When February Was New & Moving
I was still trying to write poetry but
When February was new & moving, I was still trying to write poetry but I was fed up with the words again. I was carrying my watercolor sketchbook around that the Artist gave me. Visual felt better than the vocab and now, in Spring, voice rises above all else for better or worse.
FEB I meet my lover at the sports bar & he meets me at the queer club. We are animals adapting to our environments. He puts his hands on me & I play the rock ‘n’ roll. He apologizes often & I sip only water, smelling of weed. He asks Me Can I have a cigarette? & I pull them from their hiding spot, Saying, Yes. When we are outside Under the moon, we could be anywhere at all. His band plays on & on & I remember a dream I still have. A house with music, walls made of Wood. A wide kitchen table, w/ Room to host. We can’t decide on Where - we are too busy living Here. We are too busy wanting Here. We are too busy wringing the neck of Now together, dripping out only How??
It's February and I'm massaging my jaw, something lingering in my throat and we all know what that means, I haven't been saying all I need to say. I'm working down by the ocean but I can't see it. My lover's hands in dirt and clay. A freezing day in My city, alive and hardened like this. Eyes like apples, nipples like diamonds. I walk knowing I am worth more than I am making. That everyone I can touch is worth more than they are getting. I look at the world trying to make itself without us or more accurately getting us to make it for them, in their image, w/our money. We are the demons at the bottom, the small things always moving. Hunted down in my dreams & I need a haircut. I changed my socks, outta that sweaty silk, outta those Dirty pants, outta that headspace that makes me feel shaky on the highway or like I'm running, always running, always have to be running. Foot rubs before bed. Cherries with breakfast. I am more than an animal on caffeine. I am more than one or the other. I am more powerful & confusing than my government wants me to be. In the cold, keys are sharper, harder to turn, and when keys are sharper, harder to turn I think of M. I think of Paris, of old doors and iron elevators, of still green in October & feasting on the details. This old, green door the same as that old, green door. What is the difference between making money and spending money? I know Time as a two-faced thing. I make paying attention to life my only job, chosen by God like an animal, watch this world for a while, from this exact perspective, changed a thousand times over before I kiss the mud, in a thousand mouths before I become soil. Eucalyptus branches thwack something soft in the sauna and the softness slugs off like gossamer feathers, our youth always rubbing and rolling off like red red clay. Innocent like that, simply ourselves when everything holy is becoming a crime & there's this love inside of us that we can't let go of now, this way of being that has always been. So when I cant turn the key in the door, I exhale. I think of M. I say to the door, It's alright now, baby, I'm here & I listen to the two move together, lock & key with my back to the sea. I sit in the window where it's sunny watching the snow melt. I think of cold water and then warm water, rosemary & tulsi I wonder under which rock freedom is hiding then I remember it is under every one. Every rock, every pebble, the glittering grains of sand in a dream and it is, it is, all of it is framed in flowers & hungry. We are convulsing in our silks & the earth is worried about us, the earth wants us, the earth a heavy thing and then impossibly light, light like we will never be and yet, look, how fate twists us around. We are in control when we have fun with it. We are in control even when we are at its mercy. I sit in my bathroom wondering if life is control. I gulp audibly, in that cartoon way. A big bobbing thing, swallowing fear. It is February and I'm on the poem's trail again, a step back from where I was going, a mile from where I was.
I'm gonna watch the snow as it falls and record it from my car. I will smoke only to unwind, to celebrate, to re-enter. I will speak loud into the microphone. I will not get arrested in NH. I will learn to love my middle part. I will meet everybody in the middle. I will laugh when the world throws snow at me, playing a little cruel like my step father would. We walk tough tough in this family. As an adult, I learn to love purple and be more careful with swollen. I wait patient at the door to be let in like a dog, enjoying the weather bare naked. Let me in whenever! Don't forget I'm on my way! Putting plastic on plastic I WANNA MAKE ART WITH ALL MY FRIENDS, WITH EVERYONE I LOVE. I SAY THIS LITERALLY. ART IS HOW I HOLD MYSELF ACCOUNTABLE FOR LOVE. I AM SORRY TO BE EXPLOITATIVE IN NATURE, CAN THIS STILL LOOK LIKE LOVE? I WANT TO PROTECT YOU, AND START PROJECTS WITH YOU, BE CARRIED IN TOGETHERNESS IN WAYS THAT WILL OUTLIVE US. THE ART OF LIFE ! I'm putting out invitations to all my friends to begin an art project with me whenever they are ready to. I'm gonna assume you don't want to do it the whole time. I'm gonna lose Time, washing it away with dirt and soap, foam on my tongue. Nevermind. Held like this, liquid. Lost like this, spit. Flexible like this, Mercury. Silver mercury, poured onto our world. Gift giving as an art I wonder if I can be one of those lucky fuckers who gets used to choosing happiness, to choosing it everyday, to looking for love every day and finding it so easily. I learned from my angel, my papa, youthful in his love, eternal in his giving. I hear his laugh whenever I think of him, mustache and all.
I think about my future,
The one that comes together
All on its own. I wake up, tell
Myself I'm dreaming again.
Next time I wanna scream,
I know I know, that's the
Point, that's the point!My boy loves me so devoutly. I feel like an animal in his arms, soft with teeth. In a bed, we are laughing at something ancient. A soft collision, common ground, this specific wilderness.
