MY CRAZY

My crazy is that I feel like I do a better job of putting myself in other people's shoes than I do of putting myself in my own. I think it's a form of narcissism, whereby I allow myself to endlessly study my own actions under the guise of knowing what others think but not knowing how I feel. My crazy is that I'm mellifluous and gullible and I constantly take advantage of myself. My crazy is semiviscous and nearly fills a cup that I carry with me in my free hand. When I'm jarred or forgetful or lay myself down where I don't belong, it spills. Without proper cleaning: it stains.

YOU SOLD MY FAVORITE BRAUTIGANS

You sold my favorite Brautigans (the red one and the yellow one). A young woman was reading them at the bar and I noticed my handwriting on the inside of one of the covers. The books were wet with substance that sat on the table. At first, the lady was upset when I took them from her and began inspecting them for other tell-tale signs that the books were mine. They were all there, the notes I'd written to you when I thought that we wouldn't ever not be together. I apologized for my behavior and paid the lady too much for what she saw as petty poetry books, not important enough to keep safe from spilled drink. When I got the books home, I spent an hour or two drying them, page by page so that they wouldn't stick together. Then I placed the books on a shelf so they could start collecting dust.

HEARTBREAK HAPPENS IN THE GUT

True heartbreak occurs in the gut,
not the heart.
It's a slow, symphonic chorus
born of the vibrations of
one hundred thousand strings at once.
It's the moment after you've
plunged into the water
and all the little bubbles
that had been refracting light
leave you behind.
They each burst
with a lazy,
dragging tone;
or else they just float away.
And it happens in your gut.
It happens slowly and
it happens in the dead center of you and
it doesn't stop happening.
It gurgles, and
it churns, and the cello
makes you languid
with worry, and the violin
slices your cells
until you're sitting,
immobile in fear, and
torn apart, and
you look around you, and
you see all of those things—
those things that used to make life
a place where you could breathe easily—
those things leave you,
those things turn on you, and
your stomach wrenches,
churns,
gasping
hoping
holding
waiting
waiting, and
sinking.

OUR STORY

When the words "OUR STORY" are written in the stars, it's easy for any two-bit literate with a date to think that the universe is talking about their love. Maybe the stars are just talking about themselves: "We get to be badasses in the night's sky because we burn, literally, with the heat of the sun." It isn't until you've experienced the profound gravitational instability that occurs when you've met someone that is perfect enough to disrupt the core of your being and cause a flame that will last through the creation and destruction of entire planets—it isn't until then that your story is the same as the stars.

I HAVE FOUND A GOOD THING

I have found a good thing. It was in the street and it was making Slinky movements when the wind pushed on it. I snatched it up and on it was written: "Good morning :]"

DREAM: 1/26/14

I'm not sure where the girls came from, but we all seemed to agree that we weren't doing anything wrong by freezing them. For my piece, I'd show up and watch the girls until another member of the crew relieved me. During my watch, paranoia seeped in along with a breeze that massaged our small, New York City apartment.

Originally, we ran a successful, albeit stressful, mid-level escort service, operating out of an apartment in the city. Half of us found the girls, and half of us found the johns. It turned out to be a scarier prospect to find escorts than we'd hoped, so, at some point, we decided to freeze them. It didn't seem to be that they were cold, so much as they were preserved.

It wasn't long before the money started coming in, and, with it, the police. The whole business changed from sex trafficking to a constant and diligent watch against getting caught. How do you not reveal illicit activities in a world where the NSA can bug your phone without any physical presence?

After a shift of looking after the girls—never seeing what happened to them behind the closed doors—I'd count the money and wait until a partner would show up. Without phone or internet, it became a game of delirium: quietly watching television and trying not to believe the police were outside the doors.

AND IN THAT LAZY CAFE

And in that lazy cafe, whose chief auditory export was the low, dull grind from an old, dull refrigerator, their minds drew patterns in the air between them to create a cacaphony of thoughts, winding and weaving like grown vines holding up the aesthetic value of an abandoned home. They grinned at what they'd done. They'd forever changed Tiny's from a store where people went for coffee into their place to fertilize their conceptual flower bed.

WHEN YOUR SMILE FADES

When your smile fades,
it's like the bleachers
giving way in a stadium
of overcrowded capacity.

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT

I thought about writing you a poem about the colors reflecting off of the petals of the lavender plant. I'd've used simile and some sibilance to cement the conceit in its place. But it meant nothing to me, so I wrote this:
You,
walking on the dark sidewalk,
so close to me
that I feel the swish
as you change feet:
left
     right
left.

STILL LIFE

The car, leaving a wake of swirling, invisible exhaust, presses us toward the back of our seats, forward down the road. Our hands make warmth of friction, sliding and holding and letting go and grabbing on. When you write those things on the page and when you say those things to me, I become stilled, and I feel the whole of the world, all the people and the winds and the cars—I feel them moving.

