98%

oh burden
i worsen
oh, worse off
oh, fate
is this all you've given?
is it all that we gave?
oh, comely
oh come
i've spun
i am so much more than done
and this year runs on and on
this time of year, it hums
with a single-cell note
left ringing through the air
i am humming along
i am scared
oh, lovely
i bother
it's easy
i care
oh, lovely
i go outside

helix.

"your love is different than mine. what i mean is, when you close your eyes, for that moment, the center of the universe comes to reside within you. and you become a small figure within that vastness, which spreads without limit behind you, and continues to expand at tremendous speed, to engulf all of my past, even before i was born, and every word i've ever written, and each view i've seen, and all the constellations, and the darkness of outer space that surrounds the small blue ball that is earth. then, when you open your eyes, all that disappears."

from Banana Yoshimoto's 'Helix'

4.

- there is a day called tomorrow that you will never get to see. but still you must always be preparing for it, setting mysterious goals to follow into the grey. if you don't care about tomorrow then you're not living.
- what am i doing, then?
- just walking, and breathing i guess.
- what's wrong with that?
- nothing. but love and happiness are in tomorrow.
- i don't care so much about those anymore.

-------------------

- there's a storm inside my head.
- just shine a flashlight through it.
- i can't.
- if you are the storm, then you can bring the calm.

-------------

her memory is like honey crawling on me.
it moves from my bottom lip over my chin.
sticky and sweet.
and i am powerless,
limbs locked together.
i close my eyes and re-live,
sugar thoughts and old smiles,
things that are gone.
holding my strength in the balance.
i open my eyes and look on,
towards wildflowers and the breeze,
the raw honey i am swimming in
is thick and eternal,
but i can move through it now.
i can push forward,
pull myself out of it.
and go from being trapped by the sweetness of yesterday,
to a blissful emptiness,
a canvas on which to start anew.

TARGET PRACTICE
go go go go go
hey hey hey hey hey
my my my my my
go go go go go
SAY YES

A BREAK FROM

---------------------

Those nights don’t come along anymore, when we might lock ourselves in the house with a rented movie. Disconnect the phone. Once, shortly after we met, I cooked dinner for Sarah, fish I had bought that morning at the market. She stood behind me at the stove with her hands on my stomach.
“You use too much oil,” she said, and I felt her smile on the back of my neck. But I liked to hear the onions scream and watch hot oil fly from the pan.

something about march

GET BACK UP AGAIN
STAND UP STRONGER THAN YOU EVER HAVE BEEN


if these whispers suddenly catch up to me
where and what will i be?
surely i'm no longer on trial
surely i'm done trying to be something
because i am nothing

to come back is to risk everything
and nothing at the same time
with nothing to lose
how can i not be brave?


HE SHOOTS HE SCORES HE CRIES HE DIES
HE IS AND WILL AGAIN BE


here is the concrete, my friend
grind my soul into it and wait for summer
wait for gates to lift
the birds sing my song of revival
these birds sing just for me now
fucking beauty stuck in my head


DEAF and DEAD / left with bread

3.

We were traveling down the river in a canoe that my grandfather had built. We canoed often. There was a spot where the river opened up into a pool and we would swim. The water slowed and the surrounding woods made the simple basin of water into a refuge. My parents loved it there. When they held each other in the cold water it was as if the forms of their bodies, with valleys and hills unique, were meant to be placed into the other, assembling a figure as natural and bold as the Rockies. If I stood on one particularly large rock by the edge of the water I could see the river continue on for miles, with violent rapids blocking our delicate exploration. I imagined a varicose vein on the landscape, carved out and defined by age, eventually reaching the coast and pouring itself into the Pacific Ocean, becoming part of something much larger. But I couldn’t see that far.

*

i know you'll help us when you're feeling better
and we realize that it might not be for a long, long time
but we're willing to wait on you
we believe in everything that you can do
if you could only lay down your mind

i want you to try to help yourself

- sad brad smith

2.

to the one who was to be my world, but failed me, all i could manage to say was that someday we might sit in the crying light of dusk, thinking about ice cream, trying to pinpoint precisely when our lives had stranded us at the side of the road, and we will laugh redemption, pounding our joyful fists into the soil. and then i told her she had beautiful eyes, and that would never change.

----------

- what are you doing?
- holding your hand.
- why?
- why not?