never alone (?)

Home from a Wednesday night of dancing gin circles around an 8-man band, jammed into a crowded corner of the street side, down town bar. The wood paneling of the dining room is seared with smoke and the oddly minty taste of menthols lingers in my hair from the lips of a musician caressing my swirling mind with lyrical images of intimate foreign fantasy.

I come home to the sweet smell of latex and semen, cold sheets and week old incense ash drifting cautiously in the air round the once-oscillating economy sized, double decker bedroom fan and stop, hesitant, in the doorway to take it in and ponder a memory

and never, never, never stop dancing.

You played James Brown and we danced.
Shut eyed quiet laughter in the bedroom;
lip shits fell like sunsets sinking into pillows
and your fingers teased the hemline of my dress.

Another girl you hadn't dance with yet
in navy blue and grace melting silently
into the lips you pressed down through me.
Plucking strings

your songs don't come for free.

Philosophies and rants of reason sailed
and posed reactively in a veil of desperation
while your throat cracked deeper with each cigarette.

You had one nice shirt and you never let it fall.

Exquisitely you collected each nuance of me
pushed it deep into your pocket to reproduce
in the next heat.
But you're burning and people are questioning the
holes you leave behind.

Lies are candy and soft callouses
pry the will from obstinance and let the demons in.
Love me well then leave before you fall--
your songs will falter,

Dance your dreams, a fallen angel;
darkness breeds kindness, but baby if you'd let me
I would have loved you in the morning
and lived la vie en rose.

It is so difficult to be really alone: to be silent
and not hear another voice, another breath.

Hearing only my own breath and steady heartbeat:
the rhythmic ping pong of that one life flushing organ

banging against my chest cavity. I can’t find
anything as reliable as that nothing, which is not.

I want to hear that pulse so loudly that it deafens me.
I want to hear my lungs scream. I want to not see.

I want to close my mouth: sew it shut, keep it from lying

There is no escape. No matter how far I stumble
there are voices in the distance, or cars, or street lamps.

I used to be able to leave. I used to walk out my door
and not stop walking until there were no voices left.

Nothing tried to stop me. No one knew I had left.
Not even I really knew where I was; it just felt right to leave.

I ended up in the woods, standing: exposed. Sometimes
I stayed for hours. I sat in a field, against a tree stump, or a log.

Sometimes thinking, sometimes I would just
empty out and exist. I let go of nagging thoughts.

Time passed through me.

Now I wander. I walk from room to room. I pace and stare.
Windows become gateways. I get caught up in my thoughts

and other people only annoy me. There is nowhere else to go.
Outside the cold is imminent and there are desperately

only more people out there in hats and coats, freezing,
but braving it for the nicotine. Their beds are cold and dry.

They have no reason not to stand, faceless, sucking their fix,
fingers barely functioning enough to hold the cigarette to their lips.

The longer they stay there, the longer I will trap myself
in here with nothing but the window to escape through.

I try looking out, over the people, over the city,
but all I can see are artificial city lights.

The stars can’t even shine through. I don’t turn around,
searching in vain for something I can escape to.

In my attempts I am distracted, and in my head I am alone for a moment.

A homeless man, or perhaps just lost,
passed out on the slow whirring of the drier.
Laundry spinning beneath him: oblivious.
It warms him.
One eye open. Warmed by fermented yeast,
crystallized in pubic-looking chin hairs, and
smiles that crack in the cold wind but persist
like busted cinder blocks.

Outside, a display window opens up
to the backside of a register.
The cash box slipped beneath the countertop,
hidden in the dimmed light from the
prying eyes of the merchandise
strewn across the floor.
The paint in the window is chipped.
One can see through the smudged “A”
a portrait of a widow, forehead lined with
grandchildren, lips drawn down from
antique kisses.
The costume jewelry, limp, hangs at
lobe and clavicle.

The Halloween store is friendlier at night.
No one home. Rubber hands and feet hanging
in the dark, and masked serial killers don’t
scream atrocities through rubber lips
after the cashier locks up and goes home.

Students lumber by. Lost, dazed, layered
into their down furnaces, scarf half-off,
fingers clutching at the aluminum flask
in a hip-pocket. Gloves slip down.

