closer to the sea

closer to the sea
is better in every way
salt breeze
bitter moods babied
in the face of
undeniable power
and vulnerability
like a river
at its mouth
saying over + over:
please.

(the problem of) empty houses

Let's solve the problem of empty houses
fill them with light,
fruit and plants,
drawings done with a wandering mind
sketching what love is and could be 

tacked on the refrigerator,
charming chipped mugs that do not match,
and warm beds where we hold hands 

before we fall asleep.

lilies

for akb

even now
we are
unfurling
from something
ugly into
something
that is
that was
that one
day will 
be
beautiful

the train + the tracks

the train and the tracks

will go through the town

and will never be removed

imagine: pulling out the

cross bars like stitches

from the soil

red and bleeding

now framed in terms of loss

as a function of having had

healing, can we ever expect it

or do we live on with the holes

and can even that be seen

as its own form of redefinition?

tidbits (inspired and collaged from professor quotes)

we don't know what's going to happen
there's a lot of uncertainty
there's been uncertainty yesterday, today
there will be uncertainty tomorrow
this at least is certain
this is already a fact

--

we're going backwards
slowly falling
against time
and yet it refuses to care
it will not give in
still, it marches, forward.
there is a big campaign
yet it remains unfazed
(it is important to keep in mind.)

--

a space that has always experienced floodings
that has always been flooded
because we've destroyed it
when we have floods now
the damage is higher
one cause is this:
instead of protecting
we have lost coherency.
there are so many other things I could tell you.
what it is
what it's been
what it means to us.

--

we had lost connection with water
we had forgotten that we live in places
that have always been flooded
we built in places which were flooded
we've occupied the space
that the water needs.
we've interrupted and
we have forgotten that these spaces that are dry
for decades even for centuries
we forget we are living in the space that
water occupies when it rains.

Based on breaking
major crises of the
everyday
that lead each day
to new catastrophes
banal and infinitely unique
is it an adrenaline response
if it becomes a baseline?
everything heightened always forever
he looks at me with bloodshot eyes
and asks: when will it get better? 

I don't want to be a farmer anymore

it is too hard
to put my hands in the dirt
day after day
and hope
for something more.

Maybe everyone

Maybe everyone
Is just trying to be seen
I think of passing these fields six years ago
Of sending you the reaper poem from the bus
Can I forgive the cruel irony of that moment? Of that memory?
Can I love myself that much?

Why is intimacy so difficult to find?
We control who we are so closely in communities 
And then with strangers we’re suddenly so free
Like in Turkey just free to be whoever
And yet strangers have no commitment
It’s a double edged sword
Things seem to be like that
Blessings and a curse

Blue rivers criss crossing this red and green
Glittering like gold chains
Protected and serene
And I know that I’m projecting
Turn my head and change the light
Can I let this sadness go
Can I love that much to live this life?

Ceaselessly unanswered

I think I must stop searching for the answer
To the question: why?
And live instead in yes,
In the no of darkness descending.

Palms

I put my ear to your chest then
Just to hear your heart beating
Through the blue sweater
So soft and so obvious
And I felt you breathing
Right before you'd start sleeping
The way you'd shock yourself
Kick out limbs before you fell
Into dreams I'd never see
Each one lost by the morning
Watching black lashes rise and fall

Mourning what I still had
Isn’t it usually like this?
Feel it slipping out your hand
And so you start to tighten

An image that haunts me
Whenever I remember
Our palms in the stairwell 
On opposite sides of the glass
Your outline was fuzzy
But I knew that you loved me
And I felt some kind of peace in that
Though we could not touch
I knew that you loved me
I feel some kind of peace in that

When I came up the steps
I found you on the other side
Sitting there waiting
With tears in your eyes

A Girl in a Deli Doorway, Brooklyn, New York (1988) - Dawoud Bey

just a girl in the deli doorway
looking beyond the photographer
into that which is infinity
and which can never be touched
aside from with our eyes

to be a woman is a sentence 
for which there is no relief
nor crime - and she wears it

on her shoulders, in every pore 

of her face

the world a place of mutual unwanting
her soft hardness
an appeal and a threat
so she reaches into
the beyond

(so often his

subjects are leaning

against something

metal and shiny

something opposite

to the luster of their skin

so alive and defiant

and yet the need of support

of that which is real

while their faces speak

of all which is not - 

take me with you

break me you already do

I watch unable

to look away 

from such beauty.)

need a break

like a snail

take it slow

in your shell

drop a pebble and it doesn't undulate

spiral patterns in the water it does make

could never hesitate

could never think it through

just wait a moment

for time's proof

([{what am I to you?)]}

you can't give me what I need

I croon over and over again

I groove to the destruction

of you? of me?

of a self annulling fantasy

let me write the prophecy

things are getting out of hand

though they all go just as planned

something I now understand

Bathers at the end of the day

After 'Baigneurs à la fin de jour' (1945) by Pierre Bonnard

Bathers at the end of the day
are tired and only wish
to take the cold saltwater into their bodies
and make themselves
clean, once more.

