks away.

If you happen to feel my butt-warmed seat, may you absorb my burned kilojoules with joy.

The Pact

We were just kids. We said when we were 15 that if we weren't married by 30, we would marry one another. And now, there you are - and here I am - in two completely different places in life. We're just as distant as we ever were, even when your face was on my chest. I haven't seen you in years, but I feel your security. If you're not there in marriage already, you're getting there; you were always very determined to be with someone special.

I have no idea where you are on the road of life, but my guess is you're even more complex and becoming more like your Dad by the day. I'll always care about you, no matter how crazy I acted over the years while I was still using. You never loved me because you knew I was batshit. Smart man.

Sometimes, I look over my shoulder when I'm riding in the bike lane and I imagine you and your girl pulling up next to me without recognizing me. I hide behind my sunnies and helmet, and I move on to the next daydream of the man in my life who will be more inspiring and cooler than you were back then. I will feel that muse come alive again. It's been far, far too long. 10 years of fog lifting now...watch me grow.

Missed Connections

We used to think human connections were being thwarted by the age of iPods and cell phone time-wastage (reading a book doesn't have as much clout with that idea because someone can always strike up a conversation about how good a Calvino novel is). Aren't moments of fleeting glances, temporary wanton lust and what-might-have-been questionable in the age of technology turning people into ants?

The Missed Connections section on Craigslist marries use of personal technology with getting lost in the human moment. It actually requires true effort to type and post something like, "I saw you in the Trader Joe's yesterday with a Broken Social Scene shirt and you had a lot of strawberries in your cart...I wonder if you were making pies..." This means those moments are still alive and very real. Missed Connections reminds us that people still fall in love for 45 seconds and then watch that world-within-a-world step off the train and walk in the opposite direction of a stranger's captivation. We love it, too.

It's a girl!

She used to be somebody. She used to walk into a room and people would look to her to find out what was going to happen next. She was loved by everyone who knew her and she was the prettiest and smartest person in the place. The sincerity of her importance would make you look twice at her deep painted face and three times at her clever droll jokes. She could stare you down and drag you around for days. She was the last person up with a bottle of warm straight in one hand and a long ashy cigarette in the other inviting whoever and whatever to early morning parties where we hated when those birds would chirp.

And then her brain exploded and colorful bits of flesh splattered all over the walls of her tiny universe leaving trinkets of suicide for everyone to remember fondly like ski trips and beach vacations on mantles all over the Norman Rockwell nation. She died at the end of the summer when people were still wiping sweat from their brows and their balls and hanging on to Indian days like it was the last season of life on Earth. For her, it was the last season of death.

She came flying out of the vagina of stark raving sobriety like a blue baby without crying or gasping for air. The doctor with the head mirror and the cigar held her by her feet, slapped her on the ass and said this one’s gonna take a minute to catch up with the rest of us. She coughed up the blood of her mother and took a breath, screaming into the night for hours, days, weeks, months. She woke up from the nightmare of being the center of the universe and something clicked. Click.