Tragedy comes in more forms than
wind blown lawn chairs and broken pencils.
Shattered glass only cuts your feet
if you let it pierce your sole.

Our friends and enemies never fail us
as fully as we believe, we have only
blinded ourselves with tales of their greatness.

Kiss me, crisis.
Bound to gag.

A blonde townie woman worked her way in
and held my hips, dirty dancing to the blues
as I twisted my torso, feeling the guttural
soul of the woman wearing long, leopard print.

200 pages in the hole, Sunday night and the
lights are dancing with me. I wish I could
catch the stars. The moon is orange and barely
hanging over the trees on the edge of the canal.

Someone is holding their angel, thrown over her
shoulder, rocking back and forth to the beat.
Married men and women clutch at each other,
holding tight, like gums to teeth, and turning slow.

Crossing the bridge, one can’t escape the funnel cake,
the smell of sweat and sweets follows past the
speakers that echo eerily as you walk away.
Why would anyone ever stop dancing.

Walking back to Conrad, past the roadblocks
an old, toothless man asks if he can follow us home,
barely lucid enough to finger his beer, desperate
for attention, so I smile as we walk away.

God?
I know I never gave you a chance.
I know we never got tight like me and the girls did.
But God?
Oh, God.
I've got nothin.

I've been through a whirlwind this past week and
it's not nearly as romantic as I thought it might be.
The swirling wind didn't stop to tousel my hair,
and it's not you, God, I know you're busy
breathing on the sinners.

But the Adirondack wind doesn't stop for anyone.
And a tousel only comes in time.
I got rained on.
And God?

Why does no one ever sing about anything but love?
Songs screaming "she," "her," and tears of pain
that no one stops to listen to anymore,
coz everyone's stories are the same.
The songs are all the same.

I cried on my way to work on Tuesday.
I cried.
It was raining, so I don't think anyone noticed.
Now it just burns.
Everyone knows.

My best friend listened to me over the phone
coz your line was busy, God.
But she couldn't feel me shaking
when I told her that baby names don't amuse me.

Keeping busy keeps me healthy. Juice and cigarettes are killing me.
But I got over it, God.
I just want you to like me.
We're going to be neighbors someday.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO SCARED. I DIDN'T STOP SHAKING FOR THREE DAYS. AND IT WASN'T THE COFFEE, UNLESS SOMEONE SLIPPED WHITE HOT HELL INTO MY MUG. BUT I'M BLEEDING NOW AND THE SHAKES ARE STILL HERE. LESSONS LEARNED. I'VE ALREADY GOT MY SCARS. THEY TRY TO DISTRACT ME.

I memorized the numbers of the three nearest emergency clinics.
It was easy.
They all end in: PLAN.

But I didn't plan.
I never do.

I'm scared still, that next time,
oh, God,
you won't notice me, and the Adirondack wind
will stop
to tousel my hair.

AND IT WON'T BE RAINING.

Girls like me are a dime a dozen.
Usually found drunk off someone else's money on a saturday night,
dry-humping the arm of a beautifully upholstered leather couch--
for free, because girls like me don't accept money from furniture for sexual favors.

I go to Starbucks and order a venti-sized ice water with not too much ice
because I have a knack for being obnoxious and I can't get enough of the green straws.

I smoke clove cigarettes because I love the reddish-brown color of the papers they're wrapped in.

Girls like me shop in thrift stores
because we can find clothing there that has been out of style for several seasons.

We like to sew-- but only for ourselves.

A boy I met from Kent told me I was an old spirit because my skirt fell below my knees
and because I wear cardigans when its cold out. I thought that was a bad thing
until we played tonsil hockey on the back deck and he asked me what kind of knickers I was wearing.

Girls like me don't wear white sunglasses in public. But we love to try them on in
department stores and make faces at ourselves in the mirror wishing we could
rock the white like skinny blond girls.

Girls like me have crushes on their best friends for years
before they make out at a party
and carry on as the best of friends like nothing ever happened.

I have a new favorite color every week and I buy movies based solely on the cover art.

Girls like me love bright colors and gaudy jewelry, but are afraid to wear them.

