70-a stigmatism

it turns out i'm cross eyed- no, really
an astigmatism is the two planes
of vision forming a cross on the lens, instead
of symmetry. so it turns things in a
new way, if i'm not careful and
remember to put on my glasses.
but sometimes, the asymmetry can create
a new brilliance, a new beauty contrary
to the accepted beauty in symmetric faces.
no, i rather like it when the walls
don't slant quite right, my pictures
hanging never lying on the same tangents.
homeyness, a chaos of happiness, tiny imperfect
pixels creating the images i cherish,
blurry memories i keep on replay.

69-permanence

there's a difference in the lasting
power of substances; red blood burrowing
down hushed marble is lasting, cells
pushing through the permeable membrane
breathing them in. the lingering feeling
of your fingertips on my buzzing
skin is fleeting, sensory receptors
momentarily aroused, then returning to
homeostasis, base point.
and so and now i'm sorry i missed you,
my mind was racing through memories
etched in diamond caves, of you and i
sharing different heartbeats in one night,
kept awake by their staccato rhythm pressing
from your skin to mine, vice versa.

68-not what you see

believe not what you
see, rather what you can im
agine when you in

hale and exhale whilst
dreaming. no more open doors,
surrounded by emp

ty air, no promise
held in its movement. instead
only breath passed be

tween, together shar
ing the desire to just,
be. at last, again.

67-no one does it like you

it's true, you are the
food to me, but not the kind i eat
to be sated. no, it's a strangest
sensation when i want to
completely use you up;
every single molecule, but stretching
each atom out over its entire
lifetime of possibilities;
i can't settle for a half-life less
than an unimaginable unit of time.
but still, delayed gratification is
a daily struggle for me, and anything involving
making a decision is out. so i'll be content
to wait here for you to decide for me,
use me up.

66-leftrightleftright

without any other visual
cues, a point source
of light will appear to move in a
completely blackened room.
solely because of the body's
natural
uncontrollable
motions. a nervous tic,
momentary shudders (that's when someone
walks over your grave, my 5
year old self whispers to me),
tiny movements of a pinky.
each little shift, minute
adjustment
moves the light.
how far? who knows, who cares,
really, because it's
all just an illusion.

65-if

if i could film my life as it happens and then
go back
sometimes i wonder if i'd like to take it
into the dark room and make copy edits.
cut frames that had cut me whilst happening,
like the times spent crying over things
that were never
meant to be, should never have been
wanted. making a
smooth, cohesive, narrative
(in the eyes of the audience, of course).
along with that, perhaps i'd like to make
montages of the happiest moments,
extended looks at the times
i felt
most loved, most cherished, happiest,
(of course those were with you)
but then i really think about it,
usually late at night when
words start
to sound funny as i deconstruct them in my head,
and i realize that my life is in fact
a cohesive narrative,
i just can't see the story arc from
within the story.

64-attribution

 when things happen     to me 
sometimes it feels as if     you are
still here. when i am in the kitchen
and the song changes on the
ipod, i think    it is you picking it
and it has more weight, less   wait
than if i think it's the electrical     impulses
and not your hand.
when the blanket shifts      against my calves
i picture you shifting     like always,
instead of attributing it to the fan
    which it is. i forget for 
a moment in time that this apart
ness is still happening, still     current,
an open sore that the tiniest    of occurrences
can wound me again, the smallest change
will remind me once again that
you are not        here. 

63-motion parallax

motion parallax, they call it when
the objects closer to you (in a moving vehicle)
move faster than the ones that are farther
away. the mountains in the distance
take eternities to pass while the
tree just there flies by. what about
the towns just past the mountains?
and just past those? how fast
are those moving in time, slower
than an ant but faster
than the continents drifting?
and what about you, my home,
a thousand miles away. do you
move at all? is the distance
between us slowly shrinking? or
is it just my brain processing
the information clouding my
vision from my heart?

62- . what if

what if time really is fluid
, something that shifts just to conform
to the shape of its container
, in this case our minds
. what if instead we could let it
trickle out, and flow any which
way it wanted
. the molecules
disassociating into something else
. how would our bodies react? our fingers
,would they still reach out and pluck
a leaf from a stem or would
the leaf be springing to reach our
extended palms
. could we rewind
? pause and replay each of the
most precious moments
, those that have become
a little hazier around the edges
? and then reach out and
feel the soft peach fuzz of memory
, push it into alignment?

61-slip up

sometimes if i slip up it
overtakes me and catches me by
surprise:: one minute i'll be
perfectly fine, walking through
an emptier campus in the breeze
when it shifts:: and i swear i can
feel you beside me fingers
interlaced, my shoulder leaning
into your frame. here, solid.
my breath sticks in my throat
here, solid.

