I started keeping track of time

When I was in fourth grade

And I hurried home

With the bright

Idea to stuff

Tissues

Into my

Shirt.

 

So,

The bus rolled up to the four way intersection

And I hurried home along Point Caution Drive,

And I opened the secret

Door in our driftwood fence and nervously sprinted

Down the pathway to my front door through the

Blips of sunlight serenely placed in the spring weather.

 

There was a vividness to spring at that age and it

Might only be because this was when I

Started keeping track of the seasons.

 

I opened the front door and my mom cooed to me that she was

Busy napping so I climbed up the staircase to our rooms and

Nervously, courageously pushed open my sister’s door

Knowing she wouldn’t be home for a bit

And I collected a wad of tissues from

Her dresser and stuffed them into

My shirt and then I walked over

To the mirror and with this

Strange foresight that

It mattered to

Genuinely

Want

To

Be a girl I

Said to myself…
“I like this!”

And I smiled,

It was not solemn at all.

 

And that’s when I started keeping track of time,

Because until the fourth grade,

Until that day my life had

More or less been a blur

Without much suffering

But then my life changed a bit,

Like the lives of many other human beings…

 

My life became, “Now, it has been x weeks since

I did that really bad thing.”

 

OK

Two homeless men were awoken by me

Today

OK

I’ve discovered the real reason that

One of them sleeps on the ramp…

OH NO…

There’s a poweroutlet concealed by the bushes,

So he plugs in a powerstrip and charges his

Devices all night long…

OH YES!

OH NO…

 

OH YES!!!

Honey, Seattle’s very different from San Juan

(bats comically long eyelashes, flashes black fingernails)

 

 

There’s something humiliating about realizing the only reason I feel good is because…

I do miss the trees,

I do miss the air and quiet walks through the woods…

With a silent contemplation for some time,

Only to expose it to the world after some weeks,

And find that within seconds all is forgiven,

It wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Now, I don’t want to seem hopeless…

I think the world is a very beautiful place.

 

However,

I’m starting to think that children are taught

“Two wrongs don’t make a right”

Not out of adult-wisdom,

But out of some desperation.

 

Teachers stare

Into the hearts of children,

Giving them the best advice,

Because they know very well

That unless it’s taken to heart,

When they are adults they will become

Little intellectually-justified monsters.

Gotta remember what he said to me,

What he said to me…

 

What a lovely person you were to have in my life,

I remember meeting you at a party three or four years ago,

And talking with you and Justin out on the deck.

I remember Justin was convinced some girl was

Going to Marry him,

Or something like that.

Continue reading →

Those in the most pain,

Cannot be heard.

The wounded lay in hospitals

And the severely handicapped are quiet too.

 

With wobbly legs you stretch out onto the Venusian surface.  Walking, the sky is dull black and the ground yellowed.  There is no hope…but you remain open, you cut the cascade short and listen.  You look at the ground, and you look at the sky, even though its staleness hurts and you are at a loss.

Kicked off of his perch, a new sea gull shows up.  This one sits further back.  Branches dart up in front of the building, like frayed broom sticks burned up in a house-fire.  Light slips past each branch and decorates the wall in full, so it is a beautiful day.  A dark green bush hides at the base of the trees, to mourn its place.

The seagull has crumpled its neck in comfort.  It is cold.

A siren call!  It blasts in a perfect sphere, radiating in six directions.  A siren call…it is heartless and honest and failing all at once.

The Gods have smoked a cigarette for the hour.  They lie back and gawk.  I am able to function more evenly.  At the age of 23…if any order is to re-form…it will take up that structure, of personalities.

Space ends in a salt-lick, a half-deposited waste-land and we’ve picked the word “history”.

We would be doomed, if not for the lovely personality of our problems.

Imagination and mind on a table of physical sensations.  Starting at the crown or the wobbly legs of the table, you walk through the space of your problems.  And find it a beautiful place that you were misunderstanding…

At this point the Sea Gull is gone.  I’ve gone too far.  The hour is 11:38 AM and I have to leave for the Frye Art Museum.  Today will be relaxed, hopefully.  Two 28 year old women live in a house nearby that I want to live in, and I have to ask my manager for Sunday off, to go talk to them.