I used to be melancholy.
It was very pretty.
Hair up, tangled curly but elegant, like a Jane Austen heroine waking up from a fitful romantic sleep somewhere in the English countryside.
I wore thin t-shirts when I was feeling thin and baggy t-shirts when I was not. The best feeling was to wear a baggy t-shirt while feeling thin but this hardly ever occurred to me, to do something because it might feel good.
I did not paint my nails because the people I knew who painted their nails were happy and also satisfied with worldly things. I was neither, I'd determined.
I wanted an angular face, I wanted to know how to put on makeup. I thought, there are so many basic things, and nobody took the time to explain them to me.
I had a lot of ideas about a lot of things.
(I still do.)
(I expect this is universal.)
Things that haven't changed: I still take nearly everything too seriously.
I'm getting better.
I laugh more. I move more.
Things begin to flow.
It's hard work, and good work: to live a creative life, and to meanwhile love it.

1. I'm writing something about dreams, but fake dreams. If I write something everyday, for a week and a day, I'll have something. I pretend I'm writing it for myself, but secretly I know I'm not.

2. In the laundromat, a lot of waiting happens. People are on phones, or watching the televisions, which alternate between daytime talk shows or Spanish soaps. There are arcade games you'll never see anyone use. Sometimes people hold books. Sometimes I am one of those. Clothes tumble, and churn; we live in a modern world where machines wash and dry things automatically and we don't stop to question this, or thank the proprietress. If the laundromats all shut down, then what would I do? Improvise?

3. The facts were simple: to stand in the middle of a road and look into the camera. "Relax," he kept saying. "I am not even here. When you are looking into the camera you are actually looking as far as the eye can travel, all the way to the horizon." I tried to envision that. I chanted things to myself. I was surprised by my own stiffness, my own self consci
ousness. I thought I was different, I thought to myself.

4. When you love someone you want to do anything for their happiness, unless it directly contradicts your own happiness. Therein lies the conflict, or the feeling of it. Nothing is actually happening. I could convince myself of something, but that wouldn't make it true.

5. I will wait, and things will happen. Someone will call. Two work schedules will collide, or not. I will watch the show again and again. The laundry will finish and need to be folded. Someone will ask me something, I will go out into the loud hot sun and put myself and other things into a vehicle, and I will drive away.

I am writing this on my iPhone because my grandfather died and I don't know how to process it so I'm trying various ways such as:
1. Crying in my car
2. Calling friends but hanging up without leaving a voicemail when they don't answer
3. Drinking copious amounts of water
4. Writing on this blog

It's not my grandfather it's my great grandfather. If that makes a difference.

He died this morning and that means for the uninitiated that he is no longer alive.

Things he can no longer do include:
1. Ride or touch horses (which he loved)
2. Morse code and ham radio (which he loved)
3. Walk (he loved that too)
4. Listen to records
5. Talk to people
6. Make someone laugh
7. Laugh
8. Tie his shoes
9. Feel the wind swirl round his ears while riding a bicycle or in the back of a pickup truck
10. Move or think or speak or anything

I am in an unfamiliar city. It has stopped raining, mostly. My friend's housemate talked to me for a while, which was nice. I can nearly breathe through my nose again. I can breathe. I am on a crushed velvet sofa. This morning I bought presents in shops to take home to people I love.

Being alive is
                      wonderful
and I am full of
                      love
and in this moment I feel so
                      breathtakingly sad.


Let me go think of a fifth thing for the first list, because, this isn't helping.


And thinking then of setting this down. Of going into the kitchen. Feet padding on uneven boards. The crackle and smell of oil bubbling in a pan. Cool air from outside leaking in to chill my toes and cool my cheeks. Every thing I can sense. Every thing. I feel that what I really mean, then, in the truth, is, Let me go live. 

High in the hills above
The hinterland lies the home
Of a wolf whose name is
Morgana the grey.

The wolf is hungry and her
Eyes are red, and also sad.
It has been days since
The last supper. A wolf

Cannot live on mice
Alone. Morgana has no
Memory or she would recall
A time when things were not so.

Perhaps it is best, to be
An animal living only presently.
It does not matter, but survival
Does. The lack becomes unbearable.

There is something the wolf would
Say if it could but it cannot.
Instead it howls. The moon is full.
Its stomach is not. Night

Air cannot suffice. Neither
Can the thrill of outrunning
The hunters, and their sons.
Their dogs. Cousins turned

Traitors. Like being left alone
By one’s mother in the early days.
Forced to fend for herself.
Learning loneliness, and hunger.

Once she had a pack. Ran
Alongside brothers. Now there is no
One, only herself and the snow.
Quiet and padded. Paws crunch,

Teeth don’t. Oh look, a squirrel.
So fast. The energy of it. Makes
Morgana tired just to see.
The mere thought of the chase.

