I only want to be.

"Tell me about yourself. What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to be a gymnast."

"I thought so," says Stella. "Well, you're going to be a book reviewer."

"What's that?"

"A job with books. You'll read lots of books and say which ones you like and why. Cartwheels aren't everything... Listen, Stella, you'll survive, that's all that matters. There are encoded solutions."

I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou

070206

Dearest You,

How come you always read my mind? Even miles and miles away.. me amongst the wilderness and you consumed (in a positive way, who wouldn't be) in the City of Angels.. you are able to know when I am entirely too eager with wanting to speak to you or just feel closer. And at that exact moment, when I am about to admit to it all (my complete and utter love with your voice)/cave in and not just think about you, but hear you - you call. I guess you have always been a bit further ahead of me. A few seconds more in tune with what you know I want. Ah, I am rambling.. you are much more than just a few seconds ahead of me. Basically, just thank you for being.. so damn good.

So, like I said, I am watching A Swiss Family Robinson. And I will let you know that I am counting on you. Counting on you for what, you ask? For directing the generation's next classic movie. I am talking at least one film that speaks grace and purity. How is it that all these actresses seem like they should be named Tulip? Even the men have soft and simplistic voices. I do miss the times where gay was interchangeable with happy. Because that is exactly what Disney was about - gay dreams. Haha, now I know you think I am out of my mind. Okay, maybe 24 hours of North Carolina has already done me in. If there is something or someone you want to hold responsible for my utter craziness, blame it on Seclusion (capital 'S', indeed). But if there is one thing you can definitly be sure of.. it is that one of our homes WILL be modeled after the Robinson's bungalow (or mansion, for that matter).. quite obviously.

For as good as things are or can get, nothing seems unreal. Unbelieveable. Unimaginable. Without you. This realization could be depressing, sure. But knowing all I have to do is factor one thing into my equation to make times, seconds, memories worthy of memory and capable of being unreal, unbelieveable, and unimaginable makes everything and anything seem tangible. And this 'one thing' is something and someone I am not searching for anymore. I am not searching. I am not trying to convince myself. I am not trying to convince anyone else either.. of the importance of myself, whom I am with, and/or the activities I am consuming my with around. And the reason for all of this [change] is you. You are the one factor that I have, that I need, that I want, that I desire, that I inspire for, that I admire, and that I imagine for making each second a second to love. "Live in love, don't live and love" - you will always be held responsible for that quote.. and thanks to you - it is so easy to do.

I apologize for my grammatical incoherence and disconcern..

I am letting it flow off my tongue,

Chelsea Faye Leigh

I'll make this sound as easy as possible.

I should try to make you stay.

You always see me wearing a robe.
But when I show up in memory, I am dancing. Away from my body.

We listen and I try to remember the feeling of ecstasy.
In your mind, I am moving to the same song.

On some platform, that’s where I am.
So high. So I’m the only one you see. Still.

That was then. Now I am lying in bed.
You sit, inside the memory, at the corner.

Once or twice, covering my stomach with a pillow.
You put your head down.

We are so close.
And can’t touch.

You swore you wouldn’t sleep with me.
Unless there’s a couch.

But I gave it away, and toss a coin.
To know if I can get it back.

I can’t. Not in time.

It’s one face of reality.
And has nothing to do with whether I should.

If we hadn't happened.

I also have a tumblr account now to take advantage of what exists.

We spoke like we always had. Our words free of inhibitions. Even when our last breath felt used, we found some way to take advantage of time. Vulnerable to any unconscious meaning our tongues might make. We didn't care that the others left us with empty chairs and extra space to feel alone. No, no. It was us who became closer. Not them, living life from the inside; never sharing the stories written on their bodies. Indulge me with this vowel around your navel, and I'll tell you how it feels seeing these scars around my thighs. We bared our skin, and never heard silence. Our bodies led us. Even though the night was blind. We made out. Gestures, I'm talking the subtlest touch, felt out the pitches. It was dark, but I saw you perfectly. No, not another ideal situation. And we laughed - barely - pretending it was a joke, that we didn't have our ideals. Yes, we wished it was easy to take ourselves lightly. Then, together, we stopped laughing. And smiled with everything we had... left.

If this isn't real romance, what is it?

If this isn't art, I don't know what we are creating.

If this doesn't show itself, then I've never seen genuine beauty.

If we aren't feeling the same, then I want to know what it's like to be in your body.

I want to come inside.

It was dark. But I saw how you touched me.

I felt the feeling you felt.

The feeling we will never be forgotten.

he said, she said.

I've written before about my professor's letters of criticism to me. I also wrote about the last thing he wrote me. When he said I was passionate. When he said passion was my obsession. I am not even sure I know what passion means, but then again when you live inside something every day, you forget that it is there, that you are living it, that you are living as that. Whatever that may be for you. For him - or rather, what he saw in me, what he read through me - was that I want to write passion out of my body.

Well, I found something more today. I found some more of his words. Words where he defined the passionate person. 

"I think, maybeperhaps, passionate people have learned there is really nothing to lose. If you give up passion, you are punished twice over. You don't give yourself the chance at those highs, and your life spills like sand through your hands anyway. You are marched to the wall at the end, passionate or not. So why not go ahead and risk everything, because what are you risking? What is the worst thing that can happen?"

I am. I am willing to risk everything. My every word. My every secret. Anything I have. Anything you say I have that I should give. I'll give it. I'll give it if it will make us mean something more. When I was a young child, I remember being fascinated by the Boston Tea Party. I devoured history. It's why I began writing plays. Making a newspaper in Elementary School and selling it before class. I suppose, I knew early on this life is my one chance. There will be others. But I'll be someone else. Someone slightly different. Under other conditions. But right now, right here, as me, this is it. And back then I felt the same as now, I don't want to just be here and not leave a trace. Not be able to communicate what it is like, how it feels, what the concerns are. As a young child, my passion was to tell time. Tell time for those who wouldn't be able to imagine it, see it in their life. That's why I have my photographs. That's why I have ink. That's why I have this name. I want to use this name. I want to use myself. It could sound arrogant, egotistical, sure, but I began risking that too long ago. And I would never regret what I have written and which can't be erased, even if my feelings have changed. It was true at one time. It is what I felt. So yes, I could sound arrogant. But someone has to risk their Self. And I am willing, just as I am sure others are. Maybe even you. We can't live in a fear. We could go in an instant. I know no one wants to hear that, but then again, most people try to live quickly in order to avoid thinking of what is really going on. And what is really going on is that time is running. And it is out of our control. If there is one thing I can promise you is to not live in fear. I spent so much time fearing. I wasted so much of myself. Sometimes even writing can be time taken from living. But...? I wonder whether that teacher severed the romance out of my flesh. Somehow I have listened to him, even when I thought I shouldn't. He said not to write sex, that it couldn't be tasteful, that women couldn't do it. And so I committed myself to it. For the last six months. I let others come inside me. I risked what he advised to avoid. But it is the risks we need. And so, I bared whatever has come from it. Knowing that it is only one of many ways to try out my thought, to see where my words go. I suppose this an apology for all the relationships I write about it. There are other things. There is other lives I am living. Other discourse I am present and hearing about. Those things will come, too. I hope. I hope I will never stop learning about others. I hope I will only become a better listener. But back to the now. My passion sounds passive. I guess it is just the current reality I am trying to translate. Passive because it all seems so fleeting. I want to make it permanent, but we can't be. My writing can't capture you. It won't make you stay. But, maybe, just maybe, I hope, writing can touch you. I want us to feel like we know each other. Know what we want the other to know... if we didn't fear so much. Don't fear. It isn't worth it. Say it. Show it. Make someone stop and stay. Stop and stare. Otherwise, people will keep going, keep living the fast life. You know - I've said it - and I meant it; all I want right now is someone to lay down with, who will pause with me, even if it is only an hour of the day. Maybe I want someone to touch me because I feel like... all of this... is me giving myself, trying, trying trying to touch someone other, other than myself, so we can together make a difference. But a difference in what? Oh I don't even know anymore. I've been living this too long. And I will always. I will always be writing to reach you. 

"All artists must compete with the inventions of the 20th century: film, radio, television, amplification, jumpcuts, millisecond MTV attention spans. Some writers have responded to the cranked up volume by writing fictions that are like poems, their language distilled to diamonds - Hempel. Other writers respond by writing the quietest brick-like sentences ever written - Carver. 

I'm not saying all this noise is bad. I'm just saying it is. And it might be good. Because whenever there is more, more grist, more chaos, more more, there is more possibility of juxtaposition, for creating the new. 

So, in conclusion, what the hell am I saying? I don't know. Maybe, if you hope for a career in writing, or in any of the arts, see if you can get it jumpstarted before you start jumping a boy to make babies. See if you can get a book or two on the shelf, the nI think you might have a fighting chance. So, sure, make the babies, but, if possible, make them on purpose, not by accident, and in full understanding of the tradeoffs.

