keyculator, stoop and hall

already oh dear the thought where is it
it is an unflinching thing. sharp.


maybe what i liked was the unfamiliar. or wthat's what i crave. or think i did. bc i adjust to everythihng. chameleon. sinking into patterns. i crave that sinking in feeling. the passageway. maybe that's why i'm sitting in the hall right now. sitting in the floor, looking at the painting and the dust and my feet, and here's my cup of wine, and i hear jerel playing a game at the end of the hall, all the sounds. but i don't look at my hands and that's good and okay. i am just thinkig thoughts almost. isn't this ohow i think? it's sentences. it didn't used to be. i am not sure, i've wondered always, what form do other people's thoughts take? what's their shape? jerel says there's always images. that's more rare for me.
look at that. my cat comes back. the end of the hall. an angel! he's learning the house, nervous, stalking. he's learning the circle. the house is two concentric circles sort of. the hall is the main vein. there are times i avoid it. there are times it feels unnecesssary to my movement, my destination.
jerels' game is getting loud. i should close the doors.


four pockets, four directions.
a stone - a rock, really. i recognize it as one of my own, sitting on my parents' coffee table. i slip it into my front right pocket. a fake flower - fabric. pink. i like it. i was looking for whatever mom thinks willikers was playing with in the (non) living room. i don't see much / i see too much. the flower could be the thing? maybe, maybe not. but i like the color. (my room needs color.)
a twist tie - the color of cardboard. implies "recycled" or "natural" unlike the blue/white/yellow ties normally found on bags of bagels and the like. i don't know what it came off of. i feel like this is a thing that i always expct to be there, and never ever am i gonna pay for it. here is one on teh counter, unused. pocket
packet corner - the plastic yellow corner of a bag of cough drops from the floorboard of my sister's car. i am suupposed to open them for her. i do not litter. i take trash towards me. i bring it home. (i am home.) i bring trash home. i bring it towards its home, my body. you get it.

i wish i could remember which pocket housed which item. why do i wish that? what purpose would that really serve? it's not like pants have directions. i can assign them as i wish, as i prescribe to where my mind/body/center sits.

two weeks ago at movie night, franklin made popcorn, two delicious huge bowls. at some point near the end of the bowl, i wish i remembered the cue (she probably does) morgan tells me "i've been holding these kernels in my hand." i tell her "i put mine in my pocket." she asks "will you take mine too?" and i put her moist discarded mouth seeds into the pit of my pocket. along with my own, i am sowing them for somethign, the possibility of the pocket.
the pocket
the portal
the pocket
the portal
i wish i had a cigarette
i'm tempted to go buy one
instead i am gonna look for my rolling papers and make an herbal thingie. raspberry leaf and uva ursi and shit. and maybe some of this cbd business that smells like weed but isn't. let's try. i have the urge to be under moon, under wind. i dont' want to leave my cat, but the night is calling me. the cards want the night. i am listening.

p.s. when i took off those pants and found those treasures, i put on new pants and found new ones - selenite and bitten off finger nails. what to do with such things!

i'm surprised how much video game noise distracts me. (am i?)

(wondering, did you turn the game down once you heard me moving outwards? or did it just get to a quiet part?)

realizing i'm sneaking again. SNEAKING in my own home! is it for fun or is it from fear?
i realize i'm trying to small myself, curl up, walk toe to heel down the whole hall. i've already left my slippers in the kitchen to be quieter. i realize my throat is tight, closed.
this was one of the things, one of the whole same things. open open open. project. speak. fill. this one is so big. i just want to sing and squeak. instead i smoke and drink. i dont know. i dont know.
i see it.
i'm working on it.
right now i am going to smoke this herbal thing intentionally. i am drinking wine. i maybe should just sleep but i feel like this is one of *those* nights. is that fair?
i dont' care. i'm trying to follow the impulses. i'm trying to feel which are mine, if that exists.

what about holding space for the dialogue between air and electricty? earth and plastic? i know we have enough worshippers of pollution. but how can we have a beter conversation?
i don't entirely know what i'm thinking.
just remembering feeling a magic in electric light, from a distance, like a wish of fairies. the intimacy of parking lots. (and of course their opposites, going both ways. the loneliness of parking lots. the intimacy of a thicket of trees.) what have we actually changed by replacing plants with concrete? what spirits linger here now?

