Dream State

. . .Two nights ago, I dreamed of helicopters smashing into giant birds and the sky, searing with taffy scars. It was all stereotypically apocalyptic. Children drowning in the oceans. Some Arabian king, tapestries, vans with rollerskate wheels and death.death.death. Last night, the filter was all gossamer and soft-lighting and I can remember less. The other He was reading a piece called Almost 149 Words (which only exists in my mind) and I was packing dried apples into plastic cups for a long journey. We (a nebulous and indeterminate "we") drove over the hill and saw a deserted and ink-stained beach. There were giant pink pumps - maybe an oil refinery, and enormous yellow windmills and the blond in the back said something about how Helen Hunt always has such an amazing eye for aesthetic structure. . .

What's Strange. . .

What's strange is not that I used to shake when you touched me, but that I'd forgotten about it completely. If anything, this is an ending and not a beginning and, therefore, this regression is perplexing. Maybe we should just erase all the physical ways we went horribly wrong, but does that mean I have to start out back at the beginning with you? Nervous as I drive to your house? Knees to my chest on the corner of the couch? Thoughts full of speed and hope? I blame your bed and I blame my memory - so selective in what makes a thought complete. But in my head, I'm not even there. My body is all stupid and quivering and my mind is on the other side of town. But what else can I do? This is all I know. Either nervous at the thought or regretful of the action. Maybe this is progress in that I'm trying to move us into something else. Trouble is, I don't have a lot of working models to choose from. My subconscious is sweet, in its own backhanded way. It's trying to make some changes. But I need something completely new here. New or nothing at all. And maybe this is a sign of something even stronger, because it is always right before I let go, that I hold on the hardest. Maybe I am closer to the end than I think.

Kissing in Manhattan

"Neither Clarice nor Eleanor had sparked any joy, hope, or dread in James's heart. He never fought with them or for them, never danced with them, never learned to waste time with them or kiss the tips of their eyelashes or to leave certain things unsaid."

~David Schickler

All The Cities At Once

"Pretend
is
a city
bigger
than New York,
bigger
than
all the cities
at once."

~Richard Brautigan

Am I Still. . .

Am I still the house when I'm not dreaming?

Siren Song

"This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces (wo)men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the other's can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don't enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time."

~Margaret Atwood

In The Backseat

"I like the peace in the backseat,
I don't have to drive,
I don't have to speak,
I can watch the countryside.
Alice died in the night.

I've been learning to drive.
My whole life, I've been learning."

The Arcade Fire

One thousand ships later

It is a Greek love of incomprehensible nobility.
It is the stupidest mistake of my life.
One thousand ships later, and it's not even my face.

Always

To me he'll always be a torrential downpour in July. A deluge that's liberating when you're barefoot and laughing on the sidewalk, and paralyzing when you're driving at night on a dimly lit highway.

(only herself and who illimitably is)

"It was the story of an egg that went to battle against a
man made of spoons, and won, to become mayor of the world"
- - - China Miéville "The Scar"

My smile, if it's real, runs from here to Oklahoma.
My happiness spills out in all directions, seeping and creeping through cracks and fissures. Yes, I did the math. My joy has a radius of 1,438 miles.

The trouble is, the greater the ocean, the more likely I am to crash into things. Maybe not in Oklahoma, but there are some hills, valleys and mountains, elsewhere, that can bloody up my mouth pretty good as it strains to keep that smile in place.

It's very noble of my body to seek balance, but the imminent low that follows the amazing high gets tiresome. I know it's coming but I certainly don't take a time-out to prepare for it. Let the clepsydras spill. Why lessen the pleasure while I'm swimming in it? So I just get hit, full-on, when I turn the corner and that's the way it always is.

I'm on the crest of the wave and, truth be told, I'm stunned I'm still standing. Today, I rolled down the windows, turned up the music, and made a glorified mockery of myself. I was, fucking, beautiful. And if my choice to embrace 'the lie of no and the truth of yes' is bringing forth such joyful separateness, then I made the right decision.

Through The Looking Glass

"When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less. The question is , said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master - that's all."

-Lewis Carroll

City of Glass

"It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not. Much later, when he was able to think about the things that happened to him, he would conclude that nothing was real except chance. But that was much later. In the beginning, there was simply the event and its consequences. Whether or not it might have turned out differently, or whether it was all predetermined with the first words that came from the stranger's mouth, is not the question. The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell."

. . .

"As for me, I have my good days and my bad days. When the bad days come, I think of the ones that were good. Memory is a great blessing, Peter. The next best thing to death."

. . .

"He had nothing to fall back on anymore but himself. And of all the things he discovered during the days he was there, this was the one he did not doubt: that he was falling. What he did not understand, however, was this: in that he was falling, how could he be expected to catch himself as well? Was it possible to be at the top and the bottom at the same time? It did not seem to make sense."

. . .

"At a certain point, he realized that the more he wrote, the sooner the time would come when he could no longer write anything."

-Paul Auster