And the father in me speaking: If you aren't ready to sign that check, don't be imitating baby making without pill or condom or whatever. Sure, there are remedies, but abortions cost more than money, no what are your beliefs.

I wish there was something I could say, but I can only stand here, silent, watch you start off again on your walks."

I wish I could tell you, the admission's council, what I am doing. But I just don't know anymore. I can't even think about it. I'm just doing it. I've been doing it so long. And yes, I guess, no definitely, it is my obsession.

There were three hims here.

How many were there? 

Four hundred knocking back cocktails? 

Or was that my imagination? 

Eight hundred?

Or were the memories of events always exaggerated?

I’m not certain of anything, but I was there—having went—never once pausing to gather an expectation. I came sober, knowing that was the law but also, admittedly, was not my reason. “I’d rather get there before they get more wasted than they already are.” I rushed with nothing on my breath. He caught me as I stepped down on the limestone, my heel almost betraying the effort of my ease, “There you are and in no time at all. You look ravishing.” As my lips settled on the curve of his cheek—my hand heading up underneath his jacket—I wondered whether it was the steel shadow that acted as a crutch for immediate decadence or my own essence he was complimenting.

In that instant was I substantially or artificially wanted?

Have you ever felt like a piece of meat—flies landing on and flying off you?

I had nowhere to go, and yet, people were everywhere. But that didn’t make it easier to feel close with someone other. I felt nothing, usually I do. Events are my comfort zone, tonight though I didn’t want to be out. I just wanted to be lying in bed with someone who said I didn’t have to speak at all. 

As soon as I took up my attention elsewhere, looking out into a crowd of…plenty,…I saw him walking toward me. I had only seen him out socially three times before we ever became physically engaged a year ago, and now I couldn’t avoid always being in close proximity with him. Then again, maybe I hadn’t seen him before, because I was never looking. 

He was better than I was at acknowledging our “friendship”. But I couldn’t bare it. I had spent too much time picturing him when he was no longer present in our engagement, and now I couldn’t swallow whatever way I thought we were being toward one another. We could say all sorts of things, trivialities I thought, but we…or myself—because I am certain of that much—was not being genuine and this I couldn’t bare. 

“Now those are a set of earrings.”

“You remember them…”

But my words trailed off, my intention amounting to nothing, as I saw some other female step out from behind him. 

I remembered our third night, when I apologized to him for being shy and saying so few things, and he assured me his intuition had already made him overlook it. I swear I had never heard the word used prior to him. But, I trusted my instinct, as well. Which is why, I never believed him when he said he wasn’t capable of a relationship. It had always frustrated me because I knew he was better than the non-feeling he tried to convince me of. I knew he was sensible, sensitive and vulnerable (even if it had only been a handful of times that I had really witnessed it). But above all, I knew if one wanted something than they were capable of committing time to it. 

Why did he look at me like that when he introduced her? With both shoulders turned toward me?

These last few engagements he had really begun staring into me. I felt the intensity.

Had he seen through me?

Why had he grabbed my waist as I stepped away to answer my phone?

I never knew what he wanted with me. He was one of the few people I had been so intimate with and yet, never remembered having exchanged a thought. For months I felt like I was being conditioned to deny him. It was something I had never done, nor ever believed I could do. During the summer, I spent a month and a half building his character in two notebooks for a novel I was writing at the time. But somehow, when I finally began writing it—one word turning into another—I couldn’t introduce him to the page. Fifty pages later and he still hadn’t appeared. I wasn’t ready for him. I didn’t know him (his interior) well enough. (He was too guarded, too afraid). And I didn’t think I needed him either, but rather wanted him to want me. 

But I’m not certain. I still look at him and wish he could tell me anything at all that didn’t sound so programmed. My behavior for the last year had been a result of him. I tried to make myself not feel. I slept with others to be inside and I quickly let myself casually go, only to return and use them for my text—lay them upon the page and hope I could feel them there, somewhere between the spaces of ink and silence of words. I didn’t blame him. It had everything to do with us. 

The party was a spectacle above all else. Wine bruised my lips and made me look looser than I felt. Adults came to be seen. Have their picture taken by the tree. Possibly be in the society section of the newspaper. Supposedly the hosts had a reputation for the roast beef. Men told me that was why they came. Females stuffed miniature cookies and chocolate covered pretzels into baggies by the door. Christmas all of a sudden became a tribute to every conceivable holiday. 

For a few minutes, I sat by the edge of the pool, absorbing what I could. Around me were three men I had been with at one point or another. They all were just as aware. I wrote a note on my iPhone—making it as short as possible, just in case anyone by chance got a glimpse, and passed the judgment that I was always making a judgment. “Avoiding the feelings of others eventually results in them denying attention toward you.” I looked out at these men who I had been close to—in some ways or others—and who I now felt less associated with. I didn’t want to be there amongst many. I wanted to be somewhere with only one. And at that instant I admitted it inwardly more and most. My appearance betrayed my thought. My desire to live in the instant had somehow also betrayed the morals of my character. I projected being unavailable and in return, I assumed I was achieving less permanence. I wished I would leave. I wished someone would come.

Ultimately, I ended up not ending the night and rode on the lap of another “him” to the beach. I had no interest, aside from maintaining my social being, which didn’t seem like it meant much of anything. One argument in the car later—sticking up for the guy’s lap I was on as my best friend reduced him at all costs—and we were there, entering the club for a drink, but in my case—I hoped—just a dance, the chance to let a few feelings go. 

I was dancing with my High School sweeeetheart, and loving his being there against his initial nerves not to. He just went with the plans, which was a new trait of his and actually how we had reconnected after seven years of otherness. Over the summer, we spoke—really—for the first time. And we laughed, always, that from July to August we made up for all the words we never exchanged. I had been a freshman, he a senior and our relation had consisted of drive by kiss-fests. I always thought he was attractive—attractive but an asshole. However, after growing up, I met him as if he were someone else, someone I had never spent my early years kissing. He was dorky and loveable. And I say a dork because he didn’t try to control his appearance; he is genuine, raw, consistent. A dork because he is endearing and because he always reminded me that since the summer—when I began calling him out on all his ways (something he hadn’t expected)—he now knew me, got me, understood me at the core. He was right. We had something special. And as a result, I stopped kissing him. I didn’t pursue the touch because I knew he was too sincere for the ways I was behaving when elsewhere. 

However, it seemed like no time before I was on the curb of 7th street, defending myself on the phone, crying. And he found me, circled me in my distraction and eventually closed in on the space right as I was hung up on. I suppose I said all sorts of things, metallic jagged down my face, trying to explain an inexplicable interruption in the night. I don’t remember what was what because I don’t think there was any purpose or any meaning I’d like to flesh out. I just was ready to leave. 

Did I cry because my body truly was as tired as it felt?

My dreams were hallucinations. I suffered in my sleep. 

Was I crying because I was there, not wanting to be, but being because I was trying to escape?

I couldn’t remember being a presence in a scene like this. But there I was—Gucci tuxedo pants, a silk blouse, jeweled earrings hanging to my shoulders and silver shadow now patched around my face—with him standing in front of me and his hand underneath my eyes, his fingerprints absorbing my tears. He hadn’t lied. He had forgiven me for curiously seeking out other relations. And then and there I didn’t doubt whether when he said he knew who I was, he meant he could see I was hurting, too. And that more times than not, I didn’t want to be tangled up in what I was, but I was because I wasn’t an inventor of meaning but a translator. I translated what was written on my body, which meant I needed to be touched, I needed someone’s hands to explore me.

He knew at times we never wanted to be as social as we seemed, so he waved over a cab and we went where we had always wanted to be for $55. The price made me feel guilty for my tears. And he told me that wasn’t what mattered.

“Do you want a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yes.”

“Then…”

“I’m never looking for anything.”

“But…” 

“But I do feel things out.”

“I know. Never deny that.”

I ate chocolate. Two dark doves and four mint truffle heresy kisses. The calcium made me sleepy. He asked if he could take his shoes off and I said he could do whatever he wanted. He held a glass of water with an arm around my neck. I can’t remember what we talked about. He may have said I didn’t have to speak at all. It felt good, and soon after, I feel asleep on his chest, only to wake in the morning in bed with my dog and cat, both who I never remember being present. He wasn’t there, the light was on and it hurt. But it was exactly what I had wanted. To lay in bed with someone that understood me as much as I understood him. And to close my eyes for a while. And rest my mind.

running away from the body.

Last night, in the kitchen my friend's mom asked me what I wanted to portray. I said, the emptiness. There is something romantic about it, even something ideal. In times of distance, between two a profound silence can be heard. I want to catch those compartmentalized thoughts left lactating on the tongue. When I said I wanted to write the emptiness—I meant I have been wanting to portray the solitary presence. Between an engagement I need others to be vulnerable. I want to read that. I want to see it happen. I want us shown and heard raw, uninhibited, closest to the instant of a thought. From the romance, I want to empty out the sentimentality. 