Today I am feeling so depressed it is hard to want to do anything

it's strange to find myself on the other side of this feeling

like staring through the wrong side of the picture

I was so used to seeing it in others

and now I feel it within me.

And I don't know what to do,

honestly, that's the biggest thing,

it's hard to want to do anything at all

to move, to get up, I decide I won't go to the library after all

and is that an act of self care or desperation? and might it make me feel better?

or would it only make everything worse? I am so tired of taking care of myself

how can I be both the patient and the doctor? and yet I am

crying at the breakfast table silently, and wiping away the tears with the back of my hand.

sexy and

Across the street from our apartment there is a sex shop
Emory and I thought it was called sexy and
We loved this name
We cackled with delight at its discovery
Sexy and what? It had an air of mystery
It is not enough just to be sexy
One must be sexy and something else
One is always inherently sexy and something else
Our disappointment was great when we stepped forward and saw
The pole of the street sign had been covering the L.
(We still call it sexy and, anyways).

in the words of the sex shop on the road from madrid to toledo

why not? as in why not
take a chance and buy some kinky ass shit
in a strip mall building on the side of a Spanish highway?
you can think of many reasons I’m sure
but do any of them hold up to the pure abrasiveness of this question?
the power of the negative
the tauntingness of the words 
like a middle school bully
one of those questions you could fill with answers
and never fully answer enough.
needless to say, we do not stop,
we do not come indoors,
make our way into the building of love,
but I carry the question with me,
beating in my chest
much farther.

If I am going to be a writer I have to be able to fail

If I am going to be a writer I have to start putting myself out there
Without fear, but also without pretension
My creation is for me alone primarily
And if I should share it
If it should fall on someone’s ear and have a certain ring
Get caught up in their tongue and have them repeating a turn of phrase for days,
Turning it over in their mouth in circles,
Digesting it,
That is but an added bonus.

Mystery

I begin to realize
That this is a question
I will never have the answer to
What to do, what to say, who you are,
who I am, how to be.
I have been told that the most difficult thing is to
accept other people’s limitations.
And what of my own?
And what of those of this life
That we all live together and apart?
I will never know an end 
to this mystery.

Beautiful broken things

I want a house I can decorate with beautiful broken things
Fans with orange fins and buttons that are a gradient
that will never spin again,
Old film projectors that pack into themselves so neatly
in the basement of my parents house
that will not illuminate black and white any longer,
Wide black recording machines
longing for a part that is no longer in manufacture––
give me all of these and let me celebrate their simple elegant exquisite grace.
They do not have to do anything to prove themselves worthy of my love.
I welcome them into my (imagined) home
with open arms.

No one can come where I’m going
No I can’t take you too
I’m the only red thread the only river flowing
From here to there

Don’t you know I’m the missing puzzle piece
The thing that throws it all into relief
The one who links together all these disparate people
Like a string of beads
I am the meaning underneath

sugar on the bathroom floor

there is a sugar packet on the floor of the bathroom

and something about it seems very wrong, now that I mention it

everything about this bathroom feels wrong

the garbage can blocking the sink

the mirror so you can watch yourself taking a shit

sometimes there is too much space made for reflection.

maybe I am just in a funk but I find this to be true.

last night I dream of Aaron, as always, he is alive, but even in the dream

I know he is dead, I think I am lucky to get to see him,

I see him on the train, recognize him, and know he is dead,

but I think––look! he is alive. As though I can steal this moment

I ignore the fact and follow him through the dream until inevitably,

he slips through my fingers. About a year ago in Istanbul

following a thread of wild insanity clear as the water from a spring

I found myself in the arms of a Turkish man in a smoky club

called the secret garden. What am I doing here? I asked myself

and I almost walked out, but then he saw me, and then I got a drink,

God, did I need, a drink. And there was a moment, sitting on his lap,

kissing him, him biting my neck, that I moaned, said yes, was frustrated.

What? he asked alarmed, and I said, I wish we had more space.

He suggested the bathroom,

sugar on the bathroom floor.

on the train to cartagena

I place myself in different forevers
mold my future to who you are
Everyone is imperfect
Pick your poison
Choose your battles
I am a reflection of everything 

     I would ever be
It's easier, I feel better, that way

Is it cowardly?
To live for you and not for me
to never expect
  or ask for
anything

a spade

 sometimes a spade is just a spade

Retribution

Oh baby you don’t have a clue
The things I am going to do
How you’ll see my name in the paper
My face on the screen
Read my words in your books
In every magazine
Say I knew her once when
And no one will believe you

When I’m on the street signs
The monuments all mine
Masterpieces on the walls 
Of museums, galleries,
Newest season on the runway
Designed, made, modeled by me
You’ll look out the window
And wonder what you could have had

Had you been 

what you should have

You’ll say I knew her when
And no one will believe you
You’ll say I knew her when
And no one will believe you

No one will believe you
And why should they? 

