stories my friends tell me about their childhood

my neighbour's screen door is singing to me
"hello" "someone's near; keep yr secrets
low to the ground"
but instead i put my glass down

once, when i was 6 i let a balloon go

attached was a secret and my address

we never thought they'd really come back
and they didn't; instead a letter a sympathy
delivered the humiliation, " accidents happen. i
was afraid of the dark too."

the acknowledgment-- too much to suffer

i never told another secret

Um and yeah

There was talk of excitement or surprise
But let's be more clear.
Let's name everything it couldn't be or everything I wasn't:

A waterfall
A tournaquet
The life of or instead of

Or time didn't stand still

There was a street light
Music was playing
Hearts were (of course) beating

And still
(name it)

Not enough

WE HAVE YET TO DETERMINE

AVAILABILITY

IN THE IDEA OF SOLITUDE
time doesn't shirk the wanderlust
we notice so briefly

the xx is playing and your hands are soft

the phone is ringing (as the glass is up to your mouth
we were almost tender)

we were almost tinder
your mouth is on fire

and i am a faggot


-------------------------------------------

i let go (first)

The year's not over

In the airport I think of genet.
The immediacy of solitude & the helpfulness of smiling.
I barely took a picture this entire trip but

lots of ideas
for a new chapbook/ art work

the morning soft and hot
wrapped hands


the tree outside my window finally shed her leaves
and now i can see a distance (or was it darkness)


from my window
a lack a predictability

bones to glass bill says bones to glass


ben's on the phone says he can't do it alone anymore
needs a hand

tell me what it's like to be a man
alejandro says today

ale tell me what it's like to be 7

dear world
tell me what it's like to be alive and i'll tell you what it's like to fake it fine

watching jericho in bed; i wouldn't julie d. you

time passes
i know mostly b/c hair grows...
the sun sets and hands that once moaned
and yearned to be naked/ free from mittens/ are
and find bicycle handles, balloons, hands

and that was all i really wanted
it wasn't the samurai face, the toss of glasses into the night, or
the syncopation of sighs

and that was what i couldn't say earlier, that nothing really changed
suns set hair grows hands are just hands

and i have two

we will keep the porch light on

outside the fortress of solitude
oh the snow
riding home in it/ tongue out the way the ground lay
so still


i am trying to find new ways to keep my hands busy;

i pull the covers up to the pillows of my bed/
i tuck the chair under the lip of the desk/
i let time continue ticking

embroider molecules/ turn the music up
ride the tide out to see and

we may lay our head down but we are not

asleep


on the ride home
it's drunk kids in t-shirts
it's ladies finding work
and finally it's deserted streets
quiet and assuring

and sometimes i think that's how we do
tonight i was a book-face/ i was feather-fall
and some dude wondered couldn't you be more;
what're you here for/ why'd you come
and i couldn't only say i'm a member of the international
troublemakers; it's a party, n'est-ce pas

i didn't show up to fuck/ i showed up
to fuck shit up

i'm not looking for waterfalls, geysers, or drip drip drip
spicket dicks; dude the only cascade i want is made of hair or
maybe ribbons

so if yrr gonna do this right- talk to me
in vowels; i'll reply in consonance

and if rendering doesn't kill you first, wait for lesbian bed death trials

"2009-- don't fight it."

we've all got choices

i'm glad i don't know if anyone reads this thing. i don't think i have it linked to anything.
so i mostly just type whatever i'm thinking about at any given moment... mostly diary-style poem-y things
that maybe i can pull a line from here and there.

so tell me about yr life, the little bird says
to the grass were you always so
big

or

i've got cold feet / not
cold shoulders

(what does that mean?)



when you say palatial are you admitting yr fear of confined spaces
and if it's true yrr tongue's clip - what is lying now
and what of yr hands -- mountain

(the candor of oceans is their tempest)


please turn to page 185 for attacking the dragon; turn to page 67 for laying down yr weapon and raising the white flag; turn to page 122 to meet a friend and disregard the threats of doom/destruction

sometimes (most times) it's easy to forget how much you are loved

the years i lived

in a cave
my mother's never come to visit
not once in the ten years since we shared rooms and slippers
and so many movies

she's never seen me in the streets of chicago or new york;
the state we live in barely holds us together
it's liable to burst at the seams- pennsylvania

and what can i say for myself
i ask the clouds

am i really so small
the mountains reply


we all turn to dust sometime

who needs sleep when there's life to live?!

there is nothing so delicate as a heart
3 am phone calls. there's crying and oh there is consolation
and though my shoulders are so far from you--
somehow comfort.
and on yr birthday you are so drunk that you say so.
and still we are both so thankful for eachother.

