ich war die erst zu einschlafen

wrote this for a class assignment, but i think about it from time to time

ich war die erst zu einschlafen,

du beobachtet was ich machen,

einschlummern,

schones traumen.

ich war die erst zu ausschlafen,

wir legen wie ein Hafen

kiene ding andern,

niemals versaumen.

ich war die erst zu verschlafen,

wir haben spaet aufwachen,

alarm nicht errinern,

immer geschlossen augen,

ich war die erst zu einschlafen.

everything you want from me, you already have within you.

There's a tiny pocket in my heart. There is a tiny pocket in my heart that I will soon forget, until one day I plunge a hand deep inside, accidentally of course, and find letters i’ve run through the wash- rendering them unreadable, 2 cigarette butts- one with lipgloss on it, a tab from a beer can, 3 overdeveloped film photos, and a large glass of lemonade.

‘everything you want from me, you already have within you.’

Is that what you meant; is this what’s within me? Is that why I’m still writing like this? Curled up in the hallway of a building you spend just the right amount of time in, all but 3 months later. I’m taking a knife to the screen, and resewing that tiny little pocket shut (like I won’t go in the dark clutching seam-rippers as soon as I remember where I put them).

Is that why I bring it up to say something bad, because what am I supposed to say if all I have is two empty hands and a little pocket in my heart? No one has ever mentioned to me before this little pocket in the heart. It feels very important to me at this moment. That's all I have left.

‘everything you want from me, you already have within you.’

He knew of this tiny pocket of course. He had one too. He had one for a girl I never learned the name of, so when he called me it on accident I wouldn’t notice. Now maybe he has two tiny little pockets, or maybe I am confined to share with the past, even in fiction. In his he must have a few cds, 2 pairs of sunglasses, denim shorts, and a long list of things someone loves about him. It must be very full, but it will feel empty and hollow in his hands. All the same skin, all the same bones, but with no breath it must lie still, empty, and final.

‘everything you want from me, you already have within you.’

He yells at me. He’s clutching something I’ve never seen before but I’m convinced I’ve always wanted. A break, a bit of distance, another, a new one, an old one; something he didn’t have in him. He holds this something still when I see him now; in his eyebrows is that blank desire that I can always see straight through, and it is in the temporary obligatory eye-contact, that I will shove my hands deep inside of the tiny pocket in my heart and feel it all again.

‘everything you want from me, you already have within you.’

i always thought

i always thought i was hard to leave. looping back on infinities. friends stick together, when they're in need, of something to love, of something to please.

i always thought i was easy to love. doubling over, like flying doves. time sticks to skin, with a clouded shean, licking the metal, in 0 degrees.

i always thought i was nice enough. someone to talk to, that you'd call up. putting it out when we see, the smoke coming out of a lighted sheath.

i always thought i was hard to leave. looping back on infinites. friends stick through timelines, like wood in your teeth, bring me to sunrise, or bury it deep.

a false spring day

the sun rose bright and beaming. january must have forgotten its place and left in its absence something bittersweet. i trudged through puddles to the library, leaving my coat behind. i put commas inbetween things i think need space from one another. the edge of the kitchen table, a hot cup of peppermint tea, the part of my lip that goes from pink to skin, the inside of my cheek which i have chewed raw, the whites of my teeth, and the lashes over my eyes. i know not what to do with myself on a day like today. i know that the glare on my computer keeps me from checking my email or bank account or anything of 'importance'. i resew the hems on my pants up an extra-inch, no longer taunting me as i pass by the mud where sidewalk meets grass. i meet myself where i am at. on a false spring day i see everything in bright january sunlight and forget my place. i am no longer in the north, trapped between snow and slippery ice- i am somewhere which does not exist at all. i am on a false spring day, skipping down the street to a loaned belle and sebastian cd spinning in my walkman. i am finding black and white movies to point at that big blank wall. i have fear for nothing at all. i am invincible in my dark sunglasses and i forget where my hands are supposed to be. i am not getting any text messages and my voicemail is empty. on a false spring day i am no one at all, just a crack on the sidewalk soaking in the remenents of november snowfall. on a false spring day, i am no one at all, drifting between hardwood floor and four sturdy walls. on a false spring day, i am no one at all.

