hang onto each other.

i've been living in an idyllic empire state of
tenements and hand ball games played out amongst the backdrop
steeled hearts and throbbing crush of one room apartments with
9 foot ceilings to displace the lack
of square footage, mostly eaten by the mattress on the floor
and letters half finished and never sent.

this pen hates this paper.
and this reflection hates this highly polished version of what it sees.
i'm preferring to call it the clever diptych of a ruse.


i sleep all day. wake up only to smoke and replenish the water
in the jar by my pillow
at night i hear jazz rise up through steam vent's of a
romanticized 1959 and begin to despise
beatniks and coffee bars and convertibles
french sounding names
of places i hope to never visit as i know
they are no where near
the desert.

no where near where i'd rather be than these spray
washed streets of water collected in cracks,
drying in lines of heartfelt
impermanence that resemble the rhythm of a broken
anticipation that trickles slower
than i've got patience for.


at night i see the curious roam blindly amongst
the hustle and rush. beckoned
by natives and their improvised nocturnes. too many choices, too many cheats
like lambs to the pasture. just you wait.
plumped on pleasure as they amble lightly until it's too late
their sweaters too thin for the winter.
someones gotta go
and i wish it weren't me.

society requires a certain amount of fore warning

the sailor.

decried by flora et fauna, preferring the depths.
it's hard to dig your own watery grave
filled back in and repeating with the tide
a homonym for the larger peace
of a sad, sad song
which is
never repeated and forever refrained
in the memory of those
wistfully clinging to the toasts they'll give
with the words they've saved
sung to a soulful sarabande of sorrow
falling on ears
of the truly doting in collective
pieces that assembled the hole.

no one wakes up thinking.....

nothing owed.

the last time i was at this bar, i sat at this table. the table by the window. despite the cold radiating through. the last time i was at this bar, i looked out this window and noted the frigid quarter notes of exhaled thoughts hanging in the street. last time i was at this bar, i wanted to pack up and leave. this city. this state. and all of its waste. now, i'm sitting in this bar wondering what sort of girl i'll be. i'm sitting, wondering ' what sort of girl will it be 'next time'. when i am caught here the next time. and i sit there wondering if i'll notice the next time or if it'll make me want to stay.