Age five through seven: the Dorothy Hamill haircut. Similar to a boy’s bowl cut, but a bit more in length. Brown, straight, thick. I grew up with the head muse of a figure skater, split ends hacked away to all American smile.  Then puberty slammed into me, the natural curl kicked in shortly after length grown then chopped due to the unforgiving knots. Every morning before school—a fight that lasted hours and almost always ended in the give-up harness of a rubber band. Tie it back, shellac it down straight out of the shower. Let it dry naturally while confined. A contradiction. I lusted after the long, straight locks of classmates, popular girls, inherited dead cell blessings. They had halos. I had a tumbleweed.

            In sixth grade a classmate gave me a Christmas present on the bus. She stammered on about her mom suggesting it while I slowly opened the box. The box had a teal and pink cartoon cat on the side, nondescript. I pulled out the three travel bottles of shampoo, leave-in conditioner treatment, a plastic comb. I brush my hair, I said. I wanted to yank out the lump in my throat and hit her with it. I thought maybe you could use it, she replied, her dirty blonde bob shrugging perfect as she said it. I have a brush, I said. And shampoo. Tell your mom thanks I guess.

            I like that you can smell the strands and find evidence of the previous night. Smoke, bar, camp, summertime. The mane grips these things, reminds you. And hands, hands that are not afraid to touch and rummage, to get lost in the foliage. I am known to warn during affection—put them in and you may not get them back. I love fingers exploring my scalp through the thicket. In the mornings I work bits of knots out—the ends of coils mostly. I lose a bobby pin within it now and again; I no longer angle mirrors to mourn what is mine. It’s mine. I grew up, and grew sick of fighting it. Nature will always kick you back, kick you harder. Life happened. There were better things to do; I ran out of time to lasso my mane—I let it go. 

First the heavy heart, then the weight of work, then the norm of hormones, then the limbs of aging and mind like tired(sometimes like last night before bed on porch I am I swear twenty-six going on an eighty-three). Today feels much like another start, and me a bit of newborn—the usual that happens post-long term migraine. This one tapped in at just over forty-eight hours.  Monday I slept for thirteen, and last night close to the same.  Out out damn spot.

On the bus I was just pushing my fingerprints into my temple(the left)—first steady then tough then sweet. I pull my hat lower and lower until only my mouth is left, a jaw pulled in but not too clenched because that stoic response of tension just adds to it. No crying either. No pleading to pain or God or genetics; this only more suffering caused. I walk to the house in a numbfunk of what kind of feels like a drug rush—I can feel my feet in the bellies of my teeth. I crave lo mein, barbeque, potato mountains with tidepools of melted butter and garlic. Migraine cravings are so weird, so insistent. I manage the lo mein because I cannot stand the thought of another night missing dinner. I float home with the bag. Dessert is saliva, abundant. Strands of it into napkin; find toilet and heave. So much for dinner, a waste of money.

I lay in bed and think of how one might describe it. This pillow is a railroad spike covered in a dust of glass and acid.  My bed is a car wreck, no metal soft. Trying to think, do, talk, take action around this great big blank spot, just c’est impossible. It is a wall that builds quick. I squeeze the ends of mattress until tendons shout. It is a time of dim to no lights and minimal sound, trashcans at bedsides, pushing palm against nearby wall and pushing as hard as I can for as long as I can. The great big blank spot which starts as concentrated as an asterisk on fire grows over hours, fogs the lens. More fingerprints to side of head, the left the left. Turn head, stretch. Hands under pillow with elbows into bird wings—the position that worked last time. The left eye twitches, the left arm throbs. I am so thankful for no one to talk to, no one to look at or listen for. It would be too much and I am feeling somewhere like yellow, gray in the gestures. The hours come and I cannot use them, they go. 

  I think about the hospital being just across the street; I think about going. I am so exhausted. I put my shoes on. I scramble for my insurance card, but fall asleep with it in my hand.

first of all and first foremost
you can’t look.
eye offcenter captivate no one
anonymous invisible
parasitic ate up
first you cannot keep your eyes on anything.next form a gun
with your elbow to hip form a nice big triggershot
point it square to your adrenaline
and pullback till you hear a click
all the way back till you feel like the tendon to
your thumb might split

never make copies of keys
you’ll just lose them
never record your voice it will lashback as
evidence
distractions are always inanimate
and if something exists to prove you are breathing
then you are beaten before you begun

keep a swagger no matter
how attached you are
get a wink sewn to your lash
heels added twice to the shoes
forget elegant for cheap because cheap
is mellowdramatic to the radar

love your tongue so sharpen it.

*

I’m overhearing conversations out of context.
Promising optimists and committed liars
some guy scrawls desperation on a napkin
slides it cautious ‘cross the bar through
condensation rings asking can he borrow forever
and despite all this interacting the illusion
is still held together with just spit and string–

god is preoccupied at the payphone
slipping the receiver into sweater in hopes of
helping the girl to catch his heart’s rhythm
but she like he is neither here nor there
and i preoccupy air-time-space contemplating
the stare of the wallflowers
all of them poised like they’re lamenated beneath themselves,
a hand lightly gracing the naked collarbone,
a curl absentminded twirled around triple ringed finger..

Tomorrow morning this reality
will be fractionfrozen split into image and farce-vision,
swept up with the dust and empty cigarette boxes
by broomhandles and light breezes and almost told stories.
Tomorrow morning leaks forth the strength of the weak, stealing pennies to french kiss the vices that
grip their throats
the day is just time killing toward the evening
when selves can be reinvented
where I will perch silent in opium smoke-filled rooms–
the world be high and I am grounded
a paisley pillow and half-finished memoir
sits politely on the table
a perspective almost 2 dimensional
snare rim snap then cymbal crash
the music waves to the crowd and the crowd waves back

I have the most absurd anchor in my chest. 

After today, I will not be updating this site for one week. I’m taking seven days away from the internet. It’s funny that I even have to “announce” that–funny that I have to send out an email to tell others “do not email me.”

I realized this yesterday: The internet has become a part of the daily routine. Go to work. Check news..online. Talk to friends..online. Read poems, find the answer to a question..online. What was it like before the internet? The constant access is becoming overwhelming for me. I’m also starting to feel the strain on my relationships with friends. A lot of us have 9 to 5 jobs and we email banter in mass form throughout the day. But it’s no longer banter when it is constant, when it starts to replace the act of seeing someone face to face. And when we are face to face, there seems to be less to say. This is a big deal to me. I guess I just fear becoming desensitized to the person standing in front of me. I fear losing value in the experience of actually being in their company. I don’t know. It seems too easy to access someone now.

There are newspapers and PBS for the news, and projects galore to begin, continue, and end instead of putzing around on the silly, silly web. I’m excited. Focusing more on what I’m doing as opposed to focusing on the escape route.

So yeah. No updates this week.

My Garageband is on the fritz but I had to find a way around it–been jonesing to record. So I’ve been using the mic function in IMovie HD. Thus, a film, but with no picture. Only sound.