when i land

your dreams are red: red hat, red jacket, red
store, red apparel, red name tag.  red car.
study law and business.  open up your own
shop.  design your own clothes.  draw.

but, you say, first i want to go to london
i'll wear a nice button up shirt and a bow tie


a BOW tie! I squeal

yeah, a bow tie.  and some skinny jeans.
then i'm gonna hop on a bike and pedal around
he takes of his hat and smiles wide
i'm gonna let my fro fly free.


then maybe i'll hit singapore.  
i hear i would be real
popular there, cuz i'm so tall.


i close my eyes, just for a second, and see
big ben.  i see him on his beach cruiser ringing
his bell through the crowded streets
of singapore.  and then, eyes wide open

we are both

the distance between

london.  and singapore

driving the cat

it starts the way it always starts: in the middle

i am chained up, shackled.  a handcuff somehow fits around my neck and you are with me, though i don't know who you are.  two other you's are held prisoner and i know now that they are, of course, really other me's.

our kidnappers have gone.  they drive off in a long hooded town car, dark.  i can see them craning their necks toward the house as they drive away.  three of them; three of me.  i am in plain sight in the giant picture window.  this feels like another trap, another way to catch me.  the house i find myself in is a mess.  paper cups and tools and debris surround me.  surround us.  and here, in plain sight, is the key.

we unlock ourselves slowly.  we take the bait.  we wait for the trap.

tick tock.  tick tock.  tick. . .tock. . .and still nothing.  i am alone, the decision to leave is mine.  whatever happens is now my fault.  see how they trick us?  i leave anyway.

under cover of night i cling to the shadow of shrubbery.  i climb the hill up to the other house and find an impossibly large cat.  or a cow.  or a cow that feels like a cat.  and i know, instinctively that it is neither.  it is a way to escape.  the cat-cow nods her head in agreement.

my hands are not petting but searching for the latch, the hook, the opening of the door that will let me inside.  there it is!  and here i am, crawling into the belly of the beast.  sprawled forward as if on (yet in) a motorcycle.  like i am flying instead of driving: this cat.

with a twist of the wrist i accelerate into the street to start the next level

in the middle, again.

they are out there.

they are watching.

today's horoscope

three words:
sensory deprivation tank

you hear this horoscope from across the room and come at me like a magnet.  you tell me about what it is like to float as if you were the one who had float.ed.  as if the friend you describe shared the same brain as you, the same feet, the same twitch of the nose.  the same: senses.

but what would it be like?

it wouldn't.
be.
like anything.

you say it is the stripping down to your very soul.  you say it is where you find out who you really are.  you say it is where you discover things about yourself you didn't know.  about yourself.  wide eyed.  electric.  so so excited.  to visit the place you yourself have never been.  you are bursting with your nothingness.  your letting it all go.  your eyes just grew a deeper shade of blue and your lips pulled up at the corners.  just enough.  (i saw it then.  i glimpsed your core)

i say it sounds. . .amazingly. . .difficult.  all my fingers twitching just thinking about it.  but maybe i am talking about the nothingness that surrounds us even now.


these are the things i would have missed tonight.

this story would not have found a voice.

your ears would not have perked.

you may have stayed, lost.  slinking around the edges of the crowd instead of parting the see
to be yourself.

with me and him and her.

if only for a moment

take it

we used to believe that the earth was the center of the universe.  

and so it is with the heart.  

i gave you mine to share but you put it into a box.  the box went under your bed.  your bed was cold like wax and smelled like hay.  still i went on.  beating

still i told the story of myself.  

ran along dirt roads past horses.  pumped my fists.  went bowling and made the first move.  discovered cilantro and decided a little tiny bit can still be too much, too much.

still i gave another little piece.

ran along trails all covered in roots.  jumped off a bridge after you.  climbed to the top of a billboard clutching flowers.  held your feet in a soundless ocean.

remember the box and the bed and the fish made of glass.  remember the box and break another little piece.

i know you got it: and it makes me feel (good).

the things we say aloud

last night, there you were again.

in a parking lot with a jump ramp in the middle of a busy city.  how do you get in that way?  (you don't.) you find the secret entrance around the corner.  look for your car, it is hidden but i know it is there.  i drive you to it. . .just a little farther. . .i can make it from here, you say, so i still never see it.  i wonder what you are driving these days but don't ask.  we both step out of my car awkwardly (only i am the one that is awkward).   you give me a sympathetic hug.  a no expectations hug.  but i am not relieved, really.  i'm not anything.

i wake groggy.  try to figure out all that has been left unsaid and all that has been shown.

so loud.

solid soup

Carter said  thank you today.  Said thank you for the soup, that was good.  Thank you for the Nyquil.  I said it is because I love you.  So so much!  This is true, but there was something in the thanking that I didn’t know I needed to hear.  So nice, so home.  I realize he is watching me in the up and down.  Phone call after phone call.  Pause the show, stir the soup.  Sit down, stand up.  My ripples don’t rock his boat.  My movements don’t disturb him.  He sits still, like a rock.  He takes it in.  He puts away the dishes and comes to the door to say goodbye.  He is here, in the knowing.  He will be here when I return.  He is: solid.  

out.side

so, karen and i were just talking today about how sometimes you just can't find that balance in the world. about how you reach that 'wtf' moment where you wonder when it's going to just stop being so crazy.  and then this happened when i was leaving shelter and two of our young ladies were outside smoking a cigarette and finishing their outside chore. . .

fancy red car cruises by shelter

girl: 'did you see that mexican slow down and try to pick me up just now?  really, dude?  outside of shelter?  what an idiot.  he doesn't even remember that last time i robbed him of $500 dollars.'

me: raised eyebrows, sucking in my breath, bending over in a long sigh (sometimes you just don't have words)

girl: 'what? i'm not going to suck anyone's dick for $20 bucks.  so i stuck a knife to his balls and robbed him of his rent money'

long pause

me: 'on that note. .  .'

girl laughing and tossing her cigarette: 'goodnight mel!'

ho.ly shit.  

and the crazy thing is that this wasn't the most awful thing i heard tonight.  in passing, like just another story.  harm reduction.  teachable moment.  holder of stories.  

sometimes you just take one to the gut and drive yourself away