I haven’t been sleeping well. But that’s okay. As funny as it sounds, I know I’m in a good place when I can find more time to think(and honestly enjoy the extra time in my head..or maybe nowhere near my head but milling around in the heart, jitterbugging on the linoleum there).

Last night I had some gin/lemonade with my roommate and her friend on the porch, met a neighbor and watched a band roll in to crash for the night. The same band I heard playing from a second story window hours earlier in Lawrenceville. I was walking home from Tait’s house post-dinner and heard the beautiful noise of strings, bass, shouting singers. Nice to put faces with the moment. I went to bed and listened to my neighbor playing the saw in his backyard for a while. Sleep did not find me for some time, but the gin helped.

I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to say: I can sleep less, and be okay with it. Being tired is being something.

Maybe we are in a constant state of release. Maybe you wear through memories until they are the softest thinnest fabric and something tells you to stop because any more wear would mean tearing the sucker in two. Maybe making new ones becomes more important and then from there it isn’t a question of where your mind is—it is right here, it is processing what comes to it..pull from what you know. You learn to let go in the sweetest way. Maybe you finally become what you believe in. Maybe once that happens, you start to sleep less.

(short story)

When you adopted the bee I didn’t say anything—I figured the inevitable sting would talk enough, eventually. You were hellbent on training this, flight patterns and to come when called. Tore flowers from the ground for breakfast, fashioned a leash of thread, needle wand pinched and leading. The effort so much. A tiny bed was made, but the thing never rested, only hovered and hummed(the melody to which you drifted, one honey soaked finger extended off the bed edge). Things could not be persuaded different. Your clothes started looking like burlap; you fashioned awnings for eyes and made pistil necklaces. The closest thing to free. You were buying magnifying glasses and still thinking of names.

Heat lamps turned the room into a hue of butter, a birthday party for tiny wings. Sweet things as gifts. The bee stared past you, out the window(the candle went lit until the wax purple pooled the icing). The best present: a fingerpainted portrait of vibrations.

The back of the knee. The strike like fractal lick, a hand to it immediate. Little bristled body droned around seconds before falling. A funeral we all attended. Yellow and dark trumpet salute. Even your band aid the color of mourning.

world don’t say you’ve never
thought of tossing me from your spine mountained back
that’s what some hearts admit to mind
this sentence of the pockets, this little sentiment
so true
of course
we survived but
what did surviving do to us
how much cilia did the song destroy
when the melody sunk depth in ear;
no miracle hangnail moon tonight can tell me different
if some colors fade and do not return
if I ride to the fight can I contribute a swing
if the stars this evening insist on staying put tomorrow
if we hang our hats on the hands we touch
if we stand next to something like breath,
removed by the wind;
if intentions have wings, if if if—

if pocrhlights stay on for the body not coming home
if the road gives out will our wheels still roll
if the plants talk to fences
take them down in leaf embraces
if the hand shakes midsalute
if the hammer never rusted
if your body didn’t talk like that
if I didn’t listen
if the suitcase didn’t make sense
if this wasn’t it
if time knew less
if I didn’t insist on putting on top of clavicle
the axis
if change was the only thing to stay
still
if if if—
world don’t say you’ve never.

I dismantled my room this weekend. Destroyed my dresser, consolidated everything wearable to makeshift compartments, the closet. There are boxes of things(and by things I mean such a modge podge of miscellaneous that it would be impossible to go into detail here without creating a novella of lists), things still not accounted for that have exact “place” to be.

And there are poems. My goodness are there poems. Poems forgotten about, poems unfinished, typed and in scrawl. Words written in Seattle, in New York, San Francisco, on planes and at bus stations. Poems written on napkins during various periods of waiting. I’m taking my time, going through them, fighting to circle forgotten stanzas that seem worth keeping–things described in a way that I could never manage again. A part of me wonders: what is worth keeping? (more…)

A part of me tonight will leave this porch and never come back, an unidentified, low flying thing—across the bridge, down the hill, through the tunnels lit like a bad dream hospital, over the railing and into the green. Some part of me so known that now there is no next but leaving the nest; something sloughed off with the cells. You keep growing maybe missing it, but moreso proud because you nutured to the limit and then, let fly.

Dearly departed hilt of self, expelled in expression and lost between footsteps, pauses, touch—I stand by where you left. Off to rejoin the soldier souls before you. Wave the goodbye loud. Behind you saluting room for more.

Do you wanna get married here
To the sound of the lighter flicks
To the cigarette circle witnesses
The ladies leaving for air
Too much dancing, stumbling

All the little things
Wear shoes you can run in honey
The haul for your life sprint from corner store to apartment
The skateboard jerks who chased us
Plaid jacket puffs of breath cold
Little carrot vapors on sticks
All the little things
Like the sun
Lady above us laying hands on everything

The most beautiful track
Doesn’t have words
Doesn’t have a memory
Works through breaks, punch in the overtime
The most beautiful times
Are when we are so caught up in being alive
The ground moves away, lets the heels run amuck and they do
A levitate fate
Stuttered earth i love you

There comes a time
When you forget to be
Anything but this
The façade drops, the mouth flows
There is just a figment of belief
A grass blade penned in the palm
A delicate place in the teeth
Place important dreams here
Let the stories kick off the covers again
Sleep the sheet into a curled evidence
(we sweat here)
the light and time is marvelous
heart in museums? Resilient.

The night is showing up, pulling the streetlight onto the floor to dance. The bulb looks cracked because it’s just starting to breathe. Sky, in between, turns the color of my tea. I’m under power lines, back past the ruckus of young kids on the street, yelling at anyone that walks by them too close. The lone girl of the group shifted her hip, pops her gum—that dissatisfied perfection of youth and boredom, the attention turned to the anonymous. People were crossing the street to avoid their stoop circle, perched on a closed second hand store. Hands in the air at odd times, restless. I assist in the pick up of a spilled bag on the street—the mom thanks me, and the little boy with her asks if I want something. He holds out the black bag in his hands and we all stand there for the presenting. It’s the bag. He wants to give me the bag. The mom says no no, she has a bag. He answers my thank you with a thank you, I’m not sure what that means. I like the idea of nobody being welcomed.

Nowhere to sit and write tonight—I walked the length for nothing. I come back to sandpiper my porch and watch the shadows grow from nothing to all. Rooftop and flight tower, leaf loops pushed apart–the trees and all their little mouths.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Last night was just wonderful. I really appreciate the support of everyone who could make it out. It means a lot to me. Here’s to getting on stage more often over the next few months.

I’ll be updating more later…big changes afoot.

Wow. Renee wrote up a little something about my book–what an incredible gesture right before the show on Wednesday!

click here to see