The age of Aquarius.

Rushing past me all day, frowning upon my lack of a pencil and paper, are whispery tangles of prose, who leave me too quickly, sand through fingers, to be recorded in the first place.

I learned truthful characteristics tonight and it took all of my strength to keep from bursting into tears during class. Am I the saddest? An enabler? Revealing much with mentions of fluid-like passivity and possessive, uncrossable anguish. Unless followed to a “T,” all is lost. And was lost. A princess (a potential Queen) letting down too much hair for a knight (turmoil in disguise) who would be too prideful to climb up, even against his most desperate, personal needs.

It’s a lose/lose situation.

Percentage comes into question only once, and in my sad favor. What more could one do?

Are you listening? Studies reveal you listened all too closely. Worse yet, I tend to flit about, loyal yet ambiguous, never really there. Touch my shoulder to make me smile; I’m yours but I’m everyone’s. I don’t recall and you do. You’ll forever never tell me and I’ll be forever dying to know.  (Someday I’ll be able to stop writing about this.)

What could be in there? A flashing of face, eyelashes, hard work to appear so subtle, beautiful and natural, lips like none other brandishing an endearing smirk, fussy and loveable and jealous.

It’s just as well you never let me in on it. I wouldn’t remember anyway.

Fish and Bird.

Here I am. If I had known I would have brought you with me, and maybe this chain of events would have changed the week’s chain of events and you wouldn’t have a punctured lung and I wouldn’t be out two dollars and bad jokes. I watched you squirm around and it hurt us both so bad when I made you laugh, and with each breath, a hand’s length of blood shifting back and forth inside of a plastic tube hung to the floor that I thought, “maybe they re-use these tubes? No… no way.. they must dispose of them..”

I didn’t answer the second time you called me because I was nervous and didn’t recognize the phone number. But I’ll see you tomorrow.

My eyebrows are fixed in a perpetual aching frown. That’s okay though, because it looks pretty on me. This has got to stop. I’m sounding much more goth than I’m used to.

Maybe I can’t sleep tonight.

Surrounded by my Mima, my Tia, Papo, children, probably grandchildren, in a hospital bed, is my great uncle, Tio Vincentico, and he’s dying (I’d rather die at home but I suppose it’s a choice you could rarely, luckily, make).

I remember Mama’s wake, in Miami. I think I was in eighth grade. I played F-1 Racer on Game Boy the whole time, two player, with Dustin, we were lucky enough to have adapters. What were we supposed to do? The room was filled with terrible howls and I’m really into escapism.

So she was their mother. He’s the oldest brother and this could seem like an unravling of sorts, but you’d be hard pressed since there’s almost too many of us. We’re bursting from the seams of a faithful heavenly heart.

I won’t be there, but don’t hurt while you die, please. I don’t even recall the last time I saw you, but I see you in my head, and I don’t want to see you on your death bed. I wrote something in spanish on a card for you two weeks ago. I had to have my mom translate. My greatest memory of you is the time you got angry during a game of dominos (which is fairly common). I was laying on my stomach on the carpet, coloring, and I had a bad cold, and you knocked dominos off the wobbly card table, cursing in spanish. I knew because the curse words are all I know, when I really should know so very much more. A couple dominos landed near my coloring book and I rolled around laughing until everyone was laughing, because everyone knows you can’t take a Cuban temper too seriously. Dustin and I even made up a song about it.  Love you.

I wish I’d been a little girl and rolled around laughing when it came to other ethnic tempers. Then I’d still be on top of the game. I’m just too smushy-hearted for that.

Clocks in the sun.

Agh, I was planning on writing.  Now I can’t.  I’ll be back in five.

Whatever.

They pulled in just behind the fridge
He lays her down, he frowns
“Gee my life’s a funny thing, am I still too young?”
He kissed her then and there
She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere
Heaven knows, she’d have taken anything, but

All night
She wants the young American
Young American, young American, she wants the young American
All right
She wants the young American

Scanning life through the picture windows
She finds the slinky vagabond
He coughs as he passes her Ford Mustang, but
Heaven forbid, she’ll take anything
But the freak, and his type, all for nothing
He misses a step and cuts his hand, but
Showing nothing, he swoops like a song
She cries “Where have all Papa’s heroes gone?”

All night
She wants the young American
Young American, young American, she wants the young American
All right
She wants the young American

All the way from Washington
Her bread-winner begs off the bathroom floor
“We live for just these twenty years
Do we have to die for the fifty more?”

All night
He wants the young American
Young American, young American, he wants the young American
All right
He wants the young American

Do you remember, your President Nixon?
Do you remember, the bills you have to pay
Or even yesterday?