What is the cost of an identity Unrealized? Is it heavier than gold? Darker than blood? The red brown Of it all, the muddy old hearts that Meet in the middle & crumble, like Soil, snake in the soul, in the soul, The apple that eats itself. I am Chewing before bed. I am dark Chocolate with pistachios and rose Petals. All cat hair in the snow, Layers layers, saunas lit. I have been living deeply where I step foot, sacred ground no matter How contaminated. My lover could Tell you how long it will hold its Shape under the shake and rattle Of the world. My mother would say, Ew and then she would say Love It anyway! Some friends dance in it, Some roll, some take photos, some Sit upright in prayer of the thing & All the ways we get to love it.
I have been making a demon of Myself, horns and teeth and tail, Wings I don't always trust. I am Changing faces like this, like Shapes in the mud, the clay stuck Off-center on the wheel. My friends Are the hands that correct it. I say, Make me something to eat off of, To drink from, to wash clean. Or else Or else I am meat in the teeth of friends & Lovers. Body of bread & broth of Bone for friends & lovers, for strangers, For enemies if there are enemies, For all if the family doesnt eat first. The family, called to the table by Name, the oldest one, getting the Same story stuck in their teeth, all Chewy - yeast alive on our wooden Table, wooden table where cards are Thrown & plates are cleared. The Hope that calls us together & the Hope that stays between us. The Pleasurable tension between Desire & control, yes, this thing between us When we lean back on the bow, Stretching the string, taking aim & Piercing the world, light shining where we most want it to. We circle, circle the skies, discuss & digest, circle back to center where We find the rhythm at the depths of us, Rooting through the carpet, through The hardwood, past concrete to core Of Earth. This old, molten thing that Love plays with. Dream it. Be it. Lean in & turn liquid. Melt into the Molten thing & be returned to what Dreams dare to be. This one goes out To all the lovers. The love love lovers, More free than anything on Earth With wings we don't always trust.
LAST NIGHT AFTER 2 AM, CLEANING UP FROM THE DANCE PARTY. IT SMELLS LIKE PISS & I AM TIRED BUT THERE WAS DANCING. THERE HAS BEEN DANCING THIS MONTH, CLARITY THIS MONTH. SPEND FEBRUARY ROTTING AND PLOTTING & MARCH WILL COME IN WET. THIS WEEK HAS BEEN BUSY. THESE LAST FEW WEEKS, BUSY. THIS LAST MONTH, BUSY. WEARING RED. WEARING BLUE. I LIGHT CANDLES AT YOUR TABLES. I HAVE A FRIEND WHO TALKS ABOUT WORK LIKE CANDY IN HER TEETH, ADDICTING. I'M AWAKE TO MY OWN SUNSHINE. I'M LEARNING HOW BUSY CAN OSCILLATE QUICKLY BETWEEN BLISS AND DISAPPEARING. HOW BUSY CAN FEEL LIKE FLOATING INTO THE FUTURE AND RUNNING TO NOWHERE & GETTING DRAGGED. THE TREADMILL OF TRYING IN A WORLD ON FIRE. THE WINDS PICKING EVERYTHING UP & FLINGING IT AROUND. LET'S SEE WHERE WE ARE THIS TIME NEXT YEAR. FOR NOW, MY TIME, ALL MINE AND ALL GONE ~ I AM NOT ALWAYS THE MOST ORGANIZED & I DON'T LIKE TO RUSH. MY TIME HAS BEEN REVIVED BY THOSE WHO HAVE MADE TIME FOR ME. OUR TIME - ALL TIME - MELTING. I JUST WANT TO THANK THE WORLD FOR ITS PATIENCE & CURIOSITY. THIS FEBRUARY HAS CHANGED FEBRUARIES FOR ME. I HAVE GREATER THINGS TO FEAR THAN FEBRUARY AND A LIFE OF LOVE TO LEAD.
A puddle of me melts at the end of February & still, something covers my eyes when the sun shines too Brightly. I drip & flow towards the East End, uphill & implicated. I wear borrowed red hat, her hands in my hair like this. Did I see something in your eye? Did you see the same thing in mine? I count the seeds stuck in my mouth, like green breaking through the snow, one by one Like dropping marbles Like waterfall Like all at once, all at once like spilling over. You tell me what they could all grow to be. For now, while the snow is firm below our feet, I’m tonguing them like missing teeth or the spaces that will be empty soon. I count them. While the sun shines in your eyes & the drool freezes on my lips. You must know I dream of you, you smile like you do. I count those too. I say nothing, no such thing, nothing, no such thing. My family, used to dying w/ Secrets. I have stories, only stories, incomplete, missing the messiness. I was born to find the good in everyone & to forgive, and if you cannot Forgive, avoid. Leave it out on the table until it’s tucked in a corner, until it slumps & collects dust, until it becomes some kind of home, mites & Flies, until it rots and grows, rots and grows. Hello, sunshine, I am here! Alive and feeling left Out! I have been loved from the other side of something too hard to look at! Loved so Hard. Loved so deeply! Too hard to hold. I can feel it - all the love unrealized, all the selves half-lived. The shame that slammed a family shut, leaving a part of them howling from the church pews to the puddle of me in Portland, mewing at what all could be could be could be. The fantasy not allowed to move. A family of broken horses Bucking, bucking nowhere near the sea
This entry is a part of my Nightmares & Morning Pages series, where I write every day and share the good stuff. Subscribe to keep up with me & share what you like (please).
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