I love the feeling of the wind in my hair, and I only remember to brush it out
if I'm with someone else who doesn't care.

Girls like me love to have crushes on strangers but always lose interest if their stranger likes them back.
Girls like me savor secret smiles because they can be so much sweeter than kisses if no one sees.
Girls like me are better at hating than they are at loving, but they never give up because
girls like me are romantics.

I want three kids. And i want them to call my best friends "Auntie"
and draw pictures for them on their birthdays.

And i want my husband to think it's really weird, but
carry on humoring my whims because he loves me like the stars themselves.

Girls like me don't believe in miracles or angels.
We put faith in revenge and libidos.

Girls like me are a dime a dozen.

I do something every day with you in mind
that actively brings me closer to death.

I try not to have both hands on the wheel
at any one time. I slouch,

And I leave the roof open so the sun shines
behind my glasses and I can't see well.

I went tanning once. I don't use sunblock,
helmets or PFD's.

I think about having unprotected sex
with strangers. I'm addicted to caffeine

and I recently started smoking. I go for
walks late at night. Alone.

When I see you, you remind me of darkness.
your eyes are night time,

I am on a country road, hyenas howling,
and red necks shooting guns at Beemers.

I know the constellations in your eyes,
and all I want is to be in the sky at night.

Kissing boys with the sky in their eyes
is like dancing in an English rain storm:
Exotic monotonism, open daily.

A true bohemian has a crooked smile and sailors' teeth.
yours look like bolts in a chain gang.

I've been thinking a lot lately about life, the universe and everything.
I've been trying my best to keep all thoughts self-centered, narcissistic,
and egocentrical, but everynow and then a fleeting jab of pity lights my brain
for the starving children in malasia, or indonesian sweat shop labor.
I, like the rest of the world, do my best to banish such thoughts of
sympathy and carry on believing in the inauthenticity of my penniless bohemianism.

This notebook of recycled paper and colorful threads cost my roommate $4.25
on my 19th birthday. my hip ride-- a 1992 volvo, black with leather interior,
in all its chik-ness cost me $21 todeay for my state inspection,
as opposed to the $10 a new chevy or an ancient caddy would have cost me.
That's $11 for the image. (And for a car that will actually get me places
with sufficient reliability.)

I'm sitting in a Starbucks-- only because it's the soul coffeeshop within
forty minutes of home with couches. Besides the one I work at, and it is my
first day of since... last Wednesday. The macchiato I'm drinking cost me $3.60.
The bagel I smuggled in from Panera Bread cost me 89 cents. Just being here
is taking away from my penniless image, regardless of the homemade skirt that I
shlepped together out of old T-Shirts and the fact that my first stop of the day
was at the Salvation Army for old furniture and more T-Shirts for another skirt.

The woman at the counter knows me by name. I've only seen her here once before,
but apparently we are the best of friends these days. Her name is Mandy, as she
so kindly reminded me. She wants to take me to "Jitters Cafe" for some
vegan cuisine sometime. She winks at me. She's a sweetheart, but she's really
not my type. I like my women hard and mean. If i wanted hot and spicy I'd
go to wing night with the guys. I wink back anyway.

From my seat I can see massive light-up plastic signs blaring corporate oppression
in the faces of trendy passersby. Starbucks, of course is one of them.
Pearl Vision Center, is another. The worst place in town to get an eye exam.
Burger King-- royalty of all fast food chains. Regal Cinema. Sears. Evia motors--
I can see the red and white of Target, but the true facade is still blocked
by perfectly pruned pine trees.

I was at work yesterday for five hours with the worst hangover of my college carreer.
Every coffee and muffin order sounded like a fire alarm rattling around the remainder
of m brain that I haven't killed off with the occasional drug use and my self-proclaimed
alcoholism. My boss just smiled at my misery. Further punishment would just be
excessive. She was 19 once. She knows.

I've considered bulimia. But my teeth are bad enough as it is. And I just couldn't
handle anorexia-- I guess I'll never be as cool and trendy as my mother, who is
vicariously nurtured these days through my father and me over dinner. To each their own.
I gave up being concerned-- she doesn't want to hear it.