It is too much. But to burrow
Into the icy build-up, now
There is something that sounds
Soothing. A respite.

Morgana does. She lies in
Her homemade hollow, an echo
Of her stomach’s self-made cave.
She stays. She does not leave.

the first day of the new year is done.

so
everything is different,
including me.

there is something

to new beginnings.

it's true; there are times
I get a little afraid.

don't you?

at least we can laugh about it.
human in every way.

I should sleep, but instead, I write
an ode:

O, I love them all

Every soul around me

O, tell me if you can

How did I come to have so much?

Last night I had a dream where I saw you in a field. You were wearing your forest green sweatshirt, of course, and your back was to me, but I called out to you and you turned and the first thing I did wasn’t to hug you like I wanted but to say I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—

It merged with an anxiety dream, the performer’s plague. I was still in that play, except the director changed all of the blocking right before opening night! I was scrambling to remember! I couldn’t get the right clothes on! You were in the background, and all I wanted was to talk to you, but I couldn’t because I had to get changed, the show was going to be starting soon, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to remember a thing.

Much later in the night, meaning morning, meaning right before I woke up, I dreamed you were in a cell, and I could only see you through barred windows. Seven cells and seven barred windows between us, but I could see all the way to the end of the row. “It’s because you never…” “I know,” I said, “I—” And you were moving up, out of the cell, via elevator. I was losing sight of you. “WAIT,” I yelled. “I’M SORRY. I PROMISE I’LL—”

And the elevator stopped, and I knew I still had a chance.

And then you were out, next to me, next to the strange shack of cells, and I had my arms around your waist and I wasn’t going to let go and we stayed talking like that until I woke up. Whereupon I grabbed my phone to send you a message. I’m sorry, it began. After sending it, I took out a paper and pen. Started to write again.

if a girl falls

and no one is there
to hear it,

does she make a sound?

"tell me about your loss," she says,
and two faces and a ring come into my mind,
two faces and a ring and a box of childhood treasures;
things that used to be magic.
both faces i still dream about. a boy,
a father, a ring from an independent bookstore in minnesota
that broke when it fell on the floor of the shower in arizona
and i cried because i was losing too much that year.
some day i will be able to focus on the faces,
but today it is the ring, the pieces of it, i held them
 in my palm, i cried until i scared my mother, i still have
those pieces somewhere, the week after it broke
the consignment store came and carried away my piano,
the one i'd played since second grade. i put on a
brave face, as they say, and pretended like all of this
was just an adventure, and i, a character on a page.

this is a photograph
of the place to which i go
in the name of
'taking care of myself'
and 'seeking help'

but on a night like this,
i wonder, who am i
fooling?

You too got tired of being an advertisement
for our world, so that angels could see: yes it's pretty, earth.
Relax. Take a rest from smiling. And without complaint
allow the sea-breeze to lift the corners of your mouth.

You won't object; your eyes too, like flying paper,
are flying. The fruit has fallen from the sycamore tree.
How do you say to love in the dialect of water?
In the language of earth, what part of speech are we?

Here is the street. What sense does it finally make:
any mound, a last wind. What prophet would sing. . . .
And at night, from out of my sleep, you begin to talk.
And how shall I answer you. And what shall I bring.

- from The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai

like how four years ago I got a phone call.

like how the hard part, one of the hardest parts, I tell him, the part they don't warn you about, is after. how do you go on? when you've lived a different life, with different faces and different places, and then it's over and you're back?

how did the pevensies do it?

but it's worth it.
all these hard parts - and there are many. it's worth it because of the intangible thing that resides in my chest in my heart that keeps blood flowing just as much as any arteries.

she had a part time boyfriend, which
she was quite happy with, and
over the years, she flirted with
an eating disorder, but
never found a way to love
her body the way she loved
the rest of herself. all the same
she knew how to have a good time,
and, if not the life of the party,
she provided a noticeable heartbeat.
she lost her way over and
over again, but at least she noticed it,
and anyway, she was alright
- and knew it - more times than she
wasn't. when she needed to, she lit
a candle or a cigarette, but had
an aversion to bonfires, because
of her parents, who she supposed
she loved, but she had to wonder.
her cries were louder than
her laughter but didn't outweigh it, which
was what mattered; she forgave
everyone except herself, because
she was too afraid, even when
billy joel told her not to worry.
she had the knack of seeing herself
in everyone and everything, and so
her heart was not a hateful one
(only, sometimes, angry). to her,
there wasn't much better
than a night of cafés and classic rock
with a sister across the sea, or
even across the state line.
postcards and books and unopened
letters made a make shift
carpet in the one bedroom she
kept on letting, even
when she was past ready to leave.
her weakness was her resilience, if
you can call it that; always
trying to batten down the hatches
of a loose-cannon heart. for fear
of risking too much, she opened
the wrong doors, but there's
still time, she's still
getting the hang of how to live.