p.s. feather of swords is lookiing up at me when i open the box - after court last shuffled. i hold the cards just for a moment - the only peek i get is the lovers, reversed. just the bottom left 1/8 of the card, but i recognize it. goddamn.
okay.
gonna use a spread i saw on instagram a few months back and have been meaning to try. lets see.

lost found

i begin to think everything isn’t real and this is just a ??
but i’ve been inside a book and 3 beers and tears and i don’t know what i am and what i’ve found now that i’ve come out of it
what is enough
where are the thresholds
how do we see them
how can we honor them
how can i thank everything enough for what it is
how is it okay for me to be alive and consuming

i have my friend here! the cat dr g. what a great guy. what a miracle to see him here giving life to this space. how did i not see how empty it was before ???
how have i not seen how empty the days? when is the last time i touched anything real?
thinking about swamps and sheeps and

maybe there’s a bog witch feeling in there somewhere
(maybe the thing is just to do it and stop thinking. just find a place.)

sad clam stew

what have i done what did i do?
interrupted again i guess
came in with a question and turned around
asshole
but couldn’t take the passive aggressive? response
just tell me your feelings are hurt
just ask me to leave
instead it’s just you don’t want pizza anymore. you’ll have a cucumber sandwich.
now i don’t want pizza anymore
now i don’t want anything
i feel abandoned again
lost
useless
sad
lonely
you don’t think i should feel abandoned bc i’m “never alone”
but you are the one who keeps choosing solitude - how can that be the same feeling?
i’m not mature enough for this relationship
i’m too insecure
i’m not secure enough for this relationship
i’m too immature
the catbox smell sticks in the air
not the stuff but the litter
it’s dusting everything already i guess
the air is already thicker
it’s in my throat like a tickle
making water taste bitter
just dust me dry me burn me away
leave me lying in the dark
leave me lying under feathers
never look at me
never look back
i’m not enough for this
i can’t not overreact
i couldn’t give you enough
i’m not what you need
i’m not what you deserve
i love what i lack
your patience generosity kindness cleverness
i rot i wilt i falter feather
giving only when i need to
getting all of nothing from you
questing licking split the center
rent from mouths mistakes they quiver
climbing clinging higher tighter
melting winging longer lighter
nothing gone from nothing gained
bring me back some nothing name
give me grievance give me shame
give me pleasure give me pain
gone from earth and banned from hell
damned if we didn’t rum barrel yell
this got off track but that’s the point
be free before you blow this joint
go wild run now go wild get down
where did i go
where have i been
i wanted to just say what happened
the words ran away with me
such a sin
the rhyme it tricks me makes me bend
time to be done.
time to be gone.
i only wanted to say it plain
is there a way i can ever do it or will i always cloak the hard parts in the poetry ?
why is this the only place i find it ?
(because it’s melodramatic stupid and embarrassing
and no one should have to read it
you wish you never went to write it)
the flow moves pathways in my mind and it skips along a different rhyme
but rhythm stays the same maybe even every time
i’m done i’m dying
i’m cold i’m crying
i’m not i’m lying
i can’t stop sighing
and every time wonder did you hear ?
stopped half hoping you’d appear
you don’t have words for what i’ve done
i can’t come back from where i’ve gone
but it’s time to make pasta time to sing songs
remember that the night is long
remember that you could go blond
remember that you started this
and you could stop it with a kiss
you know that you could just keep going
when river words are easy flowing
but when they show no signs of slowing
you learn to know when to stop rowing



“the end is nigh”-ing

rat trap night sack

sometimes i forget about how the page used to offer lines. the clear distinction in my mind between lines and the huge block of a never ending paragraph. like the stories didn’t require it so they didn’t receive. and the poems had a whole different vocabulary, different shape.

i have to remember to read more shapes. more poems. more weird words.
rex’s book. angela carter. poetry all the time. what am i doing.

actually these video games are funny sometimes with their lines in a way i can get behind. i didn’t expect to be so drawn in by the words.