However without the sentimentality, people fear there will be a lessening of feelings and that this will make the fiction and romance seem empty. People want the ideal, not the real and never the normalcy. But I like this. I prefer this theme to write upon. I want to capture the core. I want to make that captivating. I believe we are always distanced. We cannot become my other (as in my ideal projection and dream being) nor can I become an other (a partner, a friend, a stranger), no matter how hard I imagine their situation or myself as him. We can assume, but that is us trying to become. We can never truly look out through his eyes and think in his head. Oh, but I would love to be so close.

These days I eat chocolate, stand sideways in the mirror, watch myself enlarge and try without trying (as in have it be a mentality integrated into a new lifestyle) to train myself to be accepting, not resistant to the change or spiteful of the desires that motivate my behavior. Most of my daytime hours has to be spent—especially now—writing, reviewing, reading, situated in thought. However, I feel stale. My mom comes into my bedroom as I am writing a poetry paper that is long since due and asks me what type of sub I want. I have been good. I have eaten them when they are bought. There are no crumbs on the plate. They are delicious. But now she says that she notices how inactive I am as a result of all this writing. How am I suppose to take that? It is true and as result, I resist reading into the statement and discovering her intention. I miss my running. I miss the sports. The competition with others, instead of being solely against my self. I always feel trapped in my body. I have always felt someone inside trying to gain distance from this skin, this shell. In my video art days, I always dreamt of having multiple large projections of myself running—different angles—behind the eyes and beneath the gaze—I wanted words to speed up while another stream of conscious was slowed. I wanted others to see how quick I was going, while simultaneously hearing how my thoughts matched my physical speed and sometimes outran it. I still want to do this project. I still want my self to out run my body. I know that isn’t the answer. I know this mentality is prolonging things.  

But I have multiple mentalities. And another is I cannot wait till all my applications are over on January 15, so I can run—run faster than I have in years. 

Pessoa's Tendency: To Other Himself.

The Book of Disquiet

Any nostalgia I feel is literary. I remember my childhood, but they're rhythmic tears, in which prose is already being formed...I feel nostalgia for scenes. Thus someone else's childhood can move me as much as my own; both are purely visual phenomena from a past I'm unable to fathom, and my perception of them is literary. They move me, yes, but because I see them, not because I remember them.

fiddler in the subway.

Others narrate with lyres or harps;
I tell with my thought.
For he finds nothing, who through music
Finds only what he feels.
Words weigh more which, carefully measured,
Say that the world exists.

-Pessoa

is it true the mirror doesn't err?

On This Whitely Cloudy Day I Get So Sad It Almost Scares Me

(Pessoa wrote from many personas)

Just as words fail us when we try to express a thought,

So thoughts fail us when we try to express a reality,

For just as the essence of thought is not in speaking but in thinking,

So the essence of reality is not in thinking but in existing.

Thus everything that exists simply exists.

The rest is a kind of slumber we have,

A feebleness that's with us from the childhood of our sickness.

The mirror reflects correctly; it doesn't err because it doesn't think.

To think is essentially to err.

To err is essentially to be blind and deaf.

These truths are imperfect because they were spoken,

And before they were spoken, thought,

But the main and true point is they negate themselves

In the negation opposed to affirming anything. 

Being is the only valid affirmation,

And only what's affirmative doesn't need me.

1 October 1917.

Pessoa.

To see the fields and the river

It isn't enough to open the window.

To see the trees and the flowers

It isn't enough not to be blind.

It is also necessary to have no philosophy.

With philosophy there are no trees, just ideas.

There is only each one of us, like a cave.

There is only a shut window, and the whole world outside,

And a dream of what could be seen if the window were opened, 

Which is never what is seen when the window is opened.

If poets merely dish out to the reader what they really feel in their day-to-day life, then they are giving too little.

(according to Fernando Pessoa)

Caylee Anthony

If you haven't heard about this case, it's time you read about it. The entire Miami Herald article can be found here.

Caylee's mother, 22-year-old Casey Anthony, was indicted in October on first-degree murder and other charges, even though no body was found. She has insisted that she left the girl with a baby sitter in June, but she didn't report her missing until July.

Last month, the Orange County State Attorney turned over almost 800 pages of documents showing someone used the Anthonys' home computer to do Internet searches for terms like "neck breaking" and "household weapons."

In mid-March, someone searched Google and Wikipedia for peroxide, shovels, acetone, alcohol and chloroform. Traces of chloroform, which is used to induce unconsciousness and a component of human decomposition, were found in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car during forensic testing, the documents say.

Among the investigators' findings:

*Anthony's mother, Cindy Anthony, posted a lengthy message on the social-networking site MySpace on July 3 -- nearly two weeks before Caylee was reported missing -- "This precious little angel from above gave me strength and unconditional love... Jealousy has taken her away. Jealousy from the one person that should be thankful for all of the love and support given to her..."

*A posting titled "diary of days" that appeared on Casey Anthony's MySpace page July 7 stated: " ...What is given, can be taken away. Everyone lies. Everyone dies. Life will never be easy... " Anthony posted the message while she was apparently watching American Psycho, a horror movie about a New York executive who is also a serial killer.

*Anthony's ex-fiance' Jesse Grund discovered she had deleted more than 200 photos of her and her with Caylee that were online.

let your self, go on.

the moment may be forever, if you don't think it otherwise. 

the moment may remain unchanged, if you don't know its difference.

-the point of not having let go.

I Dreamt It.

You have me. In the pool, I trace an O with my toe. Arms wrap my waist. This makes me feel good, feel safe, feel conscious. I could sit between your legs forever and never ask about time. But thinking about it now, makes me wonder whether I have become cold. Cold and passive. You don’t follow me? My back is always to you. Your arms are always reaching out. I could sit between your legs forever and forget I’m not alone. I should show concern for you, but some how it is hard to remember that this is not always about me.

 

Forgive me?

I’ve already forgotten about it. Come on, let’s go inside.

I want to stay.

Even when my words are meant for you, I’m speaking toward no one. 

But it’s almost dark.

What? Are you afraid?

The quantity of light began to fascinate me nine months ago. At first, I didn’t understand why. I didn’t question it either. But now, I think I’ve come closer to figuring it out, or maybe just myself. What does that mean? This is forever the query. My fascination has something to do with presence and absence. Necessity and deprivation. How it affects the quality of something other. Was I curious because I wanted to learn how to manipulate mood? 

I like to kiss with the lights on, but take a shower in the dark. You could overlook this—and I had, too—but it says a lot about me. It may even explain me a bit.

I would do anything to avoid seeing myself. But you—or who ever I was engaged with—I needed to see. I didn’t want the intimacy to disappear in the darkness. I didn’t want substance to be obscured in the night. I never wanted my memory to be, me having kissed a shadow. But, it’s true; I prefer to be blind to my body. It’s not ironic. It’s just how it is.

Fine we’ll stay.

You can do whatever you’d like.

Well, then, I’d like to be doing what you want to be doing.

Why does that always sound so complicated?

Always? Watch out now kids! Chelsea always has someone wanting to do it her way.

Oh, stop, teasing me. You know that isn’t what I meant. I just would rather you do what you want to do.

I told you, I want to be with you.

Fair enough.

You can tell me a story…and then we can go inside and pretend like we are sleeping.

Fuck you. You know I don’t have any stories.

You’re a writer. Stories are the only thing you ever want to have.

I want you, don’t I?

But we’re a story.

Well, I’m not using you.

You ask me about December 2nd and I tell you, I’ve forgotten it. You tell me to be spontaneous and I ask you what that has to do with anything.

You swore you’d tell me a story if I stayed.

I promised nothing of the sort.

You’re impossible.

What if I told you I’m in love with you?

I'd say you don’t act like it.

Well, that’s because it isn’t a performance.

If you love me, then you’d remember December 2nd.

What’s with men and dates?

There you go again. Bringing up other men.

Fuck you. I’m talking about my father. He recalls a date before he can remember what was so good about the moment. 

It’s called prioritizing and categorizing. It's what men are good at.

It’s called nonsense. What was so special about December 2nd?

It was the first time we slept together.

I don’t remember that.

That’s because you were all fucked up on sleeping pills and you didn’t tell me until you took me to the door.

I tell you I remember and you say of course I remember now. I say I can’t really remember much though and you tell me I should try not to forget everything. I tell you some things go in and some things go out and you say I shouldn’t be so controlling.

What is that supposed to mean?

Don’t try to control the situation as much as you do. It’ll be better for the both of us.

You’re asking me about my memory.

No, I asked you to tell me a story and you immediately said you can’t.

But.

No, buts. Let go for once. Every story doesn’t have to be the truth.

Well.

Well, tell me about December 2nd before I push you into the pool.

Would you push me?

Yes, but I’d jump in after and I would only do it to have us both laugh.

That’s why I love you.

You love hearing you can be saved. Tell me the story.

