My new words of optimism are:
(deviations from the oracle's breath)
hope
wonder
courage,
courage,
courage.

Move past this.
Move.

Sugar does not quell the fire.

Unintentional binges. Strudel tastes dry in my aged mouth. Aging. Aging with you? Sometimes it's a possibility. I wonder; what do the stars think? What does God think?

braces
cheese
pinky down
amygdala spa
sms. brain
pinky up
smile
loose tooth
whistle
balloon
to the carpet

Glass leaking from a disproportionate ceiling of decaying decisions melting indecently in the air proposes a perplexing situation.

In the train of my thoughts, and the rigor of my vitality, I've come to ponder scrupulously the indwelling moments that cannot satisfy my persevering greed.

Blush; tingling knees; flapping. All signs of indecency. Needless to say, illegal activity in the concentration camps of the concentration.

Fat hope, provocative condescension. I do not know; I do not bother.

Icelandic beats from an indie restaurant ten yards down the road seemed to share the same, demure indecisiveness as my ego. Zeniths of noise cascading to some sullen architecture of sound; similar to my affect. Or, in this case, my mood.

Who truly knows how to feel? And when it is appropriate? And why we must feel? And to whom we should feel these things? The attitude is as defiant as a plucky 16-year-old. "I don't know, and I don't care."

Hans Seyle might have told me that nothing is wrong; that I cannot adapt to the environment. That homeostasis is screwed up, within.


Honestly. What do I feel? And why?

Waiting time is the incubation period;
waiting is wasting. Waiting is unproductive.
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting...

I am the only one allowed to define myself.

Smudged intuition, perched on the
branch of "know life no-nothings";
granted, I know what you're thinking.
You think "My face is a maze, and my
clothes just hide me, scar me in
lathered tenants of blue and cream,
and seize me." I'm away on a fairy
plane, a train, zooming down oceans
and street ways, lit lamps that whisper,
banter gaily in the nightfall of Dooms Day;
a time of departure and inspiration and
incrimination. A sense of fire, youth lit
and glossing--stronger, tougher;
we are overflowing with temptations.
The meek, the wealthy, the strong guts
and hole punchers. It's a tainted euphoria,
home of the glazed locked phase. And
here I lay, staring at your threaded eyebrows
and pumps; long legs, thin, perfect. Makeup.
It's a flyaway, a spark. Here, in the present.
Now, in the moment, swiftly floating,
ballooning up to a purposeless roadshow.
I love the wind. The current. I'll figure out
where the smoke takes me; inhaling the fumes
to toxicity. I will enrage the status quo, and
to odds and ends this rage will keep on
busting up the curves and loquacious spindles.

You look so strong yet you are so light in mind and soul,
with your lofty skin.

Doll face

Bright Eyes's eyes cannot leak,
his ribbon lips cannot curve to the floor;
he has nothing to say (what good is a
mouth that cannot twitch?), yet clutched
to his cotton spinal column is a
string wire that - when tugged - induces
the routine purging of optimism:
"I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy,"
he caws, every syllable withering one
letter after the other:
after the rope is pulled like child's play,
runts that dig their fingers into firecrackers
exploding on fine wire, fit for executions.

I was in a classroom. It seemed like kindergarten. The class was asked to make cards for somebody. Not sure who, but it didn't matter. I didn't have paper to work with, so I looked around the room. There was a card on the desk -- navy blue with a large red heart lined with lace hot glued on top.

Inside the card, though, led to some disappointment--and intrigue. The card had already been filled with someone else's words. Words of passion, regret, longing. Words not meant to be read by me. And yet, the card's recipient shared my first name.

Was there a mix up? Maybe this card was handed to me because someone thought it was for me:

C---! C---! How I long to see you again! I'm sorry for what happened. I miss you so much. It was all my fault. We will meet again. But first, I have to let you know what happened.

I was invading someone else's world. Perhaps two lovers, who knows? And yet, the card was with me. And I continued reading:

* * *

I had to leave because things weren't safe. If there had been some sort of infection teeming through my body, you are the last person I would be with: no matter how much I want to stand by you, stroke your cheek, or share a smile with you, I could not bear to see you like me. Sick. Weak. Gross.

I joined the military after we parted, perhaps because I was scared. I wanted an excuse to leave you behind. The time me last met, there was something I never told you. That fountain where I last saw your almond eyes and tan skin bears all my secrets.

You left for a minute or two. Or three. Or four. I had forgotten why. In your absence, I felt a paroxysm finely creep through my stomach. A subtle tremor at first, leading me to ignore it. Then almost instantly my body urged my conscience to kneel at the fountain's side and hang over the edge. My insides reverberated uncontrollably, and I began to spit out worms into the water in a continuous cascade. The worms swam in the water after the dive from my tongue; if you were, I could only imagine the mortification in your eyes. The regret exposed on your forehead. The fright tethered to your lips.

So I left you, never to return until I was better. Until I had some answers.

That is why you never saw me leave. That is why I never saw you return.

* * *

The teacher came in to collect our work. "C---, I need your card." She told me.
"I'm not--"
"Please turn it in. You had plenty of time."
Defeated, I handed it in and walked out of the classroom, brimming with questions and regrets. I found myself walking by the routine forest trail I use to go home. A shortcut.