buddy/honey/bunny

stepping on rotten cores. eating brats with cancer sores. sticking to the bottom of your shoe. a bottle of wine, i bought just for you.

early to dinner, we wait in the lot. you had something to say, i think you forgot. could’ve let it linger, but you let it rot. iron in your lungs, ironing your thoughts

you pour it in an open mouth. i pay for dinner, leave without finishing. what we meant to say, $139 down the drain.

joni mitchell, drags me out. gives me something to cry about. that lyric u love, a neutral cafe. i'm palm-reading the same refrain

you were dressed like a sailor, had shells in my hair. you banged on the street signs, all the way there. we got home, you laid down, you passed out. i flip you over, throwing up in your mouth.

staring at an empty page, writers block, an early stage, leave me with nothing to say, im so in love with blinding rage.

in spite of it all

smoking a cigarette outside the gym, there’s something ironic i liked about him.

i like rhyming especially in the morning, lying flat on my back, god i hate when he's boring.

drinking coffee at the kitchen sink, haven’t even seen him go to take a drink.

he practices paradiddles in the basement of the building i always get lost in.

chewing gum like an asshole, i like the way he brushes me off.

now he’s crying in my bathroom, something about 'waking up with a bad taste' in his mouth.

drinking wine on the stairs again, outside, it’s cold, my hands on his skin.

he practices upright in the window, when i walk by i can hear him playing all low.

in spite of it all, he won't look at me like that again.

god put me on the earth to say goodbye to him.

a poem from one of those jazz concerts i used to go to

wes, monk, and buddy surely knew how to dance. like on sidewalks and kitchen tile. between cracks, the music flows straight through.

now this is one to tap your foot to, to hum along to, to squeeze a hand to, to send a look aside to.

it's been raining all day, every song is soaked through. i'm dripping in denim and envy. time runs through me like notes through a melody, like arpegios and modes and harmonies i'll never learn the names of, but would certainly spend the night with.

you like a red scarf, and a sharp note, like eyes rolling back into the head, feet firmly on the pedals: one on the kick-drum, the other on the gas

i'd accelerate if it wasn't already raining. i've always been afraid of hydroplaneing, or key-changing, disguised in the making.

call my bluff, but keep it sheilding, fingerscrossed arms revealing, guess i'm just a bitch at the gig, tis the season.

from the liner notes of the mountain goats lp i just bought

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. YOU CAN GET OUT IF YOU'RE COMMITTED TO THE EFFORT. THERE ARE NO WINDOWS OR DOORS AND THE WALLS ARE ON FIRE. I LOVE YOU. I LOVED YOU. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME LEAVE. DRIVER OUT TO THE AIRPORT. TAKE THE TRAIN DOWN HERE IF YOU GET A CHANCE. STAY WHEREVER THE HELL YOU ARE. STAY WHEREVER THE HELL YOU ARE. TAKE THE TRAIN DOWN HERE IF YOU GET A CHANCE. DRIVER OUT TO THE AIRPORT. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME LEAVE. I LOVED YOU. I LOVE YOU. THERE ARE NO WINDOWS OR DOORS AND THE WALLS ARE ON FIRE. YOU CAN GET OUT IF YOU'RE COMMITTED TO THE EFFORT. IT'S EASY TO GET OUT IF YOU JUST BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. YOU HAVE REALLY LET YOURSELF GO. YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU USED TO BE. YOU ARE LOVELY BEYOND COMPARE, BEYOND COMPARE, BEYOND COMPARE, BEYOND COMPARE. WE HAVE NO HOUSE. OUR HOUSE WOULD BE A LOVELY SOUTHWESTERN RANCH IF IT HAD A ROOF. OUR HOUSE IS A LOVELY SOUTHWESTERN RANCH. I'LL TAKE AS MUCH OF THIS AS I CAN POSSIBLY BEAR. I AM GOING TO TAKE THIS A LITTLE WHILE LONGER. I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE.