It’s December 2nd. I just got home from the airport. My parents say I look great. My dad claims this is my best look. “Please, no unnecessary compliments tonight. I had the worst delay and was hallucinating at the airport as a result. Then, I began drooling on the flight. I’m never flying out of JFK again.” They ask me whether I want them to start worrying about me. I go into my bedroom and look in the full-length mirror. I’m wearing all black. My eyelids match. This is my best look? I look like I shouldn’t be fucked with. I’ve become permanently delirious. Life has become unreal and dreams seem like life. People laugh. I tell them it’s the truth. They turn quiet. It’s all the same.

It’s strange. In Manhattan, I prefer spending time alone in my apartment. But in Miami, I become restless in the evening hours. Something to do with people being present and that making me want to be involved. I can’t sit in a silent house of four. I can’t turn on the television and feel content. The idea of being in bed by twelve makes me uncomfortable, even a little depressed. I am ravenous to be engaged with someone other.

You text message me.

I’m happy you’re here.

It’s good to be back.

What are you doing?

Tired.

How are you doing?

At home.

I have everything backwards.

Should I come?

I’ll give you a hug in exchange for pot.

I like hugs.

Then, we’ve got ourselves a deal.

Before your message, I already committed myself to being home for the night. But I still wanted things to be fun. I took an Ambien—not to go to sleep, remember that makes me depressed—but to indulge in an out of body experience. But then you messaged me and I couldn’t say no. Remember I am ravenous to be engaged. And plus, Ambien doesn’t effect me like it use to. I’ve acquired a tolerance. I assumed I’d be fine. You’ll be stoned anyway.

You’re on your way and I think it feels special. We are friends.

I’m just gonna throw it out there. First and foremost, You’re sexy. But at the bottom, you’re my friend. And if that’s all you’ll ever be, then I’m still happy.

It sounds like we’re fishing. 

Well, then, have you caught on?

But I hadn’t. Or I just overlooked it. We were attractive people. Was I supposed to assume that meant we were attracted to each other? I mailed you CDs. But it wasn’t my intention to have you think of me when it played. They were just songs I mixed together. In the mail. For you. No return address. I never expected to receive anything. I just figured you might hear a beat you like. Will you tell people later, that was an example of me being controlling?

I open the door. This time you’re clothed. Before, you’d arrive and still be dressing. It wasn’t that you weren’t ready, you just wanted to tease me, tempt me, oh I don’t know, but you had it planned. Did it work? I guess so. We’re together now, aren’t we? I introduce you to my sister. Let her give you the hug. You tell me that wasn’t the deal and I say the deal was ambiguous. I have you follow me to the kitchen and you grab me from behind.

Come on, be nice. I want a hug.

It’s not like I’m unaware. I’m shy. Sometimes. And act aloof to keep my vulnerability a secret. But now, you’ve done something that makes me feel more. You’ve pulled me towards you. You’re holding me back. And I like being in your arms, but that doesn’t mean I want to kiss you.

You’re sister is a lot to handle.

I’m nothing of the sort.

She’s a tease.

I hate when people talk like I’m not in the room.

People? Has everything been done to you before?

Why are you always so tough on me? You make me out to be the bad guy.

I’m sparing with you. Allison, tell your sister she should have sent me that CD like she promised.

I did send you music!

Two songs.

The two songs you wanted.

Please, you were teasing me.

And you hug me again. This time speaking, to me only, "Come on, you know I’m happy to be here."

I’ve missed you, too.

It’s true. I have.

I give you my end of the deal. But I don’t pull away, which isn’t what I anticipated. It feels nice. We feel special. You spark the joint. The three of us are beneath the umbrella table. The night is filled with ink. Our bodies can barely be seen. Our faces light up one by one, depending upon who is inhaling.

I’m stoned. I’m hungry. I say I have something special and you ask if it tastes good. I ask what you are implying and you say I better bring me a treat. I say you’re demanding and you ask if we can have some fun.

In the kitchen, I pour three mugs of milk. Half lactose, half 2%. I stir in two tablespoons of honey and microwave them for a minute and ten seconds. I open up the cabinet, take an Ambien, swallow it because I’m stoned and not thinking. I grab the container of chocolate chip cookies my aunt left for Thanksgiving. But there is only two left, so I go to the cookie jar and take an assortment of Milanos.

This is why I love…like…your sister.

I love your internal self-edit. Your welcome. I make sure Christmas comes early.

Delicious.

My sister has only said one thing this whole time. “Thanks for the smoke. I’m high and feel more like myself.” But I’m glad she is here, getting to know you. It sounds ironic. But it’s not. It’s just how it is.

I want you to try my favourite type of cookie.

I pass you the Chocolate Mint Milano bag. 

I don’t want those. I want your aunt’s.

But you should try these. Trust me. They’ll make you delirious.

Nah, chocolate chip is classic.

I don’t win. You devour the cookies you want. 

Somewhere between my third and forth cookie, I start seeing things. My sister says I look tired and I tell her it must have been the milk.

I love her because she’s silly and not self-conscious.

Stop talking about me like I’m not here.

Chelsea, you’re imagining things.

But I don’t feel that way. It actually feels like things are gaining clarity. I watch you, but can’t remember what you looked like. I see two girls trying to take you. I call attention to this. You laugh and say I’m high as fuck. But my sister knows what’s going on and tells me no one else is here. I say I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened though and you tell me you’re not going anywhere. This feels nice and I forget to worry. Supposedly, I keep talking but I don’t remember saying much. My sister says I should go to sleep and you lead me into my room.

I tell you I don’t want to make love and you ask me what love has to do with it. I say it must be on my mind because of the holidays and you tell me I was made to be a writer. I ask you if you want to make something and you say it would be fun to make cookies. I tell you I don’t think I have any chocolate chips and you say that isn’t any fun. I say we can hang lights around my bedroom and you say let’s do it.

We drape them across the mirror above my bed. They are flower lights. The box says the petals are real. You point out how crushed and tattered they look, so I dab water on them. We watch as they come back to life.

I know you don’t want to make love, but I’d really like to kiss you.

Can you wait? I’m tired.

I don’t want to.

You hug me and the hug becomes a kiss. I push you against my bed. 

Hey, I said I couldn’t. My sister said I should go to sleep.

Then let’s lie down.

I’m coming in and out of every moment. How can you not see this?

Okay, put me to bed. But first help me pull all the curtains closed. Lock the door, too.

You rush for the door. I guess I implied something I wasn’t conscious of. But I remember being ready for bed, so I carry out my demands. In my hand is a variation of pink satin. I move from one window to the next, making sure the outside is blind to the inside.

We are drenched in ink. Your hands write all over my body. I forget how it happened and I can’t remember when it started. My memory vanishes in the blackout. I wake in my skin and nothing else. I had been wearing a one piece and can’t fathom how we or you got me out of it. But I’m naked as a result. And you’re inside of me and I ask you what is going on and you tell me it is what I asked for and I say I always forget what I want.

The flowers frame me in light inside the mirror. I see my body and hate how it looks. I dry up immediately. I remember being bloated with hate. Hating how one minute two people can be clothed and than within a blink of the eye they are naked, exposed and inside each other. I hate feeling this experience. This experience where no one spends time touching anymore. I tell you I want to sleep alone. You say I am too sexy to be settling for that and I tell you what I see is disgusting and I need you to go.

You dress immediately. I stand outside in the hallway hallucinating this mess. I walk you to the door and you look confused, hurt and say you feel used. I tell you I can’t feel anything and I apologize. You tell me it’s okay, it happens sometimes when you’re high. I hate that you keep referring to drugs, when it’s really all about pills. Am I being ironic?

I'm not high. I’m just tired.

Understandable.

And I’m sorry for the way I look. It’s just, you know, Ambien changes the way your body appears.

What’s Ambien?

The sleeping pill.

You took sleeping pills while I was here?

Can we talk about this later. I told you I’m really tired.

Just tell me yes or no.

Yes, before you came I had one.

Before I came?

I didn’t know you were coming.

But why would you say I could, if you took something to fall asleep?

I don’t take it to fall asleep.

How many have you had?

When? Tonight?

Yes, tonight.

Two.

Chelsea, that isn’t good.

Listen, I’m tired of this double standard. You smoke pot. I swallow pills. Same difference.

I just wish you would tell me these things.

I’m sorry, I forgot.

Well, I wish you would try to remember.

Remember what?

In the future. Just remember to tell me.

You have me. In the pool, I trace an O with my toe. Arms wrap my waist. This makes me feel good, feel safe, feel conscious. I could sit between your legs forever and never ask about time. But thinking about it now, makes me wonder whether I have become cold. Cold and passive. You don’t follow me? My back is always to you. Your arms are always reaching out. I could sit between your legs forever and forget I’m not alone. I should show concern for you, but some how it is hard to remember that this is not always about me.

Forgive me?

I’ve already forgotten about it. Come on, let’s go inside.

I want to stay.

Even when my words are meant for you, I’m speaking toward no one.

But it’s almost dark.

What? Are you afraid?

No. I just know how you get.

Why do you always reference the past?

Because it helps explain you.

December 2nd was one night.

The night I fell in love while you were busy dreaming.

Fuck you. You don’t act like you’re in love with me.

