rhapsodising in aqua

i got drunk at a symphony with my high heels beneath the seat in front of me. my toes and knees stuck out of the holes in my stockings. too many nights spent stumbling against table legs and kicking my shoes off on the dance floor and kneeling on carpet with a hand on the back of my head. too many sideways glances from well-dressed folks when i close my eyes and let my body sway to the violins. too many stairs to navigate at intermission.

with my fingers stuck through the tears in the side of my shirt, i drink whisky on the bathroom floor. it feels honest. sober hearts are leaking off of drunken tongues and it only seems fair to make sure my ears are equally embalmed.

she asks what's making my heart beat so fast and i turn my palm toward the ceiling, stretching out my arm, eager prey revealing its neck to a predator. she closes her eyes and walks her fingers down my cephalic vein, reading aloud, "two alcoholics working in the same kitchen will always bump elbows. when we wake up from dreams in which we talked to the dead, our feelings on seeing them again will be conflicted. sometimes knowing there's no afterlife is fucking depressing." her eyelids part and i fidget with the runs on my thighs.

(twenty-)one gun salute

 i shoot for the impossible knowing that it won't come
and you think i would know better
now that i am twenty-one
i've been bored, i've been so bored
and i've been numb and dumb
and i'm still pretty young
besides, i'm really getting so adeptat preventing my own happinesscomplacency breeds latency in that space it sits deep in my chest
and the thing that beats beneath your breast has been at rest
but i try my best to see how close i can get to it
'cause i get productive when i get upset

and lyricists are even worse [june2010]

     don't make friends
     with poets

     :


     when they miss you,
     their hands drift
     over their desk



     past the phone

     for a pen

tonight i can write the saddest lines

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.
- pablo neruda

with the television on with the sound down, i don’t feel so tough

if i could travel back in time, i would collapse at my own feet. i would press my forehead to the ground and clench my fingers together on the nape of my neck. i would say, "you are eighteen years old, and you know everything. tell me how it feels to know everything. tell me how it feels to be the highest you have ever been, and still looking upward. tell me how it feels to belong."

they would wedge their knees under me and pull me up into their arms. the stubble on their head would scrape against my cheek as they leaned forward to smile into the hair behind my ear. they would describe things they know i know: the room with the horrible carpet, the anticipation and longing, the knowledge of a net behind you like the feeling of an annoying sibling's fingertip not-touching-you on a long car ride.

if i could travel back in time, i would be a child cowering in the arms of my younger self. i would say, "the power is yours. you are eighteen years old, and you know everything. you can stop me from existing." they would kiss my neck and cup my jaw and look at me with pitying eyes. i would face the gaze like the abyss does. "it would be best if i didn't exist."

fundamental frequency [feb29/2012]

     oh, lover

     -- and i am sorry,
     as ever,
     for calling you that--

     your voice still rings
     unlike any other
     through any amount of wall
     or space


     its cadence and tone
     turning my head
     as if you were screaming my name
     over and over

     but if anything is
     over
     it's our days
     of name-screaming



     so with all apologies
     for my terms of endearment,
     i beg you, my love,
     to please be careful
     where you speak

     because every small vibration
     of your throat
     is tectonic plates shifting
     under my feet