october thirtieth

This is how my day went, dear non-diary.

I wore a new dress; it happens to be lovely. (I think of her saying only two nights ago, "Sweaters are to me as dresses are to you.") I showered and my nose bled, only at separate times. I received a text from my father inviting me to some Halloween shebang but I didn't go because there is so much work to do. I forgot to respond until it was over, anyway. I did mostly computer work but also box sorting in the garage with my mother's music playing loudly. It went like this: unpack, sort into "save" and "sell" piles, then take the saved and re-sort into "store" and "take" piles, then repack everything into appropriate boxes. There was reminiscing and just a small bit of crying over the most heartbreaking letter I've ever read and all that was happening back then and all that has happened now and the way we see things. Our tangled lives. Also what a really remarkable, fantastic child I was, which is not bragging because you should've seen the things I did. I was a real go-getter, man. Mum says I still am one, and I hope so, but that's a different day so let's get back to this one. There was a break to dance on the driveway to the song American Idiot. And also to sing King of the Road in my best sultry-jazzy voice. More computer work. A fiercely bad headache. The usual joking and arguing and good fun with mum and brother. Throw in some things read, some things watched, some things thought, some hits blocked, and there you are.

X

favorite thing #6: making music

i'm on the east coast (for the first time ever) right now, visiting friends, and last night, a lovely and talented girl named emily pate and i were having fun and we threw this together. the song is "three rounds and a sound" by blind pilot.


They're playing our song
They're playing our song
Can you see the lights
Can you hear the hum

Of our song
I hope they get it right
I hope we dance tonight
Before we get it wrong

And the seasons
Will change us new
Be the best I've known
And you know me
I could not be stuck on you
If it were true

I was swimming
My eyes were dark
Til you woke me
And told me that opening
Is just the start
It was...

Now I see you, til kingdom come
You're the one I want
To see me
For all the stupid things I've done

Soil and six feet under
Killed just like we were
Before you knew you'd know me
And you know me

Blooming up from the ground
Three rounds and a sound
Like whispering you know me
You know me

So this was our song
This was our song
I still see the lights
I can see them

And the criss cross
Of what is true
Won't get to us
Cause you know me
I could not give up on you

And the fog of what is right
Won't cover us
Cause you know me
I could not give up a fight

Soil and six feet under
Killed just like we were
Before you knew you'd know me
And you know me

Blooming up from the ground
Three rounds and a sound
Like whispering you know me
You know me

When I get like this, I can never recall
if it was the fault of alcohol or if that's
the exact thing I need to clear my head.
And so I keep drinking.
(Breathing and curses muddle.)

In the mornings you never wake me
before you leave. If you hadn't given
up on me last year, maybe you would
have the decency of confrontation.

Maybe if we'd taken more photos,
scrap booked like normal people,
it'd be easier to remember the whys.

You accuse me of using that word
too much: maybe. You say love is loving
all of somebody, even their faults. So I want
to know, whose fault is this?
Somehow I don't believe the answer
has to do with love.

It's only your own faults you want
forgiven, anyway. E.g. maybe
my infatuation with "maybe"
shouldn't piss you off so much.

knees and needs

i'm trying to compose a love letter, and whisper to the tiled walls,
if it's really love, why is this trying so difficult?
tossing aside truths, i tell him that i want to hold his jaw between my palms, dance barefoot with him in the ocean, and never speak of the past.

(i cannot tell you how many of these letters i've written and never sent.) i believe life is too short not to say the things we want to, but the thing is, i don't know if i want you to know what i want.

the soap has all but dissipated in this cold bath. i'm sitting in my own dirt now, and the edges of water lapping at my skin are a funny gray color. toes wrinkly and rough. i trace the grooves in my fingertips. everything is still.

(except my heart. beat-beating anxiously. it dwells on you even when i don't.)

later, i'm encased in a stolen hotel robe in front of a flickering tv. the picture won't come in clearly. (like a metaphor of my thoughts.) there's a little boy and he's desperately cheery, please will you buy this, please, they won't let me play with the other children if you don't. . . ! he's a modern day oliver, begging for more, pretending satisfaction, but i can see through him. i can always see sadness, if it's there.

dear love,
i begin again, this time with a pencil.
i don't think we should speak anymore.
no, that's not what i want. (to say.)
i tear the page with the roughness of using an eraser.
somedays i don't think of you, even once.
that's better.
and if i do, it's only because you are. . . . you are. . . .

an hour passes and that's still as far as i've gotten. the tv still flickers, though the desperate boy has long since disappeared into the static. i feel my consciousness start to slip.

Only one of the best things I've ever seen

"Choreographed hand dancing":