My goal in life is to stand up on a stage and recite a poem that makes the cool kids go
"sha-klack-klack" and whistle at me through their teeth. But until then I will continue
to bolster my penniless bohemianism and write poems with no ending that drip like
cold acid off the recycled pages of my heart.

Hemingway was bestseller. A classic.
Too bad his mother had to spread her
Legs when she did, he lived through
Both world wars but they wouldn’t let him fight.
Said he couldn’t see well enough
To shoot a masochistic Germans wearing
Camouflage while representing his country and
Laying his life on the line for something
Any eighteen year old child crusader
Couldn’t quite understand. He wrote about it instead.
So it goes.

* * *

This is a second try at a poem that I promised
Several people I wouldn’t write. I call it:
Supper: Second Course. I spent too much
Money on the first course
Only to throw it in the waste basket at the end of the day.
And fish it out in the morning.
And write this.

* * *

A heroin rush is like losing your virginity to
Your older brother’s best friend.
Hemingway would have agreed with this.
He fucked his older brother’s girlfriend out of spite
When he got rejected from enlistment.
Not really.
But he should have.
Instead he tried to sleep with the enlistment officer
Only to discover that neither of them were gay.
That didn’t work.
It’s not true either.
It happens.

And that is very much like a heroin rush,
In this world of one track minded doll house people
Who have congressed, institutionalized,
And declared themselves generation X/Y/Z.

* * *

The only similarity is very badly filmed pornography
Leaked to the internet and sold for substance funds
At fifty cents a viewing, or best offer.

* * *

I have never read Hemingway. Nor will I probably ever.
I didn’t know him. I do not know if he preferred
Cats or dogs. I do not know his mother’s name.
He doesn’t know me either.
We’re hens in this chicken coop of erotically fantastical
Illusions of time and space.

Actually, he’s probably a rooster.
But I am a hen.
So it goes.

* * *

I found a manuscript in the garbage can.
It said:
Springtime is a garden of de—

The end.

I don't dream anymore.

I got home from school a week ago, and I have been living with my parents, and sleeping in the bed I grew up in, and eating off the table my father made, shaker style, when I was eleven. I learned what lemon grass is. I found something in the refridgerator that looked like ill rhubarb. It was lemon grass. There's nothing yellow or romantic about it, but it is one of the few things my mother can eat without having to lay on the floor and gurgle Benedril so that she can speak and breathe again, or without breaking out in rashes on her skin and in her mouth. She got really thin.

She wears my hand me downs now. She called me at school a few weeks ago to ask what the big bag of clothes was for, sitting out by the dryer in the hallway. I said to donate it. I cleaned out my closet while I was home of all the clothes I had finally come to terms with never being able to fit into again. "So you don't want any of it?" she asked. Of course I didn't. I don't like useless clutter.

When I got home I noticed an old pair of my jeans in her laundry basket, and a corduroy skirt I bought when I was fifteen hanging in the closet with everything else less than a size seven.

I remember a dream I had once. It was about myself. And a boy. A boy who used to come to the cafe where I work. He would buy the cheapest thing we sold and leave me the change of a dollar in the tip basket. He would then sit and watch me work until it started to get painful. Finally, he'd nod at me and leave. I was having his child. We were happy, in a strange, at peace with the world kind of way.

When my dad came down to pick me up at the end of the semester a dozen people were in my dorm room to give me kisses and say goodbye. They helped carry my things to the car. My ex rolled up the carpet. Dad found my condom stash, all of the unopened contraceptives we didn't use, and told me not to forget them. I put them in my purse and thanked him for reminding me. My ex was half way outside. We never did it on the carpet. We should have.

I saved the best hugs for last and cried in the car. I don't cry. Apparently I don't dream, either, these days.

Flannel is underrated and jersey sheets stretch out too quickly when you don't wash them often enough. My cat loves me. She makes me feel beautiful when she brings me her rodent trophies from hunting in the woods. She hasn't done that in a while.

But she will.