nothing i'm afraid of isn't already apart of me

i’ve been clocking in and leaving early

i’ve been sober, but i dont think its working

first came heartbreak, then nothing, then yearning

for something better something different something surely

theres nothing like a fresh blanket of snow

shovel the sidewalk in my sturdy steel toes

smoke a cigar, cough it up, let it go

empty ashtrays into parking lot cove-ert

i’ve been checking my horoscope lately

i’ve been clinging onto something i know will only let me down

i’ve been holding onto roses and shaking the stems clean

i’ve been washing it down with a lot of other things

i can’t stop worrying about stuff i can’t control

my skin and hair, doesn't feel right on my bones

the cause of my control is the grip you had on me

now i’ve lost the plot; try and let me down gradually

bring me to the balcony

let me learn about gravity

tell me something, rattle me

there’s nothing i’m afraid of that isn’t just part of me

how long does it take to get over a break-up?

I come early to class nowadays; I’m getting impatient. The bus is still full at eight in the morning. My arms are tired. I hold onto the overhead bar. It’s getting warm again, relatively. I could wear the smaller coat instead of the bigger one. I like this one more, it’s lighter, and doesn’t yet smell like the back of the closet or the wet floor of a saturday-night house party.

“It depends on how long you were involved, how strongly you felt, how invested you were, and how important it was." I get off the bus, one stop earlier than usual, I need to walk this feeling off, as I did last night and the night before and the night before.

I can’t find anything to blame it on. I hold out, at arms length, a photo of last April. I miss the overwhelming feeling of being in the right place at the right time. Of looking up at the sun, day after day, and being grateful that it has chosen you of all things to shine down upon.

I come home from class and collapse into bed. I sob for an hour. I write for another. I eat an apple, slice it really thin, and call up a friend. He doesn’t answer and neither does my sister. This is unbearable. I wish someone could grab on my shoulders and shake me, screaming that it’ll all be over soon.

french novel by richie hofman

i always come back to this one. one time i read this before i was supposed to go out to a party, and i had to stay home.

"You were my second lover.

You had dark eyes and hair,

like a painting of a man.

We lay on our stomachs reading books in your bed.

I e-mailed my professor. I will be absent

from French Novel due to sickness. You put on

some piano music. Even though

it was winter, we had to keep

the window open day and night, the room was so hot, the air so dry

it made our noses bleed.

With boots we trekked through slush for a bottle of red wine

we weren’t allowed to buy, our shirts unbuttoned

under our winter coats.

The French language distinguishes

between the second

of two and the second

of many. Of course

we’d have other lovers. Snow fell in our hair.

You were my second lover.

Another way of saying this:

you were the other,

not another."

musings from a park bench

What shall one do with themselves on a day so wonderfully obsolete? A day such as this one, which we will forget to mark off on the calendar until the next week, when we will send big striking X’s through 5 days at a time. A soon forgotten day is to be filled only with things which hold importance in that they must never bear the weight of recollection. I have come to this place often, on many days such as today, to soak in its reflective properties. It doesn’t always look like this, it often takes on different forms. At night I stumble upon it solitaryly; like a small deer caught between branches. A sight brought to me only by sleepy eyes and restless feet; a sight given only to those who need it, to those with a cloudy mind who look down only briefly. In half-baked winter sunlight, I find it like a glimmery trout. Scaled and proper, sitting perfectly upright, waiting for something to put in its mouth. On a day so wonderfully unmentionable, I do only what I allow myself to do when a false spring sheds pollen onto stop-signs, the breath of the midwest is finally bearable, and the birds have found it in themselves to sing again. I sit on cold metal bars and sink my weight into their frozen teeth. I find I like things much better reflected and upside down. I trace out my thoughts. A mind wanders only when we forget the walls we have built for ourselves, and here, on this very seat, I always seem to forget to pack my entrapments. Here, on this day, I sit in the mouth of a glittering trout and forget everything which is outside of myself. Soon, the long unyielding wind from across the lake will pull the ends of my scarf out from around me and lead me wandering back home. But here, now, on a day so wonderfully unmentionable, I find that deep breath buried within myself and exhale.

it's finals week and i am studying

it's finals week and i am studying the cracks on the ceiling again. i am laying flat on my back and looking straight ahead. i am studying with earbuds shoved into the wrong ears with music that's way too loud.

