i want to be a poet.

a photographer.

with big hair.

and long willowy arms.

with clothes that rest down my shoulders.

and forearms that chop wood.

and then i want to hold you.

in my poet's eyes and my photographer's dreams.

protected in my trunk forearms.

and you will be held.

and i'll hold you.

and i'll sleep behind you while you look into the old mirror on the floor.

and see yourself with a poet's eyes and in a photographer's dreams.

you'll never know what effect you'll have on others.

i like the opposite definitions of bound.

i bounded, now, am bound.

maplessly.blogspot.com

in the past week i have...

had the bones in my hand reconstructed.
watched more movies than i have since returning from paris.
taken lots of codeine.
been miserable in pain.
realized how lucky i am.
not worshipped those around me nearly enough.
hit on a girl from hong kong.
ate some wheat thins.
watched, in sucession, the lord of the rings trilogy.
lost weight.
sat.
not read.
learned how toput on my jeans with the snap fly with just my left hand.
practiced my left handed signature.
not showered. i can't get my torso wet because of a skin graft taken.
realized my place in the world.

that's it.

they drink a lot of wine in the south of france.

i passed out by a river outside of avignon and i can not even remember her name.

a snap shot that stays with you.

alters with time.

more desirable in retrospect.

- her hand through my hair.

i did not sleep last night. at all.

and as much thought as I give this, i know that she does not.

i used to save angry text messages and e-mails from exes to keep me in check in case i ever started to feel good about myself.

but lately, i have tried a different strategy. i read old e-mails from laura. she said something about color and me that resonates. it is odd when her words come into my head. when they do, i am more mindful and aware... my best self or something.

yesterday, i went back to my office where i had my summer internship. i have been replaced by a poinsettia. a poinsettia now sits on my desk, a big one. not only that though, no one has watered it. i have been replaced by a dying poinsettia.

coming home is a costume party, finding all the clothes from stages long past. did i really need this many flowy peasant shirts? or girl's jeans?

YES.

yes. i did.

today i see Beowulf on IMAX.

this was a week ago.

i was walking home from bronxville. it was snowing and cold and though it is a short walk home, none of the sidewalks had been shoveled. i came to an intersection. i did not have a stop sign, the other side did. the car approaching slowed as if to stop and i began crossing. the driver then put her foot on the gas and drove right towards me. i saw this, jumped into the air and onto the hood of the car. as she slammed on the breaks, i rolled off and onto the pavement. i rolled off hard. i hear her say into her cell phone, "oh my god! mom, i gotta go."

she was maybe seventeen, on a good day.

she came out of the car frantic, white, apologizing over and again.

i collected my groceries, told her it was ok, to maybe not talk on her cell phone while driving, and to try not to do it again. she apologized more.

my mom yelled at me for not getting her number or any other sort of information, that there could have been residual damage that i would not feel until the next morning, or the next week. "you never know," she said.

this is what interested me though. this was in the midst of the end-of-semester rush. i had not slept. i had not eaten. i was irritable with the snow, angry for having to walk, looking forward to my groceries. i knew that i had hours of work ahead of me.

i had every right to yell at this girl, even sue.

but the first thing that i thought as i was picking myself up off the pavement, the first thing that crossed my mind was, "ha! this girl is lucky. she hit the spriest kid she could!"

mom reads, "'Ayurvedic Soap. Instructions for use: For external use only. Apply the soap through out the body and then wash it off.'"

"Here," she says, "In case you need the directions."

......

She bought me wine. She bought me ten bottles of wine. I offered to carry them, showing off doing military presses with the bags over my head.

"Just remember," she says to me, "I created you."

and she is still there in our kitchen

eating that fucking carrott.

it was so orange.

and tasted like carrott.

she pushed her cuticles backed
carrott sticking out of her mouth.

she wore those brown pants once.

just for the carrott.

and the songs are still there, too.
the scents.

the light coming in through open windows.

peeking out at the chapel of the church
just down the block
celebrating its 500th anniversary
with 500 church bells

we timed our hearts to those bells.

and then each other.

and the russian restaurant next door
lit only in candles
and the spirits of musicians
who know that you need to smile
and sing
to survive the cold winter.

the mirror in which i saw
my reflection
blended with hers.

the pans with which we cooked.
the floor that we sat on after.
hanging laundry.

and it all should still be there.

it should have stayed.

i should have stayed.

we left.

and with that, everything else.

rising cost of postage stamps.

diversity.

creativity and education.

she said the chickpeas tasted like ambrosia.

but really.

just anything that came out of that kitchen was magical.

Sarah Lawrence Starbucks

Him: What size?
Me: Um. I am afraid I know not the vocabulary with which to answer that question. Medium?
Him: You have no knowledge of the Starbuckian lexicon?
Me: No. I am not familiar with your vernacular.
Him: One must know the dialect before entering somewhere foreign.
Me: I have little interest your provincialisms.
Him: One iced venti pumpkin spice latté. Enjoy!
Me: I do not and shall never understand the cant of this place.

scary halloween schedule. (this is seriously my day today)

starting last night...

