the beginning of my novel for november

the last time i went to merchants was with jake. we had gone to a roller derby, oakland against san francsico, and i was driving but i dont remember much about that. what i remember is his friend sam completely wasted on jim beam in my back seat, changing his clothes and putting on different t-shirts from a huge sack he was carrying. jake later told me that sam was squatting somewhere off fillmore, was an alcoholic, but one of the best artists he had ever met and i felt bad for weeks after. we dropped him off on the corner of webster at 4am, and i had thought, he, like us, was going home, to a warm bed, maybe a blunt or piece of toast in bed, and sleep. but no, he camped out on the grass and woke up, hung over and unwashed under a brilliant morning, blue sky and trees, changed his pants and socks and made it to work on time. as if the entire evening, the sleep hardly slept, had never happened at all.
merchants was packed with roller girls, still in their derby costumes, striped shirts and tight shorts, fishnets and glitter. skates tucked into messenger bags and hoodies with devil patches and suicide girls safety pinned on. the drink is always pabst among this crowd, followed by whiskey and parliaments and those three things will forever shape my twenties, backs of bars, cold nights where the smoke stays in your hair, whiskey in cups by the bed when you wake up, lips pressed tightly, boys faces mixes into smells and nights, months, bed patterns but never names. fingerless gloved hands smoking and touching and covering laughter mouths in burgundy corners, placed gently on backsides, and shoved into tight jeans to keep cool, to keep warm. it was a rowdy night, two dollar tecates in plastic cups and heat forming on the walls of the ice rink so that it trickled down like sweat. tightly packed arena and none of us caring what were yelling for, not even cheering for one team, but glad to be yelling, rowdy, red faced and wild, a night for fights, to make love, to slap old friends on the back, to buy them a beer with your last five bucks, because were young and in love, were invincible, screaming next to old men and young girls with lip liner. were fighting our way through crowds, watching girls on skates slam each other into the white walls, helmets against cement against shin guards and were all just watching and waiting and about to burst.
sam was a referee for the derby, a job he heard about on craigslist that would pay him 100 bucks for the night and all the beer he wanted, plus he got a volunteer shirt which he wore for a week straight afterward, some baby blue cotton against his broad smile and heavy brows (later this shirt shows up in my laundry basket, months after jake has left me again, i find the shirt and it still smells of that night, faintly of boy, and somewhere underneath it all happiness, our youth). jake and i find ourselves pinned up against the plastiglass, banging on walls and egging sam on “blow the whistle! foul! oh that bitch fucking punched her! ahhh!” and for an hour and a half nothing matters except two dollar tecates, roller derby and looking at jake under those bright lights.

headliner

this week i play housewife. lay your clothes out, set the table, greet you at the stairs with a smile, pray, hope, twist my hair into curls and stare, vapidly at myself in the mirror for hours. i play games in my head, scattered pentagrams and rainbow boxes thrown about classrooms at 1 in the afternoon, early sunshine and the days end earlier lately, cold has set in and i find myself making nests for myself, none of which i fit in or keep me nearly warm enough. im not ready for harsh winter and sleepy weekends with nowhere to go and no reason to get out of bed. i pad around the apartment, doing dishes, making elaborate dinners and cakes, anything to distract myself from this, this this mess im in, i will be in until im not, and i just dont have the will power right now to get up and shake it off. im trying, im trying, im trying. and it just isnt good enough. planes fly over head and crash in the night fifteen states away and no one hears a sound. i dont know why i ever thought i could have a family, make a home, why i thought id be good at something like that, when i get restless and unsure after ten minutes alone. riding the bus is like torture and im continuously only alone with myself.
i dont remember the last time my fingers were so cold, and my bones and getting chills and i layer sweatshirts and rub my nose with the sleeves, hands tucked inside and dream about shrinking into coats and scarves and december and hibernating away like a bear. except maybe i was cold like this in oregon, but i was with you and so i felt nothing bad at all.

lunatic city

night time is the worst. did you feel the earthquake? it made me nervous and start thinking how awful it would be if you werent able to say goodbye. it all feels very morbid. i have to stop watching dexter before bed. it gives me creepy dreams. vicodin helps.


lately
i feel like faulkner
no subject or verb
quit putting me in paragraphs
ill never fit
the way you
want
me to


