ground

Did they bury

him?

I'm not sure
but
I can smell the dirt.

I pointed at him
and he didn't move
like he moved yesterday.

diane, a letter.

Variations in gray hovering


over
a building that is only
charcoal in color.

Similar clouds,
clouds again. How

can they hover.
Do you see
any strings?

As if she pieced together

the world she was
thrown into.

These clouds a bit lighter,
yet still
making the scene. The children
wear homemade masks,

power in the stance.

Look up. Look up.

A woman in a mask drags a man,
come here,
as if away from


the forest. The fire eater, the child
in the nightgown,
she saw her clouds above them too.

A whisk above their heads,
ready to beat down
a fine milky
substance.

To the couple on the pier,

the clouds mean nothing. The clouds linger

somewhere at their backs, waiting
for the wind to push

a little bit faster.

It all ran together,
hiding behind

machines. Hiding behind
the clouds
was what

kept her dying,

kept her on the phone
hellopleaseansweriveneverlearnedtobealone.



"I see something that seems wonderful; I see the divineness in ordinary things." - Nov 28, 1939, Diane Arbus in a paper on Plato during her senior year of college.

wonder(ful)

I find inspiration in the things said to me, shown to me, and things I see myself.

Thank you for saying something honest.
Thank you for showing me that poem.
Thank you for saying how you feel lost and bored
with people's lack of expoloration.

Sometimes, enough is enough,
like maybe we can't make it,
maybe we can.


[a poem shown to me last night]

How I Became Impossible

I was born shy, congenitally unable to do anything
profitable, to see anything in color, to love plums,
with a marked aversion to traveling around the room,
which is perfectly normal in infants.
Who wrote this? were my my first words.
I did not like to be torched.
More snow fell than was able to melt,
I became green-eyed and in due time traveled
to other countries where I formed opinions
on hard, cold, shiny objects and soft, warm,
nappy things. Late in life I began to devlop
a passion for persimmons and was absolutely delighted
when a postcard arrived for the recently departed.
I became recalcitrant, spending more and more time
with my rowboat. All my life I thought polar bears
and penguins grew up together playing side by side
on the ice, sharing the same vista, bits of blubber
and innocent lore. One day I read a scientific journal:
there are no penguins at one pole, no bears
on the other. These two, who were so long intimates
in my mind, began to drift apart, each on his own floe,
far out into the glacial seas. I realized I was becoming
impossible, more and more impossible,
and that one day it really would be true.


-- Mary Ruefle

come over

I can imagine who I am and how to shape my room --------

into
an escape.


I clothe myself in the papers
I write my lists on.

thoughts inside myself

Yesterday I thought that if the subway went underground one more time, I might just start on fire. I knew that somehow something unpredictable would happen because why else would I feel so unstabble. Why else would I wish for a tree to grow inbetween me and the two women talking? Because I could be protected, or at least imagine that I was somewhere else and that there was a need to hide.


They cut down the tree in the front yard today which makes sun break into my window very early in the morning. How will this affect my sleeping patterns? Will I be able to breathe the same?

rainycloudy

The man at the school library was mad that I checked out so many books.

Eight books.

I saw five or six daschunds yesterday.

Sometimes you fly around not thinking because you have to watch out for storm clouds and then you lay low for a bit and take a bath and feel protected and clean and new. That is how I feel today. New York city is so busy, and I'd just rather not be.

a stitch

I could weave yarn
from inside the coves of my hand

and maybe they would be an ocean,
if the yarn was blue enough.

I could listen harder
and hear something softer
and feel okay
that maybe I am somewhere
else, entirely.

I lift bark to my ear
and hear nothing.

Or something quiet
and now unrecognizable.

Rows of houses catching on fire.
Lakes as still as pavement.

Rain sounds the same so if I just
listen, I could be anywhere.

Quiet. Patient.
Believe in
the great white pine.



(something better said by WS Merwin (seperation))
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

440amtimetowritewhycoffee

Coruscate.