60- celebrations

what i remember most about my birthday
this year is confusing. on the one hand, i can
recall perfectly the empty feeling as i
spoke with a drunken friend, who pointedly
asked why i was going home, instead of going
upstairs to see what you were doing. i didn't
have the right, then, so i made the trek home
in the one blizzard of this year, stubbornly pulling
in each biting breath of freezing air, only to
find solace in the bed of my best friend,
finding free food and snuggling into her
shoulder, the outside air condensing into
tears pulling the edge of my lashes down.
but my birthday was the last of the epic birthday
week, which is also recalled in perfect crystallized
memory; captured on camera by another trying
to capture what would be, could be. to convince
me to go for it girl, i deserved it. surrounded
by all my closest friends, sharing laughs and
the bill. still, i remember most clearly the
smell of your skin brushing past my cheek as
the click of the camera went off in the distance.

59-chime

sometimes i have dreams that make
me wish they were my reality; so simplistic
and whole they make my body ache for
the realism. the door swings open;
"honey, i'm home!" and instead of a
chime of music playing (see, that would
be too unreal, too much) i hear your
music playing from the other room, and
tiny paws over wood floors to come
nuzzle my legs. a real home. but instead,
i wake up to my big empty room,
and walk out to silence.

58-whisker

the idea never used to appeal
to me; binding oneself to another in
the eye of the lord and the state, from
neither of which i seek approval.
why, if everyone knows it's true?
but now it's a little kitten
following me home from work (because i
stopped to give it a quick pet) a quick
look back each step sees it's tiny
tail flickering, each whisker a new
idea of possibility, of a little reason why
i could consider it. reminded again each
day at work, new colors shapes designs
seating plating dancing arrangements.
a little lost kitten, i'm telling you,
can't we just adopt it and make it
our own?

57-replanning

i should know by now, i mean i
go to a school where the architects practically
live in a cocoon of their building;
planning, sketching, replanning, etc.,
they're just a means to an ends, a method
of problem solving to cut the distance
between two points.a means
to an ends where the end is falling
down and hitting the water which isn't
a fluid anymore, is now concrete and
not going to cushion your fall
no, a way to get from point
a to point b, a passageway meant to
safely hold the cars in its proverbial
arms metal beams that
rust and creak and can break apart
after all these years, traveling back
and forth i still press the accelerator down
just a bit harder each time.

56-facts for visitors

Swaths of fabric, contextualizing her body, her folds. Rising, falling with each breath, each shimmer a void. Bending down to my notebook and beginning to write, the ink bleeding into the page, giving life. I wonder: If the words I am writing, believing, overlap and become one, woudl the blackness be the same? Would the words have meaning, purpose, desire? Each letter a penumbra in the multitude of existence on the page. Each word written; made of the same ink, the same atoms, the same. Then, the power of language is decode this sameness, the purpose to decipher. Isn't it? If language is a construct, then who's to say what you're reading is what I mean? A transcendental equation in its finist: you can't know what I mean without reading my words, but my words are created by my language, thoughts. If a could be the same as q then how would you know what quail meant? Equivalent? I think not. A sparkle hits my eye, reflection of the self in the emptiness. Knowledge, at last.

55- holy the bop apocalypse

i have your dreams and your teeth marks
(what is a body but a toy?)
and yet you will weep and know why.
       Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven
these fragments i have shored against my ruin.
            (burning burning burning burning)
            (what peaches and what penumbras)

petals on a wet, black bough
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
                 to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night
out of the sheer lust of adventure--
                 (Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!)

misremembered who i am
wasn't i there?
(my mother is a fish.)
now i am become death, the destroyer of worlds
now we are all sons of bitches

54-colloquialisms

higher and higher and higher the view
becomes unobstructed by the
haze of our earthly blanket.

as each layer of atoms is removed
from my eyes the sight does not
get clearer, any less fuzzy

the meaning will not reveal itself
to my calling. am i not addressing it
formally enough? are my colloquialisms

turning it off, making it cast
me into its shadow only to pull me
further into the darkness of

unadmitted knowledge. maybe i've
been up here too long, and
it's already revealed itself.

53-concentric

it seems as if every motion i make
isn't guided by a hand from above or
even within, a meandering walk about
what i desire, need, care for
concentric circles seem to be forming
arc upon arc not the most direct
the straightest path inward
(the least risky one, sure to keep
my most precious items safe)
seems to be pointing in one direction
only, and yet my heavy-hearted feet
are tied to this ground by responsibilities
both heavy and unwanted,
the one desire truly known
(and paid attention to)
at the center of these maddening patterns
is just beyond my reach

52-great moments in cinema

'shoot all the bluejays you want,
if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin
to kill a mockingbird.' the words
on the page painted a picture so clear
a man upstanding, bravest man though hating
war, hating even more injustice. the man
on the page seemed a good man, but nothing
compared to the man on the screen;
handsome, eyes shaded by heavy brows of
confidence, nose just set squarely in a
face symmetric. a voice controlling a courtroom
and a family, a voice like none other passing
down wisdom beyond the age.