we go to the MOMA and do that silent walk, that museum goers do when everyone is pretending to look at the art but really are seriously bored out of their minds and horny from the silence. all we want to be doing is tearing each others clothes off and fucking and then laying in bed and smoking cigarettes in his loft bed above his rehearsal studio but we have to get credit for class, so we skip the lines and rub up against each other in corners when no ones looking. there are two paintings, encased in glass in the middle of the room, some silver plated tree branches and sky. i keep an eye close on him, while
pretending i care about the artwork, total period bullshit that neither of us are into anyway, put my hands up on the glass, my face, close my eyes for a minute, wishing we could get the hell out of there. i only had a string cheese today and a gatorade from his fridge that was warm and im feeling faint. im starting to get sick listening to hushed voices talking, babbling like art critics, pretentious fucks, he always says. opening my eyes, he is opposite me, breathing on the glass and writing my name with his finger, like a fogged up window. i laugh tremendously and drop my bag on the floor which causes the loudest hush ive ever heard. he looks at everyone and bows. deeply and graciously which makes me laugh even harder and when we get kicked out its understandable. he lights a cigarette in the lobby just to prove a point, the lighter his grandfather gave him encased in leather, flicks quickly from his hand, to his face, to his jeans, snug in back pocket. im thinking how a museum is really perfect for us, all that talking we dont know how to do. outside its hot and his dog is laying on the cement, drooling and waiting for us with her big cow eyes. we walk, silently, down market, sweating and smoking. i use a book of matches because i love the way his lighter feels so much i cant bare it, like if i use it too much it will be just another thing to miss when hes gone. its too much him, musty smell and worn. just another thing i know he cares about more than me. at uptown market we stop for whiskey and ginger ale, more cigs for him, water for the dog. inside his place its stale, and there is the casual undressing i have come to love. its too hot as usual and we work better unclothed. he says to me after, distracted, not looking, hands in my hair, you look better through glass, you look nice magnafied but far away. im picking a scab on his arm and roll over to the side of the bed where theres water in a jar, drink in long painful swallows, listen to the city through the flung open windows and let my eyes tear up. theres matches on the window sil and i light another cig, smoke, think, smoke think. keep cover closed, be safe. this feels appropriate, naked, on his bed, silent, no words to say, just trying to keep cool, to pretend were both not just a little afraid.



and a poem, for all you lovers out there, cuidado con tus corizones

love crosses its islands, from grief to grief,
it sets its roots, watered with tears,
and no one-no one-can escape the hearts progress
as it runs, silent and carnivorous

you and i searched for a wide valley, for another planet
where the salt wouldnt touch your hair,
where sorrows couldnt grow because of anything i did,
where bread could live and not grow old

a planet entwined with vistas and foliage,
a plain, a rock, hard and unoccupied:
we wanted to build a strong nest

with our own hands, without hurt or harm or speech,
but love was not like that: love was a lunatic city
with crowds of people blanching on their porches

number 25

a year ago
i hugged her through grass stains
and placed palms against
faces and she was wide eyed
blue

today
eyes closed
heartache
breath take
the mechanics of breathing
broken down
and she dies
not slowly
but just one flat line

centerfield
grass stains
my old living room
dusted cd covers
and that laugh
making valley
small



RIP LIZ i love you

organ donor

if you dont care about anything then nothing will disappoint you.
its a thursday and i cant seem to make it to work. i cant seem to pull myself from bed, from the bus, off the ledge of the bar, from the crook of amy's shoulder. i cant seem to make my body work, and all the sudden im robot emotion, everything we had laughed about 9 months ago isnt funny anymore. its our life. what was funny that rainy afternoon we pushed the couches together and smoked pot and laughed isnt funny its sad. its sad because it feels fake, it was robot emotion, it was everything we hate. and so amy and i sit slack jawed and steely eyed, damp necks and sweaty eyes, looking at each other for something, im sorry we keep saying, im sorry i dont know what to say to you, and we just sit in our sadness. just stir it around the rim of our drinks and fend off boys who try to bum cigarettes with glances, like, i will fucking kill you if you talk to me right now, and its funny how easy people read our feelings, know what we mean, with one glance, and the people we have loved forever, it seems, cant even figure out how to not make us cry.
i find myself on your street. on our streets. this city will ruin me and i wake up exhausted. i cant keep avoiding mirrors and storefronts, closing my ears to peoples conversations on the bus and hats at the bars i drink at. i hated this city, until i met you, and now its nothing but a museum i hate to visit. a place where everything makes me sad. my friends sit around a table, silent and i say nothing, i stare them all down through the red and green and yellow christmas lights and let their faces go blurry. there is nothing to say when they ask for answers, prod my shoulders for reasons and details. and were just in limbo. and all i can say, all i know, among the fake fur and faux greenery is i care about you, i care about you, i care about you. and then i lose myself on polk street and wish away street corners that held us, that held me, that changed us, that changed me.