From her eyes I could see a moment somewhere, lost. I tried to paint her as she was that night a few weeks later. Talkative with her head titled back. It was impossible and one of the few times I wish I had had a camera, something that would have at least seemed like the way it had been when I looked at it later. Maybe it would be propped up against some novel on my bookself. Pinned to a corkboard. Taped to a mirror so I could see myself, then her, then try to see a little bit of myself in her.

She had been lost in the christmas lights wrapped around the fence of the backyard. She wanted to be somewhere further off, somewhere that was expanding but still within reach.

"My eyes see what they want to see."

I tried to move my hand, it was falling asleep in the position I sat in on the blanket. I felt awkward and a little alone. Her body pulsed within itself and mine did too, only I seemed more focused on what she was saying, on what she was feeling. It seemed like maybe I lost myself somewhere in my own house. Maybe I was still pacing from bathroom to bedroom wishing I had something to do. Someone to tell something to, or at least something to say.

I thought about the word of the day email I had been receiving in my inbox. Corusacte. To give off or reflect bright beans or flashes of light, sparkle. She was silent, perhaps asleep. I noticed a mosquito land on her arm and feed. As it filled I pinched its body. There was a miniscule explosion of blood, yet I felt satisfied. I thought about corusacte again and wasn't really sure how anyone could use that in a sentence. Although it had a delicate and enjoyable meaning, the word seemed awkward when on the tounge. Useless and flat and lacking of communication. Maybe I just needed to talk to more people with wider vocabularies. Or maybe I should just learn to lay here and not worry if I am thinking too much or not thinking enough and just expand a little with the rest of the universe.

It is late at night and I have had coffee so a list is a good idea

These are things that need to be done very soon.

1) Buy a roll of white paper from the art store. Tape this along my room and draw a forest with animals hiding inside. Possibly paint my room green

2)Buy a desk and a chair to go with it

3)Send speakers/receiver to myself

4)Set up a fort made out of a sheet around my record player

5)Find a slide projector to do readings with

6)Read all of the books I need to read

late night feelings

Sometimes after the coffee wears down all I really feel is nervousness. Like, maybe the entire world is my responsibility. And that maybe everything revolves around me. And maybe I made another mistake at work. Maybe I was irresponsible and now I won't be respected. I won't be though about in a positive way. That is really all I want. Is to be thought about in a positive way. I am not sure how I want to write anymore. I read today in the Diane Arbus book that she told an admirer of her work and fellow photographer, "while it isnt good to to copy me, it is something every artist goes through before he evolves a style of his own."

The photographer says, "She was right."

I am obsessed with this book. It is the only thing I really want to talk about other than the nyu suicides. I have a lot of questions. Mostly, was the second and third suicides just copying the idea of the first? If the first hadn't thought of jumping, would the others have choosen a different route? Would they have changed their minds? Did the third already change her mind as she dangled from the roof of the building and the man with the binoculars watched?

I needed to find the perfect journal. Something to write in that already had meaning and substance. Today someone tipped us a moleskine journal. No one else wanted it. I felt a little okay. But I still wondered if my coworkers hated me a little because we got out at 1235 instead of 1215. whywhywhywhywhy. I want to write notes all over my walls that say positive things. This might improve my nighttime.

Also, why with the spanking every night? Is it really spanking that I hear?

nervous

If I told you I've been on edge latley because the guy at the holistic pet store told me I feed my cat wrong, would you think that is an okay thing to say? That the feeling was justified?

My cat just puked, was it because she got into a bag of fancy feast I bought until I could get a hold of the Innova cat food or was it because of the organic papya juice he told me to put into her food?

something, better than nothing

After looking back
I find that I have not left
anything behind.

Although I wonder
if I even had anything
to leave
in the first place.

itch

The dream of bugs inside me
and the doctor can only comb them out.

Return,
return to
hope imagined thinly.

I have been reaching
where most can not scratch. I learned
from late nights I spent waiting
for the earth to move
and dawn to move
and all the black legs that would tickle
my own legs and my body
would be nothing but welts.

A mixture of my blood
on their mouths. They move the mattress.
My thoughts with the bugs
as they fly within the springs.

An obsession, a watchful eye,
a plug in the sink. The slug watching me
as I watch it and wonder how the journey felt
through the drain. And if it had been worth it.