it's finals week and i skip the last day of class to lay in bed a little longer. i don't slip on that icey spot again, i don't wave to the faceless boys with kind eyes and clear voices, i don't hear my lecturer speak softly in an english accent, or write incredibly small on the sprawling black board. i don't drink when it's passed to me, but would never pass-up a smoke on a balcony. the inside of our dryer is covered in red dye. i pay with 6 quarters and sulk outside. it's finals week and i am studying the cracks on the side walk again.

it's finals week and winter has laid an old wool blanket over me, the one that makes me sneeze. all of the lamps in my apartment are switched on and glow orange. i think about yellow curtains and contemplate runny egg yolks and old-bikes and used backpacks and bedroom walls. it's finals week and maybe i've finally found that pattern on the walls she was talking about. it's finals week and i am studying the cracks on the walls again.

it finals week and i can't get the damn window shut. it's finals week and i am studying. it's finals week and i am laying flat on my back with music way too loud looking at the ceiling again.

ode to autumn (a poem)

an ode to autumn, the changing leaves

an ode to scarves, a wool knit breeze

to smoking on curbs, to knocking knees

to kicking off shoes, and laying in sheets.

an ode to autumn, the changing times,

a clock set backwards, an alarm that rhymes.

to calling you first, and calling you mine,

to the top of the sixth, the first of it's kind.

an ode to autumn, i miss you already.

an ode to autumn, you held the sun steady,

glasses drank to the bottom, we stand, we're sweaty,

an ode to autumn, not sure i was ready.

an ode to autumn, gone as fast as it came,

nothing like seasons, nothing like change,

i'll cry, while you stand far out of frame,

peering out the rearview, blink and change lanes.

a love poem of sorts

in august i was half-drunken stumbling back to your apartment, when the tree roots branched out to the sky. i was sideways-lying on your bathroom floor when the sun came up on saturday. i’ve been waking up with that song stuck in my head. half-warm cups of coffee linger on the living room coffee table. we drink them at night when our schedules open up on sunday, when i can lay my head in your lap for a few hours.

i find a note i wrote you two months ago, in a sea of parisian sun and blonde hair. now all i have is writers block, four empty notebooks, and an idle blog. half-way through october, i make empty promises and eat lots of apples. i make empty apples eat all their promises, and do my homework with greedy fists pounding forks on the table. more and more i want to wash it all down and get the taste out of my mouth. maybe this is finally something good. something sweet like peanut-butter pie.

i pull half-baked raspberry-jam cookies out of the oven. maybe we should try and leave them in a little longer. i leave for the weekend with a ziploc full. it’s halfway through the week when i see you. half-way through goodbye, we have to start over. on thursday, i’m tired and beautiful. i’ve got my thumbs pressed deep in my ears, lipgloss spilling in the pocket of my purse, and popcorn kernels in my back-teeth.

i ride zeno’s arrow halfway to your house, but turn around for a flat tire. god, lately we’ve been so tired. you’re soaked in imaginary cigarette smoke, sometimes it comes out of your ears, but certainly it’s always looming. you tower over me on tip toes, toothbrush hanging from your teeth. im moving all the time, but i know the end won’t come.

shrinking into myself

She tosses me to the sewing machine in the corner. Then there I am. Crumpled up at the base of white remorse and silver dagger; pushing red thread through pale flesh. Two fingers down the throat, until it all comes out through the eye of the needle. It’ll come out with the needle through the eye, only we’ve rearranged the words instead of the brain this time. We’ve outgrown those old techniques, inhumane and elementary, and replaced them with the girl in the mirror and the other over her shoulder.

My skin is stretched tight around the ribs. The joints, my knees and elbows and fingers, protrude in a way that’s painful and sore. But now I’m changed and I’m better for it, I feel like empowered plastic with an extra-small smile. I’m cold and I’m better for it, I feel frail and now I’m too weak to lift myself off the hanger. I’m smaller and I’m better for it, now she can slip me off, and try me on, and wear me like she wanted to. She pulls me over her head and drops me on the bathroom tile. There I lay, paralyzed and bleeding bile, hands on the edge of the porcelain, knuckles blue and bent. Only here, only now, can I be sure that I am beautiful.