Layer
Should you be a poem?
Are you worth the words it takes
To decorate my wound with jewels
And put it on display?
I’ll build you a tomb in my heart.
You died in the womb,
but you never really started, did you?
Our dearly departed,
Our —-
Give me a second to collect myself.
Give me just a second.
Her body rejected you, afterward.
After all,
you were just a layer of cells
wrapped around a pale hope
lighter than the blue line on the First Response,
thinner than the white cotton
soaking up the blood she made for you.
We laughed at the mood swings,
I lay my hand on her belly to feel.
We ate only good things
and we prayed before every meal.
And still, and still
I’ve got pain pills and Red Bull
And a head full of dreadful questions
And mental dilemmas
If this is a test of our mettle,
I,
I —-
I told the whole world
Before I knew for sure that you were real.
I’ll leave this unfinished, just like you.
You
My soul is a glass house
glowing like the Throne of God
and the stars are just facsimiles for invisible fountains of consciousness,
the knots in Indra’s net,
the nodes in the cosmic grid
that power Everything’s existence.
If I could see thoughts, I’d be blinded by this white-hot mindspot
until time stopped or the dead walked
and my “why?”s
all changed to “why not?”s
So just in case, I shield my eyes
From the Biggest Idea Ever Dreamed:
it’s bigger than gravity, bigger than matter
bigger than maybe, bigger than laughter
and better than happily ever after.
The Taurean Throat
This is the second bout of infection in two months. Last time forced an emergency room visit because the pain was a burning TEN, but this time I can see the white blisters even though the pain is mild. I’m on mostly the same meds: Lortab and Zithromax and steroids shots and gratuitous amounts of sleep.
When I was a little kid, I got stung in the throat by a bee. It landed on my neck and I looked down, crushing it and driving its stinger into the fleshy underside of my jaw. The swelling was incredible. I had three chins for at least as many days.
When I was a little kid, I also read that people born under the Taurean sun tended to have throat and mouth problems. I wonder how many of my annual strep infections, neck and jaw tensions, grindings of teeth, and troubles with breathing/singing coordination are a deep psychosomatic response to early belief in astrological dogma.
Which one hurt me worse: the martyred bee or the venomous belief in predestination?
19 – Nearing
Mists under the earth. What is the great force building beneath our world? The line on the test is so faint, but I can see it.
Life is beautiful and strange. I wonder about my brakes after all.
Insulter
His battery died for lack of attention; he blamed it on his girlfriend. His brakes failed; despite the constant, screeching warning he’d ignored them. A lack of focus drains you of life and keeps you from stopping, even as you hurtle into doom.
Whatever, he’s a right bastard sometimes. You know, I try to pay attention and heed the lessons. Maybe I was being boastful, a braggart, currying favor with an elder. And yes, my ambitions for perfection make me oversensitive. Oversensitive and alienated from those who drift through life directionless, ignoring their own inertia and the dying light inside.
But at least my brakes are solid and my battery is charged.
sleepwalker
There’s an altar in the northeast,
the ark of our covenant,
a dream chamber framed in chocolate brown lines
like wooden roots and living vines cradling the earth of our marriage.
It lies against an eggshell wall,
a soft nest
where this sparrow sings his song.
The bed where I rest and hallucinate
a brilliant mosaic of sweet things I can’t remember
and kind gestures I’ll never forget.
I lay my hand there sometimes when you’re gone.
Just close my eyes and feel
Warmth in the shape of you.
And I sleep on the couch when you’re not here
Because our bedroom gives me visions
I need your wisdom to interpret perfectly.
I sleep on the couch when you’re not here
Because when you come home from work
You’ll wake me
and be the first thing I see.
I sleep on the couch when you’re not here
So I can fall asleep to the TV
and pretend the voices are yours.
Darling,
I didn’t write this because it was Valentine’s Day.
I wrote this because I never woke up this morning.
I keep having this wonderful dream
where I’m married to you.
Even in Losing
Just conceded a chess game online, and right as I hit the submit button, my cat Zelda knocked over the white king on the real chessboard in my office.
Did I mention I was playing white? Did I mention that McCarty and I used to play chess frequently, and we would always resign our games by toppling our own king?
Strangeness, babies, strangeness.
Level Up
From oasis to oasis in this desert of time.
I bought a house with my wonderful wife, furnished it and moved in. It’s a beautiful three-bedroom in a sleepy little vale that can’t decide between rural or suburban. The house has an extended garage, within which I’ve cobbled together a nascent dojo and plunged back into Starting Strength. My boy Graham joined me after about a week, and we’ve got a lot of muscle-shredding momentum.
My senior year started about six weeks ago. There’s a heavy emphasis on cultural anthropology now, and my head is swimming with social theory. I synthesized a wonderful, golden idea that I’m going to build a special problems course around: a literary research project and hopefully another undergrad publication. My mentor has been very encouraging.
I competed in my first fencing bout today, AND it was against an experienced fencer, AND I won. I scored the first touch, then got knocked down 1-4. Came back to score four points solid to win 5-4. Although it was hella chaotic and I was unsure who scored half the time, it was very reminiscent of kung fu sparring. Overall I’m in a competitive space: I’ve been playing chess lately too. Combat in black and white. Culture in binary.
Interpersonal war came and went. I left the wounded on the battlefield, not without remorse. Have you ever had to kill something to bring it to life? Deny something to make it real? I know I’m being cryptic, which is ironic. I will have to leave this mysterious for now.
Fuck Chase Bank
For closing my biggest credit account without notification, right in the middle of my home-buying process. This is all based on a stock lie they are telling the old WaMu customers, and apparently there are a lot of them. Like, enough for a class action lawsuit.