Suddenly, an impulsiveness to stand still paralyzed my body. Whatever finger I tried to move wouldn't even point. Whatever foot I attempted to kick wouldn't even tiptoe. My stomach then lit with a brewing flame within that could not be seen or extinguished.

I tried to run, and I kneeled.
I tried to holler, and I gagged.

Liquid streamed from my mouth onto the dirt path like a creek. I tried to cry and realized that my tears could not even comfort me with moisture--all my fluids were decanting the floor beneath me.

And inch by inch, I felt it crawl out. It grabbed my aged molars, first, then wriggled its way through my esophagus to have a good look at the outside. It grabbed my front teeth and stuck its nose suspiciously toward the floor, attempting to discern its whereabouts and safety. After deciding that everything was clear, I felt both its elbows touch the corners of my lips and its abdomen sliding down the apex of my tongue. Its legs made one firm kick out of my throat onto my bottom molars. Then it swiftly took a plunge onto the dirt and ran off to the trees--absolutely noiseless.

Wrote this on December 27, 2009. Recently unearthed.

1

What is the use of the day and the night? I’ve often wondered about why a sun should need to perturb the sleeper’s eyelids. Perhaps it is among the most despised disturbances in life, waking from a much preferred—or much needed—slumber. Yet waking up also assumes that there is a life you belong to; chores that need to be fulfilled, jobs that need to be worked, people that need to be loved. The same cycle is the concept of life simply going because that is just how it is. I concur with Robert Frost’s draconian opinion about life: “It goes on.”

Conversely, sleep is as much a foe as it is a friend. But who can hate sleep? A patient, perhaps, etherized on a lonely hospital bed with an absent mind and soul; a widowed grandmother alone at home, hiding from old age; or even a youthful boy clinging onto his blanket-shield to evade his fears of a dark bedroom.

I’ve never been a spiritual person. Sometimes, when my story leaks to unctuous others, they talk of incubus and spiritual attacks with perverse conviction. That Satan had been summoning demons to intrude my nightly relapses. I know, in all earnest, that the events that took place were far from the norm. But I can never judge if someone was trying to “tell” me something; a human, a demon, an angel… maybe even my own conscience had something to say.

Yes, who am I to know? A first year college student, at the time, and I had yet to explore the strange world around me. It’s fascinating how after meeting only one person, all the difference had been made in my narrow world. Yet, I was still nauseated from the high school bubble—the social awkwardness and the criticisms for just being. I wanted to be alone, forever. I wanted to believe that life held more meaning—that I had more purpose to breathe the intoxicating fumes of Southern California than to die and have my ashes inhaled by some other living creature.

If anything, the experience only kindles my spirit.

Timekeeper

By ten o'clock, I said
to watch the time;
I heard the muffled sigh of evening
rub the grass fields that had been
licked by the sprinklers.
I heard your eye
insisting that it was only eight.
Tickled by my voice, it laughed at the sound
and fanned itself with two billowy folds of silk.
A white ribbon landed in my hand
after it rolled off your cheek
when you turned your face from the window.
I tied it back onto your neck
and wrapped the same cord onto my arm.
It felt like eight o'clock.

frivolous; levity - characterized by a lack of seriousness
salient - 1) prominent or conspicuous; 2) projecting or pointing outward; 3) leaping or jumping
docile - 1) easily managed; 2) easily trainable; "A docile dog"
demur - to make an objection

Lick the wounds;
scratch&smell it. Remember it;
remember how the dead skin wears down,
and how proud it is; knots on canvas,
bounding, trapped together.

Lick the saggy interpretation;
smile or frown:
"Happiness is a decision."
Tread in the sand,
imbibe yourself--
drown in each other; swim.
Balloon to the surface, with
appropriate detachment; nick the ropes
off colored air balloons;
let go-- let go-- let go--
Inhale, mesmerize. Exhale: trance.
Forget the little things (let go--),
forget the big things (let go--),
forget yourself (let go--),
forget it (let go--).

Baby Bird made an irenic proposal
away from the nested; an adamant
recoil from the twig pile, a yearning
to soar--off the unlidded cage--,
(never again) to relent to Eyas.

Fork, spoon, bowl, plate, paper, glass, porcelain:
disseminate. This court is in session; let the trial be--
(Oh, the pain. Nevermind that. We will continue,)
--begin. What did you see the other night?
Behind the pristine counters and knobs,
behind stiff waitresses with braces twice removed.
I saw on the glass door, upon walking in,
a snooty badge of hypocrity--two lines
converged and attached at the hip.
(Oh, the pain. Nevermind that. We will continue,)
Who handled you in the ostensible shine,
fit for the obsessive; glistering metal, flawless glare.
Tell me now; my mind begs of pencils and pens;
my body? Of bananas and bread.

3/1

Oh quaint and loving Jesu,
heal my battered wounds and morbid aphorisms.
Mend my fogged brain stem and stiff myocardium.
(I feel so hazy, like the white daisies
billowing on the hillsides--cloud-like.)
Ambivalent moodswings (perimenopausal, perhaps),
attract me to You like the chemotactically enamored
lymphocytes (with the immunogens).
Bless this bracketed heart,
Jesu--it's the soul of a nurse I must build
a rapport--a concord, a companionship.
(Perhaps a pedigree would clarify
the type of harmony I mean.)

I'm lost in the drizzle of the truth;
and it's more difficult to return
to the unlikeliness that is of You--Dear Jesu.