SCRAWLED ON NAPKIN: ALL THE RULES TO WRITING:

1. Fucking write. 2. Use commas to push back the enemy & for no other reason, unless the enemy finds pleasure in this. 3. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind and don't follow leaders; leaders don't make you write. 4. Grab all of the people. Love them all. They will all not love you. Find love in the space.

SOMETHING LIKE CATHARSIS

I can't bear the crushing quotidian. I am a permanent emergent. I study my own emergency. I study my own impermanence. I pulse with a lifelike desire to move and not stop moving. I lay myself down and breathe her in when she lays herself down beside of me. I ruin myself with a distrust of cycles and of tradition. I ruin myself with drink and with smoke. I call, at obscene hours, people who don't want to hear from me, and tell them things that I ought not tell them. I demand they write me things. I ruin myself with a distrust of those I love. I can't stand not being wanted. I am wanted. I spend hours doing nothing and chide myself for it. I spend hours using my body and still don't sleep soundly. I break things that matter to me and make things that I love stop working. I build things. I build massive things. I use my words to build things bigger than they ought to stand. I love you. Then I knock them over. I can't bear the crushing quotidian.

POETRY ISN'T FALLING LEAVES IN AUTUMN

I'm scared to tell you I love you because love is something you're supposed to have to thrust your hand into the drain for, watching the switch to the garbage disposal and praying you don't get stuck.

MEDIUM BREATHS ARE FOR TALKING AND WORDS ARE FOR EVER, or: WHY I WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU AGAIN

for Ruby

I made something beautiful today. Using a pen, I wrote across the available surfaces of a smooth, fist-sized rock and threw it into the Willamette. At a cafe on a street that runs diagonally across the other named streets, I drank coffee with an old friend. We talked about the unwavering course of time. Even when you've felt that time has passed quickly or that time has taken its sweet damned time, whether you wish you had another moment to look at his face or whether you wonder when the two of you will be earnest again—the way you were—it's all a singular line that connects your birth to your death.

Talking explicitly about the temporality of existence can be poetic in its openness, its recognition of truth. Talking metaphorically about the temporality of existence can be poetic in its subtlety, in mimicking the covert, yet ever-present underscoring that mortality plays in our shallow breaths and in our deep breaths.

In my drink, a gnat thrashes its legs about in a mechanical fashion. Its wings stuck to the surface of the beer, the bug has no chance of dislodging itself. Yet, it expends all of its available energy—until its blood rushes to its brain and it goes unconscious—trying to get out.

Inception

I am a fringe evil—notes in the margin belittling a peripheral character's choice to act. I'm the late shadow of a thin woman that looks circular and thick. I am dark clouds on a summer night's horizon. I'm letting cool air in through the window and out of the refrigerator. I'm a slow leak in the tire you thought you'd dealt with that won't just make you late, it'll get you fired.

Last Call

Policeman with hawk's eyes perched on street corner examining moonlit drunks. Three amigos arm in arm in arm discuss the weather with breath by Cuervo. The term piggy-back makes pigs of the frat as their slurring women's heads lull side to side to side with each step and step and step.

'87 Challenger

Shouting matches never end in laughter, they erupt with guffaw grenades, they find their zen in the patient puzzling of trash-talking oases. A beacon of furious eyebrow and Axe-brand scent, impeccably sloppy, put together like a green gem, his computer'll burn what his defamations haven't. Built, surely, of zirconium, his up-to-date silver-fox style leaves you wondering what purpose a man like this serves until his hands are in the air and his sighs of pleasure have you rethinking your own life.