Requisite Erotic Poem

all i did was catch your eye
but now suddenly there are
10,000 ants crawling through
my vagina, over my thights and
exploding on my nipples like
pop rock.s
i tried to run away but your line
caught my spine and reeled me
in to yoru fishing pole where
i dangled, embarrassed, but
delerious because the worm just
tasted so good.
i love chocolate covered strawberries at weddings,
but right now chocolate covered cherries
are making me hot, so
dip me in chocolate and let me
harden so that you can bite
me off in chunks and i can
feel my inhibitions melting on your tongue.
things just got dirty and
i know my mother is going to be
angry when she sees this mess
on her sheets, but right now
all i can think of is you and me,
you on me,
you in me.
a dance like this, a romance
like this is the kind of thing
that they can't even show on
late night television, but you know
that every grandma wakes up and
looks for it anyway while
grandpa smiles in his sleep
because grandma takes her
teeth out before bed.
and i only just got my teeth in you,
and i'm rolling my tongue around your
oreola while you squirm beneath the
weight of my body. but the
fun doesn't stop there because i
work my way down, holding your breast
in my hand while my other hand
grips your side and i kiss your
navel and run my lips over
the skin before your cunt. and
i call it your cunt becuase you
once told me you liked that and
i like that, too.
by now my thighs are gripping
your knees, tightly like hippies
hug trees, and my nails are
raking red grooves down the outsides of your thighs and
my tongue is painting paisly
on the insides.
a spring has sprunk in the valley
and i move to catch the nectar,
pressing in and running my tongue
up the crevace, pausing to fondle your
clit with my taste buds,
searching, searching, reaching
searching, harder, harder,
faster, deeper, slower until
there.
the moan.
the earth-shattering, orbit-inspiring,
life-threatening, ultimate ending
moan. the "i never want you out of me"
moan, the "i want to fuck you
five times a day till my vag falls to pieces
and even after it does i
don't ever want you to stop" moan.
the end all be all.
the apple of my eye.
the cherry in my pie.

TRUE STORY:


                                                                                                                                            miners meet god and burn.

        My mother didn’t believe me
            So I don’t expect you to,
                But I want you to try me

                                                                    Because sweeter than honey and rawer than jam there’s a part of the story where I hold life by the hand and I tell her not

                                                                                          to jump.


                        But then you showed up and you told me to mind my own business
                        And you didn’t understand when I told you that life
        Was my business because you and i
        Can’t without her.

You don’t want to.
Last night you did and strands of plastic beads dripped off your tongue when you began to dance in the puddles of acetate accumulating on the floor.


Clearly my mother’s still alive but when you looked into my eyes
I saw her die.

Slowly.
You undressed me with your eyes.
But I prefer it when you use your hands.

the fridge is warm and empty,
the bed is cold and dry,
but i refuse
to cry.

the clouds below me are like albino lilly pads,
seeping in and out of eachother, molding, changing, breathing.
i swear i can feel them under my bare feet, between my naked
toes. it doesn't feel like feathers. it doesnt feel
like moss or whipped cream. it feels like cloud.
it feels clean and pure, it feels like white and grey,
it feel slike i am treading on the hair of an angel.
i am breathing the breath of the gods.
i don't want to come down. higher than drugs,
consciousness is overrated and my head is spinning,
weaving rainbows out of cloud dust, sewing blankets
without lining, pillows without feathers, rivers without riverbeds
because the skies are boundless
and i am boundless,
bounding from lily pad to lilly pad
naked and alone because that is how we are meant to be and
screaming in the silence
without and echo
without and echo
without an echo
arms spread wide, eyes closed, humanity staring, up,
and i know they can see my vagina through the gaps in the clouds.

I am immune to love.

Now, I realize that everyone has a certain “ailment of the heart,”
a signed and dated doctor’s note saying they can’t “play in love” today,
or perhaps they had a close relative recently die from a severe case of love,
and it’s too soon, the pain is still too deep.

But, that’s not my case.
I am, quite simply, just immune to love.

I’m not sure how it came about (or didn’t, as it were)—
I didn’t sign up for my love vaccine when the epidemic was going around during junior high.
I didn’t practice scary faces in the mirror so I could frighten it away when it came knocking on my window.

And it did knock on my window.
That damned love came right into my room.
It shared my table.
It shared my shower.
It shared my bed.
Love loved me.