That’s because I’m natural about it.

Well, no one should normalize love.

Will you tell me what you remember?

From when?

That night.

I told you, I've forgotten.

I think you are trying to forget.

Well I'm not accomplishing that if you always try to get me to remember.

I don’t know. I’m hopeful you’ll tell the story right.

There’s a right way?

There’s a better way. Come on, our story has to be something people want to hear. You’re a writer. You know more than anyone that love is mutable. So, remind me of December 2nd. I want to make sure I never forget. Tell me something I’d like to hear. Make it sound like it means something.
It?
Us. We.

Le Magnetique

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Solitude in the Heart of Manhattan

1.

Travel’s Effect,
Hope enough for me
Believe I am here
So the aspired time will not take absence,
Preventing the heart of the dream from
Continuing to live.

In time I could leave I left Miami Me myself and overnight bags Palms waving bye behind my back A coconut just missing my head Airport, Gate E8, American Airlines.

There I am, but how am I here?
How far am I from where I need to be?

Terminals become congested by similar desires, similar doubts.

We all go, wanting, to become less estranged.

Strangers, unfamiliar faces, shadows of selves don’t stick Depressing Heads buried in books Inside an other, waiting to be elsewhere Each the main character of this life for him.

This is not solely about me.

Regardless, we move, preoccupied with waiting, we live this life My living, without noticing you A current passing We wait again Through time a plane depositing bodies in other places Semblance of shape and size.

Descending
Conscious
Waking inside
Flesh
Folding over me
Manhattan,
The city of my dream.

2.

Trying To,
Familiarize myself with features
Walking, I traced the city
Hand trying to retain touch,
A feeling that shows its Self
Attachment wearing worth’s meaning.

Encompassing me, I stood rooted in reality Around I sensed bodies moving, exaggerating my stillness, envying my grounding The refusal to rush a moment New Yorkers can never just be, beyond the station of their body Desperate to become that person they are not yet Any way, casting their self for role of the future, invented ideal Twisted mirage, ant tunnels, millions marching, an ambitious pulsation, the cities’ complexity, labyrinthine lifestyle.

I am amazed, how little my mind knew Manhattan, this figure I always believed I loved Feeling now, imagining and experiencing my dream produce unrelated culminations Require different models of being.

Other thought, a being ceasing to be so another can, another will.

Imagination is initiated outside logic The latter limited by desire Experience and we keep our selves sober Have to, no choice when aware Envision and we allow ourselves to deny.

Letting lids fall down, veiled eyes Hand grazing wall’s belly, a stomach moan A visceral chew, the heart beating Moving forward, I trusted instinct Behind intuition, the feeling I was fleeing Miami more The past pulling less at my presence Forward for future, I go.

Outside body consciousness separates, Stuyvesant Street splits, and so does self, defines subjection.

Watching the way my body moved with street’s curvature Waiting for the moment my heart would try to step outside Not armoured In a spasm of freedom, go dancing through the veins of the city Staining the sidewalk with the dash of my heels I’d follow the sound Ears trying to see Bristles back and forth painting streets gold in light An artist crouching over masterpiece Fashioning modern myth Claude and Christine on his canvas of obsession Zola shake my hand! Autobiography prints anything we touch.

Held at a great distance a droning hum and dogs barking their owners awake could be pictured The talented tell as if never separated from a precious scene Such a writerly trait to deform the fact with details It is true, decorations detract from the real and embellishments confuse the simple.

3.

Being Alone,
To see to know to feel it all then more
Undeniable difficulty when anonymousNew to class? No envision the big picture,
In the city, to avoid aloneness think
A discourse with self, your phenomenal partner.

I am Waldo Never found on streets where no one knows names Streets, where no one sees who I am Faces tell a past but they are not how they seem Who one was now is because of that But no one will ask why Things changing everyday is not an excuse for silence, separation, disinterest.

I want you to know bits, I want you to know pieces.

Stay put, I will bring forth everything.

Wanderers moving, STOP!
New Yorkers, stand still, sit here.
It is raining?
Let me take you inside…walking walking walking over me…Wait, it was just an idea!
Why won’t anyone talk?
Does music need pulled out from ears?
I will do it just to be looked in the eyes!
Crash computer chips on paving.
Powder you’ll think and blow.
Programmed addict.
Is that what these bodies speeding by are?
Collecting, colliding, then moving on.
Forgotten faces, where can I find you?
The lost and found.
Is that the great distance I must travel for us seen twice?

No one does the genuine gesture anymore They type, they post, their signature is a username but I want it to sound with love cords In letter’s voice say, “I was the one,” One and only female in black, all black, no color, colorless nameless female who radiated beauty and has short dark hair that can’t be held in big hand I’ve never been near someone like you, a discovery made by my eyes and kept for my mind Female in darkness, I think you are My Muse The post ending on a single question No not, Dear love at first sight, did you see me too? If only when one saw, their eyes thought to know me, if only eyes looked through me and discovered truth If only the body were transparent, instead of one’s speech If only the message would not conclude on the attention to others, causing a distraction from the subject, the persona who prompted the exchange.

“Are you an actress? Maybe your mother?”

Jean Seberg, had she a child before becoming breathless? Being suicidal had she thought she may want a daughter? She was so lonely, so pretty, talented and adored She was so timeless like me What makes the believed in stop believing? At once to be discovered and get lost Is that an excuse?

4.

When Imagining,
A spectacular situation
We forget feelings
Live and die.

In an exaggeration of effects, untangled lovers finally take their limbs back, sighing goodbye.
sigh
“good”
sigh
“bye”

She will tell her friend, “He was emotional, honest and brave.”
Only there to keep her hopeful she will say, “It means he’ll have thoughts of you, call you.”
She can see it happening and promises to be committed to waiting, “He will love me in the snow.”

But it is months away from frozen windowpanes and heaters turning on How do I break the news, he was believable, that is all It could be read on his tongue’s fine print, hadn’t she looked there? Not thinking, never thinking, feelings feared as he promised a call by winter when genders develop infatuations for sex, the sex that is Feeling I am needy now I’ll have to find someone by then, preferably a Manhattan man with a chain and a lock, the biker aesthetic Two times the speed, he’ll rotate to accommodate my needs Coming inside where it’s not so chilly, we must have our bodies pressed, desperately decreasing draft In warmth the hunger will eventually be eaten away, no longer starving, it was just an unexplainable phase The feeling will make me sick, if I smell it I’ll heave My gloved sterile hand will drag down stairway the stripped sheets where we once were, impressionable, Hurled on an avenue corner, my recyclable feelings. 

Maybe someone else will want to use you.

5.

Lying Next,
To him, we may not have
Even known, ever thought
When wanting a kiss
His desire was to
Make us bleed.

“You’re sexy” echoed between Avenue C and Lafayette Six blocks I walk The line being passed on and on Could it be the High School’s baseball team playing catch? Three strikes and you're it! He’ll have to be the leader of the pack Bring home that fan, the one they talk about who comes to every game, smiling and cheering, her mouth open wide He’s it, the chosen one, the loser He’ll touch the girl first His body looking down upon her white eyes, no energy now, barely a pulse to cheer him on But he won’t mind as he opens her lips with his bat Behind the mates backing him, “Do it for the team!” Words enlarging his ego turn him on and he becomes bigger, batter, wanting to score Keeping the promise, “After you hit it, there’s no running home, what happens on the bases stays between the players” Raped, she will wake, embarrassed, thinking her period had caused the mess.

At least that is what I heard when the story got to me Now I just think you should know because I cannot get it out of my head I cannot help but feel him when I am lying beneath I cannot not think I see red when the color is white.

“Hey Pretty Mama lemme come all over your mind.”

Nine times attaching to me Let it go and they try harder Launching word-darts BULL’S EYE! Stinging my neck like a hickey, sucking me till it shows, yes they’re ravenous and that ridiculous A vampire was the guest on Tyra Bank’s Talk Show Thursday Said seriously, he is real.

Vampires, a community of them, three different types:

1. Sanguinarians—Blood drinkers who experience blood-lust or blood-craving. Their main vampiric tendency is a compulsion, or need, to consume blood for reasons that are not primarily related to eroticism or emotional satisfaction.

2. Psychic—Living people who have the ability, consciously or unconsciously, of draining vital life-energy rather than blood from others.

3. Human Living—Individuals who firmly assert they are essentially human beings, and to all external appearances are exactly that, yet have pronounce vampiric characteristics, having a need, compulsion or involuntary tendency to “feed” upon some substance or energy produced by other living things, primarily other people.

He’s hybrid. 

He drinks blood but has preferences.

Nothing mixed with HIV, heroine, no crackie’s cuttings, the mouth won’t go there.

No he’s A) indecisive B) lost 3) afraid.

6.

Bankable Productions,
A creation, what was made,
Manufactured, refined, branded
The process of changing the natural into the staged
Manipulating the raw for a financial gain.