Three Myths of Love

I.
Have all your equipment and ingredients needed to flambé your dish ready before starting the process. Use an 80-proof (40% alcohol by volume) liquor for flambing. Liquors above 120-proof are highly flammable and considered dangerous when lit. Liquors that are of a lower proof run the risk of not igniting when held to the flame. Choose liquors that are complimentary to the food being cooked, such as fruit flavored brandies for fruits and desserts, and whiskey or cognac for meats. The food you are going to flambé must be warmed first, as cold food will cool down the hot liquor and it will not ignite. Heat the brandy or liquor in a saucepan, with high sides, just until bubbles begin to form around the edges (around 130º F or 54º C) before adding to the flambé pan (you will be able to see vapors rise from the liquid). Do not bring the liquor to a boil, as the liquor will burn off the alcohol, and it will not ignite. The boiling point of alcohol is 175º F (much lower than water). The liquor can also be heated in a microwave oven by heating 30 to 45 seconds in a microwave-proof dish at 100% power. Use a flambé pan, large skillet, or large chafing dish with rounded, deep sides and a long handle. If you are planning to flambé in front of your guests, light the dish at the table, but far away from guests and flammable objects. If you have a serving cart, now is the time to use it. Never pour liquor from a bottle into a pan that is near an open flame. The flame can follow the stream of alcohol into the bottle and cause it to explode. Always remove the pan with the hot liquor from the heat source before adding the liquor to avoid burning yourself. If the dish doesn't light, it's probably not hot enough. Once you add the liquor to the pan, do not delay lighting. You don't want the food to absorb the raw alcohol and retain a harsh flavor. Ignite with a long match (such as fireplace matches or a long barbecue lighter). Always ignite the fumes at the edge of the pan and not the liquid itself. Never lean over the dish or pan as you light the fumes. Let cook until flame disappears (at this point all alcohol has burned off). If you want to retain some of the alcohol flavor, cover flaming dish to extinguish flames or add additional wine or stock. Serve the dish as soon as the flames disappear. If you want the flames, but do not want the liquor in a dessert, soak sugar cubes in a flavored extract. Place the cubes around the perimeter of the dish and light. Also be sure to practice flambing before your guests come as you want to make sure that these steps are performed flawlessly, if you want to impress your guests.

II.
Cut about four bacon slices into small pieces. Put it into the pot and put the pot onto medium heat. While the bacon is cooking, chop up one-half onion. After the bacon has cooked thoroughly remove it and save it for later. Place the onion into the same pot the bacon cooked in, allowing the bacon and onion flavors to mix. While the onion is cooking, cut into eights about eight medium-sized potatoes. When the onion has cooked to the point that it is clear, add the potatoes to the pot and add enough water to submerge all of the potatoes, as well as a good amount of salt for flavor. Cook until the potatoes are soft enough to easily pierce with a fork, then mash with a mixer. While mashing, add one pint cream and the bacon. Serve warm with bread for dipping. When eating leftovers, be sure to heat up!

III.
In a bowl, combine peanuts, cashews, almonds, raisins and chocolate chips. Pour contents into a plastic bag. Shake and enjoy.

Three times a day, I turned the shower up to an almost unbearable scald and stood there until every pipe in the building seemed to have run cold.

In the street, the persecution began. Not with words or gestures or staring eyes, but without them. I walked to class each day alone. The problem with maturity is that it only ever silences people until the elephant has left the room. I sit at a desk not large enough for me and know that the people behind me whispering and laughing aren't doing so for the teacher's sake. I try to focus instead on the book in front of me, but anytime I see "large" or "massive" I stir a bit in my seat. Now that class has begun, the whispers behind me are audible and I realize that my shirt had caught on the chair as I sat down, exposing my back like a target. They launch comment after comment, knowing each one will be a hit. I am the backside of the barn. I can't even read words that rhyme with fat. I want to reach over and pull my shirt down, or to ask the people behind me to be quiet, but I know I can't reach. I want more than anything to get up and leave--I can't pay attention, anyway--but I know I can't get up quietly, or leave unnoticed. I can't sneak out a side door, or even out of my seat. I can't stop hearing the whispers behind me. I can't understand what the professor is saying. I can't see any of the words on the page. The whispers, the professor, the page, they're all saying "fat, fat, fat!" And now I'm breathing hard and I know my face is turning red and I want to leave but the desk gets tighter the harder I breathe. I scratch at my neck and my chest and breathe harder. I look up to the ceiling and focus on the stipple. Each one of those bumps and protrusions is a sac of fat and I imagine myself stepping on them. I walk across this landscape with nothing but mounds of cellulite and fatty tissue, and I stomp on them until they burst. The fluid rolls out like a thick, white syrup and the more I stomp, the higher the fluid gets. It reaches my waist, but I wade through the shit and continue stomping the adipose pockets. Eventually it reaches my chin but I continue to stamp the floor, more violently now than when I'd begun. I take a huge breath as the viscous solution envelops the rest of my body and I stomp and stomp and stomp.

"It was a clinging hug with all the desperation of a tether ball rope wrapping with quickening centripetal force around its pole."

Damarcus had always resented his sister Felicia for the way she had looked at him when they were younger. It was the day that they had moved into their new home that he held on to most dearly. He ran his fingers along the tin exterior, and climbed inside, marveling at the hole-free screen door that would keep out the bugs and at the small, rectangular window in the one bedroom. "I can jump up 'n down all the time, can't I?" he jumped and jumped and grinned until the pot fell off the stove and the dinner with it. "You dumbshit," Felicia yelled, "Momma's gonna be pissed when she gets home and there's nothing to eat!" It wasn't what she said, though, that hurt Damarcus. It was the way she looked at him--the same way their mom had looked at their dad.