It was never true
You could never see what I was

Right in front of you

Right in front of you
Now won’t that be some 

retribution

Goodbye for now

If you can't see me now 

You'll surely see me then

wisteria

Do you know that sometimes things just work out?

We hold each other in mutual unknowingness

temporarily stitching together sadnesses in the afternoon sun.

The details are unimportant, cumbersome, besides the point.

What matters is the mutual acknowledgement of frustration,

If we do not talk about it we will burst, she confesses.

Holding space need not entail perfect comprehension

to go beyond an understanding as light as it is deep.

We reach a wisteria grove 

purple and unexpected

fragrant and pungent 

and she places a fallen sprig

on my knee

                    before departing.

I sketch it hungrily, wishing for color,

an arc of green and flashes of purple.

as I sketch I realize, what I thought was 

the end was the beginning.

What if

What if not getting what you want is a gift
Perhaps the best thing that could happen 
A salvation from your own accidentally induced forms of self destruction
Darknesses that you will never know
(Saved as you were by refusal)
You will know other darknesses surely
Lovely and lonely
Chosen and not chosen
Who are you to think yourself master
Of anything?

You know how to play me

You know how to play me
blow deep blue notes into my belly
lightly touch my highest strings
make me tremble

You know how to play me,
you know how to play me.

Turn your face like a spinning coin
touch my waist just where I'm small and breaking
linger when you say goodbye–

You know how to play me, 
you know how to play me.

Never let me see (past) your eyes.
Trade in shadows and overcoats.
Say much less than it seems.

You know how to play me,
you know how to play me.

Keep me circling the sun,
unable to realize the clouds have come,
and think I was the only one:

You know how to play me,
you know how to play me,
you know how to play me.

Rejection

Perhaps to take the edge off,

a gentle setting aside,
an act of love, a care,
a saying of: not this, but that.
not now, to allow the space for
something else.

particular infinity

And then I realize
Everything is crawling with life
Watching the black ants moving in circles spirals patterns that I don’t understand
Again and again the message: live in this exact moment
In its particular infinity

mother ginger

when I am far from my mother, ginger becomes her.

hugs me with her aroma, tea in the morning, soup in the evening.

purely good. a love that is lingering. tender and soft.

I peel with the back of the spoon, Joris said, I love how you do that,

it is so delicate, but what he didn't know, what even you didn't know,

was the peeling is an act of love, the cutting, the imbuing, the drinking,

even when it doesn't lead to drinking, the ritual of doing something that might

make you better.

plants

It takes so little to upset me these days.
I walk through days as though they are glass, rapping on the windows,
fogging up the glass. Wiping with my hands.
All day I keep my windows open. 
Feel so uncomfortably hot, need the cold air to remember I am alive,
that I am a part of this world. That I breathe, that I feel.
These things, sometimes, are not so quick to come to my mind.
Slow, slow, slow down, baby. Even slower, baby.
Almost so that you can't tell that you're moving,
that's the pace these days, you need.
Even though we don't see them,
the plants are growing.

In Enghave Plads

I had
a really good kiss
one night
over a bicycle
that left me
wanting more
all the way
home

a break from bad weather

I don't know what to do, so when I get a chance to, I sleep.

E says isn't this and its ongoing presence

a characteristic of depression? depression, as though a huge finger

is pushing me down deep into the earth from above,

is stopping the come-up.

(And when it takes its finger away

perhaps I will zing towards the heavens with equal force

unleashed unbounded high

before my eventual crash to reality).

Papa calls me. I panic, but I pick up.

(So painful these echoes of a past reality. Grief begets grief, recalls grief.

Male archetypes in my life that I do and do not know how to speak to.

That I did and did not know how to speak to.

Now E joins their ranks).

He tells me that things have been okay.

He has been quite busy with work, but really has been wanting to get out

into the day (as he has been accidentally doing these past months he places

his hand over the speaker and I cannot hear him, and I must chide him, his child,

and this lightness buoys against the secret darknesses of our conservation).

But it's nice, he says, to have a break from bad weather.

And I laugh, a sudden sharp hurt hopeful laugh, I could not have made two years ago,

maybe even, two weeks ago. And I say, as though it is explanation (it is not)

that sounds nice. he pauses,

are you needing a break from bad weather?

and I do not even have to say, yes, yes,

desperately.

dear morning light

dear morning light that seeps in my window
how is it you touch me with your changing hands?

today I got to thinking about the insufficiency of words

and the way in which they become so unable to communicate

when we most need them to communicate.

we overcomplicate, type, retype, but it is futile–

how do we say the thing we do not know how to say?

I love you I do not want to talk to you anymore

I hate you and I want you to be in my life forever

I am so afraid to change though I am already changing

how can meaning in all its contradictions and impossibilities

be crammed into words that are meant to say one thing?

as though a comma could change everything

(eat, grandma. eat grandma). it does and it doesn't.

we are not able to control how others perceive us.

we are not able to control the future.

I was doing my best, I was always doing my best.

and I can die, knowing that.