--------------

clouds move
pizza gets eaten
theory's discussed

--------------------------------------


and do you remember that time we went to brooklyn to eat ice cream w/ matt & kim
when there was a magic not states btwn us
and you were so excited - ice cream spilled out of yr mouth as you talked
yrr hands moving and everyone was worried (you could tell by their eyes)
that you'd drop it and you didn't

-------------

but then neither one of us did.
"i didn't drop the soap but yr hands are around my throat" the lyrics of my youth;
today i began more formally my project of 2k9; in such a little way an explanation
of scars
----

oh alejandro; las calles son largas:
souviens-tu?
------------------

dear mystery person this is from/for/to you:

writing/riding home in the rain
i want to meet you in the street and when we hug
i’d smell yr hair either r&b would be playing
or you’d tell me that coco rosie is yr favourite band
and then we would watch a movie about problems we already know
about but pretend to not have like the way no one can say yr name
right or how sometimes there’re worms in apples and you’d look over
and you’ll be crying b/c the kitten is playing w/ the string and i’ll look over
and i’ll be laughing at how somehow we’re both laughing and stalin was defeated
and even though we aren’t our mothers– at least now we know where they were
coming from
-october 2005:

years ago and for so long the same feelings
and today-- i ride my bike anywhere to see a friend/ i watch the clouds/
and i can always put on r&b; lone wolf vs. gentle giant:
january 2009: there are kittens shooting rainbow lazerbeams out of their eyes.
-----

okay, change the channel;
flip the record.
it's not about a new year.
it's about a new today.
(burn the sage)

i miss the artic summers

listening to music on the internet
in the morning/ knowing there's so much to do
but it's pink pyjamas but it's today for today but it's at least this is different

it's not quiet in the house
(not at all)
and i shy away from noisemakers
black hole sun my way into today

last night no bad dreams
but lately it's so rare
to not... where did this anxiety come back from
why was clint eastwood stalking me?
when did ll cool j become a stealth psycho cult killer.
these are my dreams. the suspense of death.
"fear is the mind killer."


i miss the champagne daze of summertime:
me
a bike
a book
champagne toasts to getting through work to each sunset to smiles on the street
when i lived w/ a rooftop view of the skyline
the days i rode each day into the sunset
when i lone wolfed all the way to team ghost before it ghosted

and it's another year and the plans laid out are so simple
here's to seeing if the past could ever catch up w/ the present

hearts abound

totalmente

this is what i used to look like world. my favourite shirt. and a pixure by some of my favourite people. is it that we lose track of time together or that we lose track of ourselves. in the evolution of inevitability tonight i have to say you look beautiful and the only thing nostalgic is the technology we've neglected

who needs snow in december?

there's a top chef marathon/ and that movie happy endings
this is just like last holiday season somehow
but i'm here in philadelphia
something feels normal (and this is something that amazes me:
the sun still sets)

before you left do you remember the purple in the sky
more than lamentations and letdowns

can we say we'll never start over philadelphia
and we say we'll just remember eachother for who we are



----------------aliens in america translating egypt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rENoOBFrOlw


let's just pretend that it never really happened

i forget about louis vuitton as i sleep;

now i have a VL stamped on my chest

i forgot i made a space here for myself;
so i'll you a secret, world if yrr listening, this right here
is for you and for me. it's us and no one, not the economic crisis, sinking california,
internet viruses, nor the international luddite society can stop us.

i woke up today thinking about clean spaces and how we navigate space as people with
bodies of experiences; della watson and jackie gimble; surprise ambushes; and all the brave men i know like amelia earhart and indiana jones or miranda july or roberto winstead. i woke up and i'm wondering where my grandma is or if i can ever really remember what it was like to have her around.

i woke up today and my heart didn't hurt from love loss (thanks jeanette for giving me a measuring stick)

i woke up w/ adventure on the brain.

i mean, i guess the great thing is: i woke up

p.s. what ever happened to jamie stewart?

in the wintertime: these are the things i think about at work

"and how do we get ourselves into these situations/ surveying the land"
btwn yr body and mine

"[something about the tenderness of gloves; closed communication; and truncation; safe romance/romanticles: we were almost tender]"

"couldn't we just be feathers. we'd work so well together"

cookies
cookies
cookies
and how spacious pennsylvania really is

26- i'm taking you home and making you mine

in the country i can't help but think of
nothing
there is an absolute calm about it
and my best friend is everywhere
we go to dinner
we go farm and play w/ the dogs and kittens
and we collect the chickens' eggs
and talk and talk and she shows me this summer's
gardens and we laugh and we sigh and make our way
inside and this is what i mean when i say we are unstoppable

this year i was so worried for my birthday/ the abstract wants of fun and friends
and bigger is better and here in the softness of pennsylvania
i remember everything i was trying to forget

this birthday is different from usual

so. in philadelphia-- things can be a bit late.
like the fall. but it was absolutely amazing.