And yet,
I am still immune to love.

My last relationship—
Six months, give or take a week or few,
lots of love and a handful of cold showers
(together and alone).
Long walks, late night phone calls, roses, Eskimo kisses, good movies, bad movies, dancing, lace, lingerie, lollipops… and love.

Well, sort of.

I wish there was a doctor I could go to.
The anti-immunization doctor, the “put-the-love-in-me” doctor.
A regular Sylvester McMonkey McBean to come by in his Fix-It-Up machine
Put the star on my belly and put me in the game.
In the love game.
Where there are no losers, only really bad players
who really only join the team for free the pizza parties,
and who tend to get forgotten in the batting order when they spend both innings swatting flies in left field—for both teams.

But that forgotten left-fielder,
that loser in love, that star-struck tom boy with the starless belly
and starry-eyes because she just got hit in the head with a line-driven ball of love,
always returns to the dugout with a pretty bouquet
of daisies and dandelions, and a sunburn so red she looks like a valentine
in a baseball cap, cleats, and a pink ribbon for good luck

with love.

I never made it as an athlete, but I must be a left-fielder at heart.
The line-drive of love driven at me broke my glasses and left me with a shiny reminder that I am, and will continue to be, utterly, completely, and rather depressingly immune
to love.

My mother tells me that love is a waste of time.
I’m in school to learn about Napoleon and integrals not romance and love.
She assures me that it really doesn’t get good till after college,
she says that high school sweethearts changing their lives for each other is silly
and that you should marry the first time for money.

The second time for love.

Regardless,
I am left devastated in a heap of loveless lovetry,
caught up a tragic state of romantic poverty,
staring blankly at the surprising extensive selection of lingerie at Target and realizing
again
that lace, feathers, satin, sexy see-through g-string thong underwear or not,

I will still remain immune to love.

Tomorrow’s not concrete to me
Because there’s a brick wall between now
And yesterday. And all I can hear are
The whispers of last week.
So I need to speak
To you now so my words don’t get lost
In the wind. Swallowed by time
That doesn’t know the way out
Of my rhymes but still manages to
Eat away at what is mine.
Minute by minute, second my second
My life is flashing before my eyes
But not even this disguise can
Save me from what has already begun.
So I lay back and I dream.
Because these dreams are mine
And not even time
Can take them away.
Now trapped in my head
Because I’d rather be stuck here instead
Of in line behind you.
When you tell me not to go through
When you tell me not to go through
The pearly gates to tomorrow it’s
Only your sorrow speaking up
At me from the shadows.
I still don’t know what they’re saying.
Last week won’t shut up and there’s
Children in my vision with
Ribbons in their hair, ribbons
In the wind. Is it so hard to see?
Open your eyes and realize
That all I can be
Is just me and I don't
Want to run but I
Want to be free.
Not tomorrow, Today.
Now. Now because I don’t want
To wish that this week will shut up
When I’m living 7 days from now
Wondering how
I made it out and wondering how
I will ever make it back again.
I’m riding this pen across the page
And right now I have no age
I am a being, I am a concept,
I am my mind and there’s nothing
That I would rather be because
Right now tomorrow’s talking to me.
It’s saying: “speak up,
If I can’t hear you nobody can.”
I’m not scared, but I’m beating my fists
Against the brick wall between me
And my past. Because yesterday
I didn’t know this shit I’d be up in
Today and tomorrow, tomorrow
Is another page and this book
Can only hold so much ink
Before I turn to blood.
I haven’t seen God in months,
We haven’t spoken in days,
In days that I spend sitting
Writing staring in the mirror
Hoping that I’ll see something that
I could never see before.
And the sound of His voice
Is only on the other side of the wall
And every time I hear it
I never want to turn away
Because who knows if tomorrow
He will speak to me, who knows it
Tomorrow He will choose to know me,
Because I don’t know who
He is and He still hasn’t told me,
Who knows if tomorrow
Will ever be
The kind of now
That that today could never be.
Who knows if tomorrow
I will ever be
The kind of me
That I could never be.
Who knows if tomorrow
Will ever be
The kind of now
That today
Is finally
Shaping up
To be.