Scream, I want to scream We all are just a little hungry for something to quench our need Just a little afraid the past cannot be separated from the present Should I tell him memories provide safety, memories show things go somewhere? Should I give him the secret? To have presence we must face the memory of our momentary self He will hate how the truth sounds He is embarrassed of who he was Thinks now he can’t relate Hates how he was treated Still hurt that no one will forgive him for slapping High School Sweetheart when she said he was kissing her too hard “Softer, you’re hurting me” And so he did, hurt her, because she thought of the idea first when he was too busy tasting her Nothing feels the same He desires distance The negative is it won’t help him forget The positive is it will help others forget him Then he can start over Be better this time He thinks, he plans, he invents logic But I have my doubts Why want friends when he says he dislikes the energy of the normal world? Stays inside instead studying—WHAT?—Vampire textbooks? The philosophy of drinking blood? I’ll Google when home, place an order on Amazon, study another mind I would like to empathize with.

Tyra eying him entire episode, “Boy you sound crazy!” But she is the one becoming crazy.

Friday she will bring her “babies” on, models super models, characters acting as super super super models in reality, this phenomenon told to be real I am confused, are all happenings in reality real or is the root being in the larger grander word just a coincidence? Wait, could one of the two be a trick, a joke, and then there will be laughter or a godlike figure talking to me through the backdrop of the sky like in The Truman Show? I think I am on to something Contributing to the cinema of “New Sincerity” I will fax Kaufman my notes Inspire the film Bergman is not alive to make Generation X this is for you Recognize death as a celebration, a chance to step out of the shadow Take this chance on me It is time us Americans influence first and resist our conditioning Calling all females! Use your tongue to make meaning Never again be ashamed of your name Initials are the tracings of someone more To everyone who communicates, Stop using ink for plot! Stop escaping what we already have! Expose the film to darkness and I swear in time the mind will process the negatives and see light! Make the screen reflect the inside life! Suspend the creative mind, so when the frames roll they play refusing linearity in order to provoke the pure! We will advance! I see it happening.

“Okay now go, off into real world, make mamma proud, eat veggies or buy pizza and change your career, runs in the genes, now go, bye bye super babies”—Commercial break—then Tyra’s fluttering eyes smiling glorifying a female who blames her boyfriend for having “brofriends” No this is serious A real romance In a very personal text message he told him that he loved him Something has to be wrong! There are too many hims! It is grammatically incorrect! I swear this is a fallacy! 

Someone hose someone down, the set is on fire with laugher Tyra first, then the audience becomes a chorus of hysterics The yawn effect All because they want to be her, do as she, she wanting them to be fans standing in for feeling Hyenas pissing pants, pointing at the two males who god forbid care, feel, aren’t so damn cold, aren’t so damn rock hard But now they are confused Because of this absurd prank? Laughter makes them feel wrong, makes them think “Bad behavior!” Bewitch changed them in a snap Tyra and followers inflating penis Clowns giving kids something to play with.

They won’t see or be able to think Their eyes will never smile or blink again because now they are conditioned to no longer feel either.

7.

Generation Feminine,
Thanks Tyra, Superstar Feminist for today
Helping lessen the divide, demeaning them
Branding all of us “Gender”
This is not the way the business should work
Enemies won’t give us power
Anger has no beauty.

“FEMALE…not under my arm…this isn’t a hug…behind me…single file line…HERE.”

----------------------------------------SHOUTING, SCANDALOUS---------------------------------

“MALE…keep moving…further…away…THERE.”

A division I cannot add up.

I don’t want to be near you, I want to be closer to him!

But I am supposed to feel liberated? By whom? This woman who the moment “keeping it real” became marketable forgot how to do it and just went on to another project, some mogul making idea I am embarrassed, embarrassed by what my sex says but then does She, “the feminine voice of our generation,” encouraging females to stand up, to be angry, to make a riot because they have a vagina and are entitled to be moody As if they worked hard to get their vagina in the first place The passion for feeling cannot be this superficial, I hope.

Let them set flame to their tampons They’ll just have to blow harder in the end While doing so, I will be collecting their hall passes and burning them in front of their television screen Hopefully excite them to exit and go outdoors to find someone, anyone who does not read a cue card, who does not share a story as if they were delivering a monologue, who does not mail a mix-tape to replace the voice they hadn’t had.

“You’re fierce,” calling through my thoughts.

Men so aroused, it dries me up “Short, sophisticated bob, let me make you wild, tug hair, pull it long like a lady’s” They saw the way I touched my hair while walking the street’s spine They liked the way I touched myself Imagined how I might if letting them see me letting myself Biting lip, they mistake my tension for appeal, elbowing partner in crime, rolling shoulders back like,

“Lemme me show you somethan’ you can feel, somethan’ that will throb throughout.”

I know better I think outside the box A possibility is they want to see me smile, want to lighten me up, help me be not so serious Just a few lonely men, delirious in the sun from the same old routine They can’t ruin the day or my swagger Background noise doesn’t make it on my mix Choose soundtrack carefully It effects the entire show.

8.

Disorderly Illogically,

I am taken through time

Carried by a past 

I cannot explain,

Yet explains fragments of me. 

Shake shake Coins tossing If I exchanged sense for cents and closed my eyes I would be back to Miami in a snap Hearing shake shake Thinking a dime a dozen shook outside the car window A panhandler’s eyes staring down at the driver, all safely strapped in seatbelt Shake shake and I’m hearing the sound again Jingles coming from waist But thank gosh it isn’t what it sounds like Not in Manhattan, where I don’t drive a car This time I see a dark skinned man shaded by an umbrella Big bright parachute-like, lending tone dimension to the face, making him a more colorful character than he is Waving wad of bills high above drifting heads From the arm up he looks like a savior.

On display are bananas In High School wrote my number with a black sharpie on yellow skin So bold of me Gave it to a boy I barely knew Once he peeled it he called, never stopped calling Bending in mouth, I can’t eat them without laughing Ziploc baggies packed with nuts, Fuji and Macintosh apples are two for a buck, Score! Grapes, buy them, freeze them and wait until morning, go to the icebox, close your eyes and surprise! The grapes taste like candy Trust me Rene Zellweger does it Says they trick her sweet tooth every time and she looks like she doesn’t eat anything but egg whites and grapefruit to burn the fat she fears she has.

Catching my attention are papayas lying orange under my reach Radiating ripe earth, newly plucked, soft scoops of tasteless beta-carotene Confidential laxative Eat after protein and nothing will stick to bones Helped my weight remain hovering in little bitty hundreds for a few months Yes, lucky me achieved a two digit number Remember those? All 5’9 of me People worried I was on my last heartbeat, that I would die resembling a prepubescent boy.

“I am better now.”

Claims the anorexic who never denies, who always sees the truth.

Everyday spent sensibly helps psychotic patterns of disorder lessen Granted skin turned cantaloupe orange around ears, beneath nose and covered palms But I was fortunate to have been living in Miami so this could be seen as a misconception, a statement that I was too smart to lay under the sun and instead, ended up with splats of self-tanner It isn’t even laughable I looked like a child’s art project, a big mess, ridiculous disaster, which was me. 

Some times I slip up though and fall back to who I was Thinking like her, feeling like her, as my mind speeds trying to avoid anything grounded in reality, anything that brings me closer to who I am A mirror? I can’t see my Self there, too focused looking through the glass, too tempted to break it, become more fragmented and have my nose use it for blow Then I’ll fit right into my dream Be my ideal image Walking quicker, moving faster, inside my own little world Going to all the art openings, up all day, I won’t miss an hour Awake through the night, out on the town, a presence at every event This is my fate Someone will be bound to see me and I’ll love that my name is in their mouth Thick promise on the tongue The agency will take me back with a waist of 23 I’ll be wanted but still have to swear on a pinky and sign my signature at the bottom of the contract X marks the spot and I will be owned again No longer so alone No longer unrecognized I will be stopped The stares confirming an obvious beauty It is then, I will think I am happy It is then, I will know I have reason to be proud of all this control.

9.

City Mentality,

The belief your face can be changed

That the answer is waiting

At the entrance of what is new. 

Now I am thinking too much by pulling at my past which is the last thing I said I would do when I left Promising my family for the fifty-third time before arriving at the airport that I will be good to myself Blaming my 90 pounds on the Miami lifestyle This city made me do it was the line I would always say And I believed it Believed a city could change your spirit and renew the soul Believed a plane would push you away from what held you back Believed a flight would make you fall out of yourself.

But now I don’t know if my body can stand how fast it has to move here I don’t know whether my heart won’t feel let down if it can’t do everything a healthy individual can How can I tell anyone it is harder than I imagined? It is real and not a dream.

Twin will say, 

Come on sis, why can’t you be more like me? 

You’re making everyone worry

You’ve always gotten all the attention, don’t be so selfish for once. 

But I was born with this face.

Friend will say, 

You’re living in Manhattan, you’re the luckiest girl I know!

Stop being hard on yourself and go make a friend, 

There’s millions to choose from.

But no one has the time.

Dad will say, 

WAKE UP, there are people worse off than you. 