we're sampling drinks. there are dozens to choose from. there's an almond liqueur that we deem too sweet (we, who like sweet wines). there's a vanilla jack daniels...a spiced rum...do you sense a theme? we should've gone with sake, like charles. he's drinking wine from a shot glass. everyone's telling charles he looks like doctor who. i started it, complimenting his bowtie, but after the fourth person we're all a little weary of it. the house is nice. rich people nice. "don't go back there," the son warns, gesturing behind the food table at the bookshelves. but he lets her touch the iPad. we just want better dancing music. johnson finds out i'm an actor, and he ushers me outside under the heat lamps to meet his friend, also an actor. "tell her your story, about taylor lautner," he urges. the dude rolls his eyes, protesting, "i hate that effing story," but in the next breath, "okay, so, i was at this competition...." at 11 exactly, i text a mountain-time-zoned friend, happy new year. the sarah lawrence kids tell us we make them feel at home. "when you three walked in," they say, "we said, our people are here. because you're all cute, but kind of off-looking." we laugh at the compliment. we play a game like apples to apples but politically incorrect. it's one minute, thirty seconds to midnight. the countdown, on the television, is about to begin. people are pairing up, even the ones without romantic partners. the boy who will later say goodbye to me, ask for my last name, tries to catch my eye. i look away, i'm not in the mood for kissing strangers. maybe if the music was a little louder, maybe if i wasn't the designated driver. midnight, she kisses him, then says, a minute later, removing his arm from 'round her waist, "it's the new year. we're done with that. just friends, now. yeah?" "i wish i could be with you," he says, all boyish yearning. "even just to sleep outside, in the cold, on your porch. just to be near you." "mm," she says. suddenly all the guys are taking their shirts off. a dance-off occurs. we sing/yell a warpaint song at each other. the best conversations come in the first hours of the new year. everybody is drunk enough to be more interesting than "what do you do?" and "how long have you lived here?" "check out 11:11," i instruct him. "but my favorite album is soviet kitsch." "wait! are we talking about regina spektor?" gina says, overhearing us. and we squeal and hug, because it's music to love, and because it's late, and okay, maybe she's a little drunk. "charles hates men!" she exclaims in the car. "tell her!" she commands. "well, for starters," he begins, "i had a pretty terrible father..." that's how it always starts, i know.

it is times like these when i can feel all the poetry seeping out of my body.


a week ago i was hanging out with a bunch of first graders.
in a classroom, i read to them. "my brother's name is aaron,"
one of them told me. "but he spells it with an 'a'."

"the fault, dear brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
our stars and ourselves are, perhaps, inextricable, though.
a mix of stars and madness that creates the moment when a human being
can imagine hurting another human being,
hurting many human beings,
hurting the world,
hating the world,
a human being with no poetry left within,
all hope and beauty and words erased from what once was
—what began as—
a fellow
lost soul.

there is a problem with pain, but it is not an equation
any of you have an answer for. there is a problem with poetry,
poetry in the midst of pain, because pain is not beautiful, nor
should we pretend it is, nor should we string words together
in neat phrases, attempting clarity through anything as base
as art.

i am not writing this to prove the existence of beauty,
or the paradoxical presence of poetry and taking a gun
into your hand
and shooting
a first grader
who has a brother
named aaron
spelled
with an A.

i am not writing this for any reason at all.
the poetry is leaving me,
and so i leave you

with

this poem.

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"All we've got is words, wine and company to keep us warm!"

a text dated november twenty-first, but a year ago:
"I trust your voice/because it has lumps of hard pain in it/the way real honey/has lumps of wax from the honeycomb." (amichai)

Marbie sat in the beanbag and thought about bees, wasps, peanut dust, and funnel web spiders hidden in sneakers. She thought about how you could run over the cord of an electric lawnmower, or slip on an ice cube and knock yourself out, or accidentally leave the gas on and fall into a coma. A beach  umbrella could stab you between the eyes. You could suffocate in this very beanbag. (excerpt from the spell book of listen taylor by jaclyn moriarty)

"Do you know where the salt is?"
"Is it behind the laptop?"
She walks off to check her phone.

...I saw catastrophe at every corner, and the suspense was killing me. 
And there it was.
Marbie's eyelids fluttered as she shifted slightly in her beanbag. It was clear to her just for a moment. If she was going to lose Nathaniel at some unknown moment in her future, she had better make it happen at once. If a catastrophe was flying at high speed toward her, she would move to be directly in its path. (excerpt from the spell book of listen taylor by jaclyn moriarty)

(Various notes, slips of paper, forms, saved images, etc. are gathered on the desk, desktop, top of piles, etc.)
When you're clear, and awake—three basic questions—Compare to format of Amsterdam proposal—Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing—INT. Joel's Bedroom, Night—The Scottish Play: a monologue—Listener Training Program Application (Adult)—Postage will be paid by addressee—