A point of transition, or when lined up, many points, creating a line, a curve, a crossing, a passage. EXCAVATION: A MEMOIR (Future Tense Books, 2014), HOLLYWOOD NOTEBOOK (Writ Large Press, 2015), BRUJA (CCM, 2016).
I’m looking California
And feeling Minnesota
🖤
I can say that because I have a brief relationship with Minnesota. I know the feeling in my body precisely. The meaning rushes out at me ever since.
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This is a really hard place to be.
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Two Soundgarden songs are on my 2016 did not ruin or kill me playlist.
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Not this one.
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(my top 10 favorite male vocalists)
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Oh yeah
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Really hard. 💔
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//the breakdown//
in the last ten years
I’ve been married
cheated
fell in love divorced
started a grad degree
gave birth to a baby
lost my edge in fog
crawled out
wrote
wrote my ass off
got degree
(moved residences 3 times)
published essays poems fiction
my father died/something in me died
something was born
published three books
made a bunch of new friends
or just met people people people
burning
went all over the place
yes
burning
l lost
finished hours
wept
passed exams full fledge
there is no map
but tarot cards
sigils
vibrated on a table
burned
my lips on the flame
& now?
glow
sustained
glow
a telescope in his apartment//the QFC across the street//intoning weird voices at his intercom//laughing up at his window//sleeping on his floor//but did I ever really//he was known for giving up his bed//beer//Star Trek soundtrack & a smoking roach//misty window//Formica//the compactness of his person//eyes//long talks into the night//figuring out life//we three crying in a bar on a sunny afternoon after a movie//how I will always announce how I loved their tears//love them//is known//Polaroids//drunk on his bed with a friend//his girlfriend ran away & became a lesbian//clubbing//sifting through mountains of baseball jerseys, Levis, pea coats//Ferris wheels//oyster bacon cheeseburgers//his tiny car//walking past tucked in colleges from my parking space to his apartment//its tiny doors in the hallway//the smell that saturated the hall carpets//the times we talked deep heartache//the clean lines and excellent taste of his apartment//our laughter//the spilled glass of water//to think we have known each other since I was 24?//record-player dance party//what Seattle bar didn’t we go to//karaoke with the boys//he is my boy//& now he’s 50?//wtf man//easy laughter//our brains meet in many ways//I know & he knows//deep//family//happy birthday to my 50 year old bro//I have one
looking, looking, snap into place, on the bed, branches undulating, a voice familiar & unfamiliar announces themselves, down the hall, on this night knees will bend over & over, Last night I dreamt that I was asked to read aloud & could not–, he steps in & shows me his silhouette, commotion beyond the hallway, I am inert, until the piano–, lounge, invitation, warmth & comfortability, strangers, I watch, down the hall, a machine over a face, standing, he faces my direction but I don’t exist, only I do & it’s clear, it’s been made clear, the embrace of the room, I lock the door, pull the heavy sliding glass, Are these choose your own adventures?, the delivery of a fragment in which a cat is nursed read by two white men, one of them alone in the room with me, both deliveries perfection, My favorite number is eight, I was born 8/28–, I wonder, I wonder how I can push this, invitations to the balcony, music bombastic, my hallway open, he is next to me again, there is mention of a murderous dream, eye contact breaks, is fixed, breaks, is fixed, he offers me honey–, I take in more people, I listen to their dream fragments, did this happen in this house, what happened here, I oblige, I dip my pinkie in, tiny gold dollop, mushroom infused, You might need a little more than that–, I sit on the floor, I sit on the bed, I sit on the chair, I kneel, the acknowledgement of a secret packet of unconsciousness, saying “sex” with strangers in a small closed bedroom, hearing her utter “seedy, dirty Hollywood” in exactly the right way, this blond blowy minor goddess, the tattooed one the night before, my type, she said, you have that type, M. caught a photo of me and my type, machine on her face, I stick my gold-nailed finger in again, sip mint & vodka between, a chalice, I watch, the gracious, the confused, the open, so open, post-, champagne in hand, wives, cigarettes, introductions, toasts, it is freezing but my body is warm, I type my phone number into his phone, why, I don’t remember, the reservoir, the carpeted stairs, the bedroom, braids, rabbits, cats, she reminded me of a white rabbit, the darkness, banana leaf palm shadows, I walk out golden–
when I miss danger I think of all the ways to put my body through its paces, where to feel the surge, how to push through to endorphin bliss & soreness
& I miss danger