But my feelings are what I know.

Mom will use

The last frequent flier miles to book me a flight back “home”.

But I’m not sure where my heart is.

They will 

Finally put me in a program to get me help.

But not the kind I need.

10.

Unavoidable Contradiction,

The outside, the inside

His wants, his needs

My projection, my introspection.

Happy hour isn’t yet Four to seven “manmosa special” Fruit drowned in a pint of champagne Here ten dollars will buy you happiness, the need to nap and a hangover before the time practical people, that select group who has their mind together, begin their nighttime life.

I can’t drink alone anyway It will feel like Halloween Take II on South Beach at Plan-B aka “The Spot” Where an outpouring of holiday enthusiasts are high on: A) tootsie rolls B) fear factor C) acid still soaking the tongue.

But I am none of the above Just slumped over dressed as myself because for once in my life I just want to be me drinking a Black Russian My breasts smashed on the bar counter provoking an illusion of cleavage Posture straight and these utters are just hanging out That night I am confident in some corner of myself There to have some fun, maybe play a few tricks, be spirited for once Alone on Halloween in a staring contest with bartender, taking my straw, so small and impotent, a disservice for sucking, having it touch the glasses’ rim, an over determined circling, so with his head risen he can imagine me performing a feminine gesture, and even though I’m not drunk I’d swallow what he had mixed Eying him thank you, this is exactly what I need, which is a lie.

But he would find me

Follow me home

Having to

Saying he was mesmerized by my way.

“Amazing…how you can be alone”…barely listening barely listening…“Call the shots…confidence”

“So sexy in a woman…few like you”…barely listening barely listening…“Makes me mad…most unique”

He ruins it by telling me words that don’t amount to much Immediately I lose interest Forgetting to edit what I say or care what I do It all becomes just a story I can pass down, a bedtime tale, a game.

Let’s play Marco Polo.

Close your eyes, I’ll hide, find me, figure me out.

He is either A) a genius B) a soul-mate C) a victim of me With all this hope inspired by an idealized image of who? Me? The exterior encouraging expectations of interior, you’re over thinking this When all I cared about then and there was avoiding holidays spent absolutely alone. 

11.

Trust Me,

I don’t like him

But I will take him

Have him for the night

So after we will not have to speak

But can decide separately 

To share the story differently. 

Taking advantage of achievement I let loose, as if my body was saying,

Gas tanks filled!

Vacation time!

Haven’t partied in months!

We could die tomorrow!

This was all true and made me even crazier in bed My finger in his mouth Not what he thought I liked, having to show him what I want, what I need Ass cheeks hanging out of underwear, a similar image would be padding in a cheap bra suddenly exposing itself and more blatantly the deception WOOPS! Except I’m au naturale, no imitation meat on me, hells nah! This derrière is what I call “my pantry,” you know, where any processed food is stored My most curvaceous feature can’t be hidden in the dark.

Why some men say, “Baby I’mma call you back!” 

And I’m like, Hey I’m game for wordplay, whatever makes me pause, think, laugh.

So I’m there with no more visible surprises, just all skin and nothing to unhook But he’s still clothed all because I won’t help him unbutton or unzip And I’m beginning to wonder whether he’s “that type” you know who keeps things real private or maybe he has some secret: A) a disease B) a vagina C) a boil Naturally reacting I pretend to be harder to get than I, well then I was just moments before, Until I shatter night’s speechless erotica with words that effectuate ear echoes Something pulsating with narcissism or if it helps anyone like me less may have sounded like ego-love I can’t quote myself verbatim but I said an expression close to, “This is when I act passively, so strip or let me get some sleep.”

I wasn’t even trying to make sense. 

I was just avoiding how I felt.

SCOUTS HONOR! He keeps himself dressed Regardless, he looks undeniably good, gorgeous, real Kenlike but come on haven’t we all played doctor on our Barbies before! The memory arouses me so I kiss him again, enjoy it too Rubbing the tension till he is tenser While in my mind salacious stories cycle, his mouth mutters hopeless confessions and his hands tear sheet’s skin Lashes blow back Pupils big as an O He’s trying to tell me something but I am all up in my head and can’t hear much over all the thick tension Sure if we were skin on skin I may hear him but not with all this rubbing.

Then suddenly, as in every instant is its own time, his body jerks and I panic, planning the speech on the spot, “His heart had been attacked, but oh friends and family, he was still so young and tame.” Checking for a pulse, anything that throbs, I reach into his pants My hand all perverted like its got a gimp and I feel something, something damp, like “Mom Daddddddd, the baby just spilt on the kitchen floor and I’m not cleaning up” And then translating the silence with what is felt, I make sense of the situation, thinking Awwwwww, he hadn’t been touched in awhile.

12.

Wandering ingenuously,

Through ponderings, impartiality keeps me 

Wholehearted, unmoved, grounded in the present

With dewed eyes of enchantment, not from sleep,

But a more ambitious escape

Youth, when fiction felt real.

Come morning room’s scent was stale secretion and I felt mattress become lighter Behind shut eyes I sensed him sneaking out confused There are only two options A) he checked my closet and found composure was a costume I had hung and retired or B) he vanished feeling I had already grown attached.

“She knew my jeans were Levis, chick was wild dude, stay around any longer 

and she’d have read my mind, studied my soul.”

The 17th time he’d have shared the story This round telling his version to some bloodshot middle aged man, just laid off from work, who was there desperately attempting to drink real problems away Not enough spirits here for that.

“Sorry sir, gonna haveta’ cutcha’ off.”

The second time today.

Wringing washcloth, a sponge of liquor over sink, he would think hard and instead try to concentrate on memorizing mixtures for obscure shots requested by guys looking to show Jersey girls a good weekend trip in the big, bad city.

What a waste, I hadn’t felt anything aside from less lonely and content with what I had received The pleasure of seeing him coming, which didn’t mean much.

I can do anything here, where within a place there is an infinite number of places to be Streets stretched with options Neighborhoods like a town And they call Miami a city? In Manhattan you never have to worry about seeing someone you’ve been trying to forget. 

Get on Subway: 6 Train—Astor Place—Heading Uptown Pelham Bay Park—Pass 15th street—Three after that—42nd Street Grand Central—Get off—Walk West towards Madison Avenue.

Location: New York’s Public Library Kiss lion’s cheek Climb all 57 steps Stand under arch Feel royal or like I’m in Paris taking pictures of landmarks Thank goodness I know this landmark’s name Could never pronounce anything foreign Never even tried, “My language is English, your words are not in my vocabulary” These things can be taught “No, no, no, useless, useless, wouldn’t want to waste our time, too precious.”

Guggenheim is an option Some experimental exhibit Museum as romantic comedy Conspiracies against human connection Spiraling narrative Labyrinthine hallways Familiar things forgotten and overlooked Disappearing progressions Pinocchio facedown on a piece of glass, I guess it’s suppose to be a pool-like abstraction Narcissus analogy Metaphor for what? Pinocchio drowning in lies? The motive is to (re)sensitize people Make them look closer and see what it is all about It seems farfetched Disney’s intention was never to take themselves seriously or I don’t know Maybe I was too young at the time and I didn’t have to, didn’t want to make anything be serious.

Where did that reality go?

13.

Being Loved,

You must have let your Self be seen through

To be read into, to not be taken lightly

Despite our own obscurity 

When in limbo, take to me slowly

And you will take to me fast

I am always wanting, this. 

Finally I am here.

13th Street and West 4th

Café Pick Me Up

Five New York Times reviews since it opened a summer and a half ago All saved, clipped and lamented for my file of pursuits, “Manhattan My Dream” Yes! Yes! Yes! I am here! Café Picked Me Up, face to face, I’ve had you pictured for so long But now you look like you’ve been waiting for years Your cracked surface like chipped nails Painted “Russian Roulette” Radiating starburst, sailing, the pirate’s flag rippling red spectrum Sunset staining sea In time the exterior rots, rusts and is ruined Some call it antiquity, I consider it classy No you read me wrong Nothing to do with style, behavior, powdered perfection pretentious pomp! I am talking the true sense of word, as in ancient time tells history and reveals character Classy as in classic.

Through any and every changing phase, this essence will never be forgotten, defines timeless.

Finally I am outside, but thinkingSTILLthinkingthinkingthinkingthinkingthinkingthinkingSTILLthinking

Really I am here But I cannot move Cannot move when I am waiting Waiting in the liminal space between silence and speechlessness My I becoming denser with the hour Waiting for the world Waiting for something in it The sole window for my eye to see through Waiting to see myself in the mirrors I always avoid My dream is waiting To move me. 

Reminding me why I am here.

What had I come for?

Anything that takes me beyond my limitations for my body.

Or is it the limitations for my mind?

Questions do not succeed without answer.

Thoughts are all self-imposed. 

These others disturb my desire for myself.

MOVE ME.

A smell.

A taste. 

Something that brings me back to a moment that succeeded in passing.

I am okay with this.

Okay I remember it was lived through.