51-something

at times the smallest of somethings
reveal themselves to me as codes waiting
to be broken down; messages from you
hidden inside the glass bottle encasing
a system of zeroes and ones; a fractal
bursting into patterns of lights
that seem to be missing; something;

again the shift and the message
starts anew, a new obstacle in the
system of breaking down.

50-hole

'maybe this time' the tiny voice whispers
shivers down my cochleal curve reaching
through my sp            rt, inner hairs
standing on                 tter enunciated
vibrating                   n the inbetween.
'how could                   ?' another whines
from within                  is passed
'how could he               pty? so alone?' 
'why?' wound up, each message reaches
the homunculus inside and settles, gets absorbed.

49-things that accumulate

the motions of things that accumulate
speak volumes as their muscles
contract and relax, shift
to accommodate. a look, fingers
grazing, breath quickened,
a hurried goodbye. it's good enough
for now just to remember, (but not
for long) as memories are subjective
colored by what we want now, looking
back for hidden clues, secret
messages passed through pinkies
just touching.

48-it overtakes me

the act of changing location
sounds so permeable, fluid. as if
i could inhale and be underground waiting
for my train. exhale and be
staring above me at behemoths of architecture
reflecting my own shining face
back at me. sometimes i feel
that way, but now each movement seems
languid and tired, as if my muscles
are straining from the weight
of all the lives i am not living;
pulling each cell backwards as it
tries and tries again to keep
its momentum.

47- condensate

the burning ones strained to pull
upwards on the sapling's branch--
leaves unaffected, gravity's
breath too heavy on each cell to
feel the ache of combustion
--they beat their tiny wings
trying to create uplift beyond the
words that burnt brightly against
the forest green and
mahogany brown--but the ties to
this world kept them anchored
in the babbling ambling condensate

46- poses

the classical body is
transcendental; poses once thought
un-natural come on a whim and can
be held for time periods unknown
to clocks, holding steady for the
camera clicking behind your iris,
iridescent. curtains of
the blackest lashes, aching to break
from their epidermal sockets of
stillness. the body knows this
staying is ephemeral in the eyes
of the cosmos, knows to keep
muscles from flinching out of formation,
just a little longer.

45-surface merry changing

the rays reached beyond the surface
of the water anew perspective
glints just past the corner of
my visual field eyes
fixed upwards floating on a
permeable surface
the unsympathetic merry
go round of clouds ever changing
rotating about the sphere
of existence i am forced to question
probe and make decisions about
but for now not quite
as the water grazes my skin
a caress of meditation
and the breeze shifts

44- star spangled

the fourth of julys past have held
hotdogs and hamburgers in buns, greasy
potato chips next to coleslaw,
soda cans dripping in exhaustion
while eyes strain in the dimming light
for spangles in the sky. bursting with
beads and sequins of exuberance
dancing just for my pleasure.
the first spent away from my
family, not gathered on a lawn blanket
beneath the stars, or listening
from a distance in our porch, had
spangles of a different sort in store,
held hands and faces, explorations
for new and exciting cuisine,
overindulgence of all senses, all necessary
and sufficient and then some. each
touch, each moment a new memory
bursting into existence.

43- home is where the heart

even now, i can hear them calling me
emotions voices speaking to the
rhythm of your heart beat
pulling my head my body towards them
when i concentrate i can feel
you here next to me embracing
fingertips slowly spelling their messages
on my skin breath hinting their
meaning your face is my home
and home is where the heart
belongs desires to be
will remain
with you

pause

Going on a mini-vacation, won't have laptop, will take back up Tuesday (possibly Monday night) and make up for time lost.

42- turn right

the path is unmovable un
changeable. false. turn left.
where are we going? these trees
don't look familiar,
the ground too flat to be home. turn
right. turn right. now.
the path is changing before
my eyes, before i can get
directions, know where we're
going, where we'll
end up. keep following this road,
it will take you to where
home is, where your heart lies
tucked away safely.

41-water

the human body is mostly water
they say, a commonly
known fact. we are all partly the same
water molecules filling each
of us almost to the brim.
we are each so easily
shaped by outside forces
and inner desires- just as
water strives to fill whatever
container it is in, to move
over any obstacle in its path.
the reflection glimmers in my
eye as the water changes from blue
to purple, purple to red, red
to black. i wonder what color
the water molecules are
inside me, at that moment.