7pm - 10pm --- Rehearsal for Dan Hurlin's show
10pm - 11:30pm --- Go to Stop and Shop to get bleach and other cleaning supplies.
12am - 3am --- Sleep
3am - 5am --- wake up. read whitman and emerson for conference.
5am - 6:30 --- bleach floors of old apartment. carry six twelve pack boxes of beer out to trash. (i don't drink beer) break down boxes and put paper out.
6:30am - 7 --- Run to work.
7am - 1pm --- Work at gym. (read all of Frederic Douglas' Narrative of an American Slave, David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World... and a Sojourner Truth speech. Type up conference work done this morning.)
1pm - 1:15 --- Shower at gym.
1:15 - 1:30 --- Run to Conference.
1:30 - 2:00 --- Conference with Krupat
2:00 - 3:00 --- Lunch with Camille to discuss her upcoming trip to Chicago (best part of my day.)
3:00 - 3:30 --- SLEEP. glorious 30 minutes.
3:30 - 5:30 --- Class.
5:30 - 7:00 --- Light refreshments with director of SLC Paris to discuss last year's program.
7:00 - 10:00 --- Rehearsal for Dan Hurlin's show.
10:15 - 12:00 --- Rehearsal for Glengary Glen Ross
12:00 - 1:00 --- Finishing cleaning out the last of the old apartment.
1:00 - 4:00 --- Finish conference work for tomorrow's 10 a.m. conference
4:00 - 9:00 --- Sleep
10:00 - 10:30 --- Conference
10:30 - 2 --- Reading for class
2:00 - 3:30 --- Class
3:30 - 10:00 --- DIE.

To give you a slight taste of the way the my mind is currently operating... I read a particularly poorly written article in the NY Timeswith the title, "Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War."

Here are some of my favorite quotes...
"Last year, this country of 66 million people held a historic election that cost $500 million and was intended to end Congo's various wars and rebellions and its tradition of epically bad government."

"One of the newst groups to emerge is called the Rastas, a mysterious gang of dreadlocked fugitives who live deep in the forest, wear shiny tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys and are notorious for burning babies..."

"The culprits are described as young men with guns."

"This place, one of the greenest, hilliest and most scenic slices of central Africa, continues to reverberate from the aftershocks of the genocide next door."

"There used to be a lot of gorrilas in there but now they've been replaced by much more savage beasts."

and now for the slight taste... besides underlining these quotes, i wrote in the margin, "Fucking journalism is for bagpipers."

I have no clue what I meant by that.

Do you ever fall asleep writing a sentence? The first words are of the sentence you intended to write, the following two or so are of your mind wander as you slipped from conciousness and finally your pen trails off into a squiggle or so.

This is the time when I question evolution. Not to say that I am jumping onto the creationalist boat... But there is no way that we "evolved" from monkeys. They know what's up. They would just lay down and go to sleep right now. But no.... I gulp my coffee and sprint through my day.

Deplete my resources baby.

He left a note, "Mother, I'm sorry." No one found him for days.

....

The headaches again. The noises in class. Muscles not recovering quickly. The lightheadedness. The negative thought. I remember this game. I tripped and fell into it this time.

There is and will be too many books.

No, you won't call back.

I'll make the effort. Though confidence, pride, dignity... all dwindling.

Something is going to break soon.

it literally makes me lightheaded. i have never come close to feeling that way before.

how does one hold onto dignity in situations as these without being overly dramatic?

or does that even matter?

"that smile will be the end of me."

i've reached the end of me.

it seems clear to me now that most events for which i have to be grateful have been entirely and completely centered around luck. i was there. the event happened. it was what it was. i was lucky.

my role in these charming life events have had little to do with any aspect of myself.

that is to say, it is less of, "she loved me," and more of, "she needed love and to be loved, and i was there too."

leads me to believe i should just stop trying.

and i can't figure out of that is optimistic or pessimistic.

but i am really tired.

i am callused from loss of pride...

yet she was the one who forced me out a year ago.

you accept the love you think you deserve.

and i am trying to find where this fits into all of this.

thus back behind books and beards and gentle glances i go.

it will all be so

clean.

i'm not depressed because i leap into everyday. My alarm softly chimes (yes, softly. i like my alarm.) and the kettle is started. throughout each morning i have this feeling that, "today will be a good day," or "today will be a quiet day."

but then the day feels like a series of punches to the stomach from which i must recover.

and it all hurts.

i feel as if life is meant to be more lonely than what we have to work with here.

at least mine.

that being said, i am numbingly lonely.

two things.

1. i don't get beat by vending machines.

2. every time i see the clip of barry bonds hitting his 756th homerun, i cry. i have no idea why this is. i no longer follow baseball and haven't for the past 12 years. i don't have any strong feelings towards or against barry bonds... but something resonates when i see that clip. this has happened nearly 15 times including twice this morning. it is baffling to me why i have this response.

3. hah ahhaahahha