Okay because it means I am alive in spite

Okay because it means I survived

I am okay with this.

I survived my selves.

I want a simple fulfillment to move me Nothing I will need Nothing I will depend on Just something that will not hurt me A kind no one can take A kind that will make me feel and not think A kind that will help me be better.

14.

Listen Listen,

Stop exchanging sense with reason

Are you confused? Don’t let yourself be

I sound like you, you’re hearing your Self

Conscious crisscrossing, diving clarity

This is the closest truth, it is real. 

Brewed beans, the deepest roast, a smell so thick it attaches to the face Makes eyes crave croissants oozing chocolate buttered bread Fingers warmed from pressing into baked dough Having to reach for napkin to hide grease prints and traces of indulgence flaking on bottom lip I have been without this experience far too long A machine lactating foam mixes with espresso A steamy infusion coming over the rim Inside the O is the tongue pursuing the stimulant A heart the lips reach for floating in the cup held by your cupped hands, Café Pick Me Up’s infamous design, manmade, this unbreakable heart Until the mouth swallows, finishing it off, tasting the trace in back of the throat. 

Swallow me slowly

Let me stay 

Digesting

I enter a similar scene I know I have seen but now feels like an unresolved trace Strangers stick to seats Their heads are buried in literature Literature, the escape from a visual reality Literature, the escape into the space of reader and written Literature, a product of the tongue and the texture of metalanguage The reader’s mind is more controlled when engaged in textuality A relationship allowing one to choose what is seen and imagined from all that has been evoked and laid down in type These readers with no eyes, only bent heads and open mouths sucking sentences for sense I have them pictured but I cannot imagine what they do Are they waiting for the authentic textual pleasure? Are you waiting for the ultimate orgasm? Females share your secrets with me Is that what you want to come, a feeling of liberation that will give you a gasm-glow?

Am I not creative? Is it me who is senseless?

Don’t resist me If I knew everything I wouldn’t obscure it I have no secrets I would not tell.

Don’t resist me We have much to learn but we are learning much too If I felt everything I would tell you how it feels With me you would feel it You would feel it in me But I can only write what I feel and I feel I think too much to let myself stay and be touched.

Don’t resist me To be loved you must let yourself be seen through And before that you must love your Self And before that you must see yourself Notice I don’t know how I look, I haven’t ever said.

Don’t resist me It is the inside that means most This inside which we haven’t wanted to leave or else we would Would we not? This is not for everyone, although it can be but it is up to them.

Don’t resist me This is for the feelers who thought to listen.

Listen, I sound like you Consciousness crisscrossing The mind amazed Unable to leave itself and draw from the outside in This is a presence An essence coming out And you are following it Because you think it means something, something abstract that you are challenged to catch and distill Time will let you All you need is the mind in time Listen, you hear something breathing which is why you are so close to the page Sensing it is speaking to you So close to passing through this wall, like a neighbor with his ear pressed against the door’s chest, following your musicality, your toes touching the apartment’s steps, advancing like a musical note Listening because you are so delicate, so fragile when you move And he hears you moving somewhere down the hall And now that you are moving, you are getting so close, that he can almost feel you Almost, and he presses harder Wanting you, having to see you now that you are so close And he presses harder, needing to know you right now. 

15.

I am, 

Finally here 

Had been

Waiting so long

Now I am sure

You will see me

All the time. 

I am asking, so curious Asking all about their different cafés Cappuccinos with soy, hazelnut lattés, americanos without room So happy to be talking to someone So happy to share a similar interest And he is talking, telling me what he will make for me, a first time customer But I cannot hear him over all the whispering Whispers sounding so cruel Behind my back a woman tugging her friend’s cottoned arm whispers,

“Eeeeeeewwwww, what is that anorexic doing in here?”

Voice 2, “She shouldn’t be allowed to stay if she isn’t going to even eat!”

Words loud Words cruel Make me turn towards the sound to see who they are speaking about Wondering why gossip is self-inspired Why even discuss other people and things instead of ideas? Shocked, her finger points to me Two women, best friends, right wrist crossing left wrist, pulses over lapping, the same life line, hands laced with attachment, as if they are one and the same In my mind all is silent Time has no sound as I make eye contact for the first time with two women in Manhattan They show no hesitancy, like they could stare at me forever They have no inclination to be discrete, to not be so inhumane, to not make me question even more what I see, to not remind me of who I am trying to get over.

Rose’s saddest shade spreads.

Into a wound transforming imagery.

Mood decorates skin’s landscape.

My face responds.

Quicker than I am verbally capable.

I must go.

I have to leave.

Before tears spiral loose.

And make a mosaic on my skin.

I must leave now.

But I imagined I would be here forever. 

16.

Manhattan Betrayed,

I will always stick up for someone I love

But no one spoke for me. 

No sounds, no words Silence standing still Me speaking a silent language in a city that never tried to listen to me anyway Silence spoken in your place Nothing real Nothing substantial Unheard words never mean anything Silence is unrecognized Silence is forgotten Silence is valueless Silence is no excuse for having no words.

Speech matters Voice is what we become attached to, a memory that determines the moment Voice deciding the instant we feel safe, the instant we feel secure, the instant we feel embraced in an exchange Language deciding and determining Language making meaning out of me.

This body birthed empty This body now filled by fleeting thoughts, fleeting images, all subscribing value but only some stick Depressing Attaching, clinging, symbolizing something more, symbolizing something greater Some meaning that I am a metaphor for?

Impossible! I do not understand its meaning Not yet, not now But some time I am sure I will But not yet Now I need a line, I cannot focus, I need something to swallow, something to help me forget details, help me forget what the women said, the reminder of who I was, how they think it is still who I am, which is what I am trying to get over.

So many details all around me Always here Always there Too many to matter I cannot process them all Realized this long ago and ever since I let them hide, I don’t think to know them, I cannot perceive every word, I cannot remember how conversation exactly went, I am only reminded of the substance and the weight.

I fill gaps in with feeling where feeling needed to be filled Because gaps are projecting such a void and anyone can become lost I have to patch darkness up with more darkness A thick blackness that you can step inside So knowledge, memory, time can fall away in a black hole, a nocturnal escape Static, speechlessness, superficial space, a one-dimensional stupidity.

17.

Wanting Redemption,

We rush, thinking the speed will move us

Bring us closer to desire

Wanting someone, needing help 

Untying ourselves from our Self

Hoping we can find the face freed of masks

The one that can be seen through and give us courage

To acknowledge what we resist and admire what we fear. 

This is not how it happens This is not the way it is supposed to be Never in your dream’s city, never by the only one you love No credit or recognition for becoming better, just

“You look healthy.”

Translation: Weight gain Not so sick looking No so depressed feeling Cheeks! Really eating more now arent’cha? Slender, but thank god you’re no longer a skeleton breathing death! Go to gym today? Go to go! You need to be healthy What did you eat? 

Too many thoughts all in one day Thoughts distracting and disturbing my desire Thoughts not letting me be who I want to be This chaotic consciousness prevents me from being committed to my presence.

Sanity, I can find no logic to define that.

Where is the Manhattan I came for Someone to look at me with a reassuring gaze Stay, Stay Not leave so fast without engaging in words In Manhattan we are expected to mean more New Yorkers, it is our responsibility to impress the mind Not come and go Make me red and beating, calling, asking, Please come again Remember me this time, I will make you feel something different, I will make you feel something special now. 

A west highland terrier barks My face stares into the sound My mind unmoved beyond itself Over this whole damn thing I thought might mean something, anything else Transparency veiling life’s intimacy A window poked open I see the west highland terrier, a sprightly young blonde, maybe seven, yes absolutely seven years old and her housekeeper watching people walk down the city’s runway, pacing over the season of their soul.

Transfixed, I am taken by this portrait, framed at a distance Such similarity between the blonde and my past self Before I changed Before time had less sympathy Before age took advantage of me The blonde’s beaming eyes, I remember those, large enough to contain a world Her fearless smile challenging individuals like myself, making us wonder whether we are missing the point, taking it all so seriously, as if our rival is time and the phases of our self I never thought to question reality at that age, when life still feels light and one has all the time to fill it, but she does not think of that nor is she in any rush to feel weighted down How manageable and dependable life is then How simple time seems before becoming distracted by awareness, an illusion we mistake for being real.

Imagination barely pressing against reality I watch this scene of three existing in a dimension that seems unreal, unfeasible, like a time I will never find my way into again, a door that has been locked, a key that has been swallowed Like a plane that has left me behind, a terminal’s gate where my name was called, a voice I did not hear, a gap in instants where I was too self-involved to listen to anyone reaching out in a moment of opportunity A plane I did not board, but that I had been waiting for, a plane ride I thought would buy me my escape, but would only take me closer to facing myself With an arm around her shoulder, the young girl, myself at seven years, notices me and waves, as if she remembers me Unaware that the truth is she is becoming me and will be me sooner than time makes it seem I respond with a tear falling Never expecting to feel this way, to act like so, to be like this Not in your presence.