(but also there are other words, there are other worlds. we can’t forget to visit.)

i’m up late carefree silly on a thirsty thursday. a pushback against feeling yet again a failure for my parents? a finding fun pushback to jerel playing their new game where i have an excuse to be silly / seen?
i’ve been reminding myself to look for the signs. see that everything is speaking. tonight i saw a lot of words. i saw images i can’t imagine where i found them in 2001, 2012. (“a circus orb” et al.) what were they saying?

do i want another smoke actually or do i want the cool outside alone? can it be both or what is healthy? this drink is probably already too much so maybe it’s also enough. pasta and white wine with the fur family in the museum and broad city episode about hoarding - is it weird that it didn’t hit closer to home? or did we feel it without fully comprehending? was there intention in the writing to actually touch the subject or was it just a vessel for poignancy and laughter? how cloaked can you go?




the remembory is that it can’t be forced, the remembory is that it comes in spurts. we seem to work in sprints. (is this a “good” thing? is it even “okay” or do we keep needing to fight to find some perfect balance? the correct timesheet planner equation? doesn’t it feel too much dependent on yr brain and body and mood to predict? hasn’t it always? how do we leave room for it and still do all this other garbage mess?)

all we really want is a _____ train

stop being obsessed with yourself you prick





listen at least yr writing at least you got to here. this is where you will meet them.
(hello train. hello night. enter smoke. enter game.)

is the place where i have been going
-when i have been able to get there-
the place? where others go
i know there is a stream
many streams
to look and dip and lick
have i found any access points
or is mine a secret chest

(there are rhymes wanted that i do not choose. there are lines waiting that i should not lose.)
((can i be a one to flow through? can my fingers make my mind true?))

if always the revelation is about the revelation then we can’t go nowhere.
if you can’t get the fuck off this one stair then we can’t walk anywhere can’t move can’t do can’t speak can’t teach and then who are we for? still only ourselves still ever our cells still nothing that sells still
there is a something which will creak
there
there yes i’ve heard it
there yes and the word yes it’s singing
creak and sing
teach and bring
let me be a nothing thing
let me be lip to lie on
let me be a lid pried open
let the softness scream our songs
let the darkness live along
and when we dream of day again
we know that we can take the pen
and when the day is vast and open
we know that we must make the potion
(we know that we must never read
the words that we never did speak
we know that lines can come alive
before our hearts and minds divide)


maybe i can open the connection but i don’t know where to go. maybe i’m so worried that it shouldn’t be me. maybe i’m convinced that i’m just an instigator, enabler, facilitator, translator, assistant, nodule, fake. was i even supposed to be here today. was i even supposed to eat any cake. surely only sitting in to sit the wings and make the smoke.
how do i find what the house is about
i want to be the vessel
how do i receive
(if you want to be the muscle
you must first be meat)
and how do i muster the sounds of the moldy
and construct what’s left behind when i’m left lonely
what do we do with the ones who’ve abused
what have we done when we’re forever snoozed
listen
listenlistenlisten
you’ve never seen the kitchen
listen
the critter creaking over there
the sirens trains machines that take the air
we’re sure you haven’t seen much greater
so get off the elevator
quit yr game of rising high
lick yr knuckle spit dry and listen listen listen
hi
if you’re not watching who is ?
who is stewarding this land
who would kiss a possums hand
shut up with that i’m not a savior
but look at what the good gods gave ya
if i can’t get words for all
maybe my own aren’t so small
listen
listen
train train plane rustle car rustle TRAIN car TRAIN central air train train drip drip rustle wind rattle rustle rattle hush rattle rush rustle rustle come to me rustle rustling one so free will you be raccoon or cat will you be possum or rat will you be a friend or foe will you be which grazes low
rustle drip rain falls now rustle train rattle brain slow small cloud drip car drip fall slow soft don’t snow rustle dribble birds quibble cars rush birds hush a light to shine a sounding line an awkward caw a swaying soft the rustle leaves although i’m looking the tussled trees continue cooking

coocoo
cakoo
coocoo
cocoon
speak speak speak
tweet
sleep
squeak
some small holler far away
some life will leave and some will stay

sometimes i forget that we are the bodies we have
in these spaces in these places