bale lane and old faithful

im watching the temperature rise from mid 70s to high 80s and in some other city, sarah is watching the weather channel and telling us, tomorrow will be a good day. my car is full of wood for you, pieces of the house i grew up in, old window sills and door frames, the door we bought to replace the plastic sheet of door covered in wallpaper and calendars covering holes, but it didnt fit and sat in the garage, five, ten, fifteen years. ive got it piled up on a sheet i slept in when i was seven, small flowers, pinks and yellows, sheets that held me and kept me warm when i still made my mama tell me stories, just to get my small heart asleep at night, its back there, my rearview, the length of the 101, and like everything else, its shambles, and splinters and not safe to put your hands on, fragments and paint chips and i want to open the hatch and let it fly across the freeway, i want to watch it hit tires of cars and windshields, fall into fields and hit limbs, bust open foreheads and feel like i feel, like broken pieces of wood, you thought you could make into something much more beautiful and now, now you never will. because you see i did this before i knew, i spent a day in the sun with my dad and walked barefoot and tried to breathe deeper than i ever had, because that smell, that idea that getting out of the city, that the country would "do me good" was fleeting, and i found myself with aching feet and hands raw from digging at the ground, slivers inside and i know, i know, i know my screaming and shouting wont keep you...and the reality is you cant build from what is broken, you must use tools, shiny and new. and thats just not me.
i feel bad for you calistoga, i do. i never give you a chance and every time i just use you for your dusty air and warm nights and curse the streets you made me on. there is a ghost in my bones.once again im pulled over, a car on the highway, crickets and frogs and purple mountains, i wish you could see it, because this place is so deceiving in its beauty and purity and at the end of the night theres never anywhere to go and the streets wont house me like they used to, ive used them all up.
the sun isnt all the way down and its eerily hot, the hood of carissas sweatshirt is too tight, too warm and i cant breathe when you tell me these words, its all just talk, and ive heard it before, you are old faithful and i know just exactly how this will feel, the brimming, the waiting, the boiling under ground, and the release is steady, consistent, and tired. after youve seen it once, theres no need to watch again, the tourists hit the gift shop, collect their kids, buy a t-shirt and drive into town for dinner at the Inn. its predictable, its a science, a timetable, an art, if you will, to the actions, the reactions. and my recovery is predictable, i know how i will drink this one down, away, out and push it all back underground to wait. wait and see how it all turns out, because even though i know what will happen, the exact time, the minute, the moment, i cant. look. away.
grammere tells me, be happy, why do you have such dark circles? are you not drinking enough water? and i smile for her, take her crazy dog on a walk, tell her how great im doing, because i am, i was, i will, i dont know how i got so lost in all this, and when i get ready to leave, i kiss her on the cheek and am brave for her, because the women in my family dont do it any other way, and i just hate to disappoint. the drive is easy, theres never a perfect enough song and my legs stick to the leather seats just like any other summer, only its not summer, and im not brave, im sad and scared and without any streets to drive on anymore. bale lane was untouched by me, and now its all dried up like the fields and leaves, vineyards turned bright gold and burgundy, and going home to clear my head was a wash, i dont know what i was thinking.

sometimes all you need is a good nights sleep. and you wake up giggling in bed and the morning is grey and cool but the sun lines the leaves outside your window and everything that felt so dark and twisty last night has cleared away and you are smiling, youve soaked in it long enough and can get out and dry off on your own.
this morning its these poems that make sense, that make everything better and the same.

A Rational Sky

How Life Longs
to deposit
self-centricity
Be cautious!
Do you want to give in,
do you want to give up?
I dont!
How nights linger-
the tragic delusion
that loneliness
is martyrdom
be cautious!
are you better
for not getting better?
are the days better
when you are numb?
is a rationalized sky
anymore blue?


He Dreamt She Was An Atom
She Dreamt He Was Enola Gay

the lorenz attractor
the space between
my fingers and your skin
infinitely divisible,
infinitely separate
never connecting
never touching

Fingernails in my back
10, 000 miles away,
penetration goes nowhere;
The mouth on your mouth
is as distant as Baghdad
the whispers in your ear
radio broadcasts from
Czechoslovakia

Maybe I never saw you
as closely as i should;
nor did your hands
ever hold mine; and so
this parting should be
no more than reality
amplified by tens
and tens and tens
until it becomes only
slightly more heavy
than i can bear,
until i see so much
of this sad sphere
that hope approaches
asymptote


and finally.......





Finally Written

Dont be afraid of writing a pure sentence;
even if at night you feel you cant sleep;
and the weight of the words on your chest
gives way to heavy sighs:

Youre lucky,
if she can calm you;
youre lucky
if you can write it down
youre luckiest
if you can tell her.

And when I learned to drive I said;
"this is the death of my youth,"
and when i first made love I said;
"this is the death of my youth,"
and when i first fell in love i said;
:here is my youth again!"
and when she left (because she will always leave) I said;
"here is the death of my youth"
and my youth has died
1000 deaths at the hands
of corruption and decay
disintegration of the imaginary worlds
i flew in as a child; replaced
by the sea of experiences
and the sense of irony
that tells me never to write
"a sea of experiences"
But when i make excuses:
"here at school, how can i be pure"
"here at work, how can i be pure"
I'm turning my back on the noblest search:
to burn these books and shatter this steel
into the purest form it can handle
without breaking my body in half
everything else is compromise
everything else is the death of our youth.



thats enough for today. i need coffee, and a walk, and time. to fucking. clear. my head.