Have you been an un-American?
Just you and your idol singing falsetto ’bout
Leather, leather everywhere, and
Not a myth left from the ghetto
Well, well, well, would you carry a pistol
In case, just in case of depression
Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors
Blushing at all the Afro-Sheeners
Ain’t that close to love?
Well, ain’t that poster love?
Well, it ain’t that Barbie doll
Her heart’s been broken just like you have

All night
You want the young American
Young American, young American, you want the young American
All right
You want the young American

You ain’t a pimp and you ain’t a hustler
A pimp’s got a Caddy and a lady’s got a Chrysler
Black’s got respect, and white’s got his soul train
Mama’s got cramps, and look at your hands shake
I heard the news today, oh boy
I got a suite and you got defeat
Ain’t there a man you can say no more?
And, ain’t there a woman I can sock on the jaw?
And, ain’t there a child I can hold without judging?
Ain’t there a pen that will write before they die?
Ain’t you proud that you’ve still got faces?

Ain’t there one damn song that can make me
break down and cry?

All night
I want the young American
Young American, young American, I want the young American
All right
I want the young American
Young American
Young American, young American, I want the young American
(I want with you, I want with you want)
All right
(You want it, I want you you, you want I, I want you want)
Young American, young American, I want the young American
(I want to want, to want, to want , to want I, I want you)
All right
(Lord I wanted the young American)
(young American)
Young American, Young American
I want the young American

Exhaustion of the goddamn mind and heart and soul.

Gross, I’m so tired of sad pangs of still ‘being in love’ stupidly, blindly, lame-ly, unreciprocated-ly, uselessly. Shake it off already.

On remembering a friend.

I think I met him because he came into my work a lot. Soft spoken with glasses, craggy and quirky, though not to an embarrassing level. I had his work nametag. He was from Lancaster. We spent so much time with him. We skipped school (I waited until junior year or so, because I was absolutely yellow about it all) and we’d meet him at Shoney’s, or Waffle House. We saw Sleepy Hollow the day it opened. We never got in trouble. We went all over South Carolina. We ended up around his home; he had such a strange relationship with his family, he was so unlike them. We found a nature reserve, where I pulled my friend’s long sleeves behind her back, punched her in the jaw and she fell down to the gravel right next to a spider, and I took off running toward a man-made lake to throw rocks at ducks. It wasn’t as violent as it sounds, trust me. We found a dollar store and I bought romance novels for the covers. For some reason (yet neither gay nor goth) he bought an eyebrow pencil at the drugstore thinking it was eyeliner, it “didn’t work right” so he gave it to me. I still have it. I’m still using it. It hasn’t run out since the late nineties.

He made the decision to join the Air Force. I remember saying good-bye to him at a hotel on Wilkinson Boulevard. It was where all the people were meeting to leave for boot camp the next morning. I think we ate in the hotel restaurant. He gave me some personal effects, including a book in the Red Dwarf series and Cornelius – Fantasma (we liked all the little japanese meows).

A couple years later he was in Alaska. He said he got fat because there was nothing to do there but eat. Now he’s back to normal and living in California, almost finished with the air force. I wonder what he’s like. I wonder if he’s still soft spoken and craggy.

Somebody out there listens to the Jackie Brown soundtrack.

I’ll miss you I’ll miss you I’ll miss you

 

Thanks for the tettrazini

 

Thanks for the wine

 

Thanks for the words

 

Thanks for the couches

 

Thanks for the pouty faces

 

Thanks for the hair ruffling

 

Thanks for the pet names

 

Thanks for the TV time

 

Thanks for the ultimate jams

 

Thanks for the hugs

 

Thanks for you

Photos by Blake Howell

Heave away, boys… heave away.

I’m gonna drive all night
Take some speed
*
I’m gonna wait for the sun
to shine down on me

I cut a hole in my roof
In the shape of a heart

And I’m goin’ out west
Where they’ll appreciate me
Goin’ out west
Goin’ out west

I Love You to the Max.

 

 

 

I just got home from Chicago. Sweltering, stifling, sticky Chicago. Unbelieveable. Through the mirage, a bank so graciously whispered me a digital heat index of 107º. My skin felt as if I were the Terminator being lowered into the lava from the inside out. And I feel terribly self-consious in the white shades Dapple lent me.

Whose bright idea was it to have music festivals in the gridlock of summer? It’s disgusting. It’s an American Apparel ad.

The Flatstock convention was absolutely inspiring, as well as dangerous; so dangerous I refused to browse it the next day because I have rent to pay.

I love you Bunney.